From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: The Reactionary Shining Path (overview)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 05:21:52 GMT


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Topic 241	THE REACTIONARY SHINING PATH (Artic	2 responses 
harelb	reg.andes	 8:29 pm  Jan  2, 1993 
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From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai) 
Subject: THE REACTIONARY SHINING PATH (Article) 

<*> Date: Mon, 8 Jun 92 19:21:08 EDT 
<*> From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai) 
<*> To: misc.activism.progressive 
<*> Subject: THE REACTIONARY SHINING PATH (Article) 

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Topic 128       The reactionary Shining Path  
ttomasko        reg.samerica     8:35 pm  May  6, 1992  
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	      Peru's Shining Path uses terror to impose 
	       reactionary policies on working people. 
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			    ============= 
			    S u m m a r y 
			    ============= 
			(full article follows) 
			    ============= 

"Today 94 percent of workers in Lima are earning less than the   
1970 minimum wage. More than half of the 22 million Peruvians   
suffer from hunger.  

[...] 

Meanwhile, the wealthy businessmen and bankers who   
control Peru's economy have further squeezed working people. In   
August 1990, just two weeks after his inauguration, President   
Alberto Fujimori decreed a series of brutal austerity measures to   
meet the demands of the International Monetary Fund for the   
repayment of Peru's $22 billion foreign debt.  

[...] 

Conditions are even worse for peasants, who are almost   
half the population and are exploited by wealthy landlords. Many   
peasants are forced to grow coca leaf, the raw material for   
producing cocaine, because they cannot survive on other crops.   

Right-wing death squads linked to the armed forces have targeted 
journalists, human rights activists, lawyers, and peasant and trade 
union leaders...The White House and U.S. Congress reached agreement 
last fall on a $24.9 million military aid package to the Peruvian 
regime...The U.S. government has stepped up its military   
intervention in Peru under the guise of fighting drugs. 

[...] 

Most of the parties in Peru that call themselves socialist and 
communist, grouped in the United Left and the Unified Mariateguist 
party (PUM), have also been seriously discredited.  They supported 
Fujimori in the elections as a lesser-evil candidate...The United Left 
then broke up as some of its wings accepted ministerial posts in the 
new government. These parties have been further undermined politically 
by their support to the regime's "antiterrorist" campaign of 
repression....These are the conditions that have led to the growth of 
Shining Path. 

[...] 

Shining Path wraps itself in the Stalinist phraseology of what it 
calls "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and principally Maoism." The cult 
around Guzman, known as President Gonzalo, is called "Gonzalo 
Thought."...While using a lot of rhetoric about fighting on behalf of 
workers and peasants, Shining Path is thoroughly anti-working- class 
in its political perspective and its actions. 

[...] 

The guerrillas have assassinated 250 mayors and other local officials 
in the last three years. They have blown up schools, health clinics, 
and post offices. 
	[Sounds a lot like the Nicaraguan contras --HB] 
	[send 1-line message GET CONTRA TERROR ACTIV-L 
	 to: LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET for more on that] 

[...] 

In fact, Shining Path uses its coercion and terror to prevent   
any independent effort by peasants to organize to defend their   
interests. The group imposes forced communal labor rather than   
voluntary cooperation among farmers. Its insistence on provincial   
"self-reliance" glorifies the isolation and backwardness facing   
many peasants that capitalists and landlords use to keep them   
divided.  

[...] 

Above all, Sendero Luminoso instills anti-working-class   
prejudices about the "corrupt" cities and labor unions and   
promotes a reactionary national socialist outlook to block an   
alliance of farmers and workers, both nationally and   
internationally.  

Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive