From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: The Reactionary Shining Path (part 2 of 2)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 05:48:17 GMT

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Topic 241	THE REACTIONARY SHINING PATH (Artic	Response  2 of  2 
reg.andes	 8:31 pm  Jan  2, 1993 
From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai) 
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	     [ . . . c o n c l u s i o n   o f   . . . ] 
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	      Peru's Shining Path uses terror to impose 
	       reactionary policies on working people. 
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			   By Martin Koppel 
		  From The Militant, April 24, 1992 


=============================== 
'Selective annihilation' policy 
=============================== 

        Shining Path focuses its action in the cities on "selective   
annihilation of recognized enemies of the people (officials of the   
armed forces, government functionaries, mayors of villages and   
towns who ignore the Party's invitation to resign, etc.) and of   
informers," as one of its documents puts it. 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.  

        The group also directs its terrorist methods against unions,   
peasant organization, and left-wing political parties. Between   
1987 and 1989 it murdered five leaders of the mine workers   
union and the president of the textile workers union, as well as   
numerous members of the Peruvian Peasant Federation. Sendero   
has gunned down leaders of the PUM and United Left and   
launched attacks against the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary   
Organization, another guerrilla group.  

        Shining Path justifies its antilabor course by attacking trade   
unions as "the labor aristocracy." The group has no presence in   
the labor movement and has played no part in the numerous   
mass strikes and union demonstrations of the last decade. Instead   
it calls its own "armed strikes" and sets up its own front groups,   
threatening workers who do not participate in them.  

        Guzman stated in a 1988 interview, "The masses have to be   
taught through overwhelming acts so that ideas can be pounded   
into them."  

        In its war against the government, Shining Path views any   
struggle by working people as a threat. Its actions aim to push   
workers and farmers out of political activity and debate.  

Sendero's chauvinist outlook  

        Sendero's anti-working-class perspective is also reflected in 
its reactionary international outlook and xenophobia. In the early   
1980s, it bombed the Soviet, Chinese, Cuban and Nicaraguan   
embassies for representing "social-imperialism" and "revisionism."  

        Shining Path guerrillas have assassinated European-born   
priests and nuns, attached agricultural technicians from other   
countries, and burned down foreign-owned factories.  

        Playing on the deep resentment by Peru's Indian and   
mestizo majority against the systematic racial discrimination   
promoted by the largely while ruling class, Sendero targets   
"Europeans" and "foreigners" as the enemy. In an October 1991   
interview in London by the Lima magazine Expreso, Shining Path   
representative Adolfo Olaechea explained that the problem is that   
Peru is "a country that is managed by persons of foreign descent-  
-in other words, Spaniards and people of other nationalities   
including, at this time, Japanese." This refers to Fujimori, who is of   
Japanese ancestry. A small but significant number of Peruvians   
are of Japanese descent.  

        As part of this chauvinist campaign, members of Sendero   
Luminoso murdered a Japanese-Peruvian poultry farmer and   
bombed several Japanese-owned businesses last July. They killed   
three Japanese technicians at a farm, spray-painting anti-  
Japanese slogans on the walls of the compound. In response, the   
government of Japan pulled out most of its aid technicians from   
the country.  

        In the face of the country's social and economic collapse   
and the political bankruptcy of the major parties, however,   
Shining Path has won support among impoverished peasants and   
residents of shantytowns, particularly youth. "It's been 160 years   
of government by the rich. Now it's our turn," said one   
shantytown resident who supports the guerrillas.  

        Sendero now has some 3,500 combatants and operates   
freely in 19 of the 24 provinces, especially in the poorest and   
most backward parts of the countryside such as the Andean   
region of Ayacucho.  

        It has won support among peasants by promising "land to   
those who till it." In areas under their control the guerrillas   
execute landlords, judges, and other corrupt authorities.  

        In coca-producing areas Sendero offers coca farmers   
protection from the government and abusive drug traffickers in   
exchange for support and payment of "taxes."  

================== 
Appeals to 'order' 
================== 

        Above all what Shining Path offers is "order." The group   
sets up its so-called people's committees in rural villages that   
establish strict rules for conducting local affairs and organizing   
agricultural work. The committee of five is run by a Sendero   
cadre, who "represents the proletariat," as one of its documents   
states.  

        A New York Times reporter recently described his visit to   
Raucana, a shantytown outside of Lima that is run by Shining   
Path. "Protected by high walls, watchtowers and trenches,   
squatters collectively dug wells, raised light poles and laid out   
streets," he observed. "A square was designated for people's trials   
and public whippings of prostitutes, thieves, homosexuals, drug   
users and wife beaters."  

        The appeals to order, stability, a strict moral code, and   
quasi-religious worship of a "wise" supreme authority, President   
Gonzalo, are particularly directed to women. The burden of the   
social breakdown falls especially hard on women in the   
countryside, who are responsible not only for child-rearing but   
often for feeding the family as men migrate to the cities in search   
of work.  

====================== 
Same course as Pol Pot 
====================== 

        In spite of its demagogy Shining Path is no friend of   
peasants. "At first the Senderos seemed good because they   
imposed order against the authorities who had committed   
abuses," explained one refugee from a rural village. "But then   
they showed their fangs, because they not only demanded food   
and lodging from us but began to take away our children and   
husbands to attack other communities. They also began to   
demand our domestic animals to feed the 'comrades.'"  

        She added that after Shining Path left, army troops came in   
arrested and "disappeared" several villagers. This is one example   
of how the guerrillas set peasants up for government   
victimization without any means to defend themselves.  

        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.  

        Shining Path represents the opposite of a communist and   
internationalist perspective. It has much in common with the   
reactionary course of the terrorist Khmer Rouge gang headed by   
Pol Pot, which massacred at least 2 million people in Cambodia   
after taking power in 1975. A major part of the fight of workers   
and peasants in Peru to defend their interests against the ruling   
capitalists and landlords, will be to take on and politically defeat   
Shining Path.  
________  

The Militant newspaper is a socialist newsweekly.  An   
introductory subscription costs $10 for 12 weeks. Write to The   
Militant, 410 West Street, New York, N.Y. 10014.  
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive