From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord@igc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Date: 30 Jul 92 10:57 PDT
Subject: PERU: AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE 'SHININ
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1473800119:000:4527
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Jul 30 10:57:00 1992


From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: PERU: AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE 'SHININ

/* Written 12:07 am  Jul 30, 1992 by newsdesk in cdp:ips.englibrary */
Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Title: PERU: AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE 'SHINING PATH' MOVEMENT


an inter press service feature

by gregorio antunez

lima, july 27 (ips) -- little is known about how peru's communist
movement, which bases its teachings on maoist principles, sprouted
up and gained widespread support in a south american country.

''we cannot defeat them if we don't understand them. only
ideologues are capable of the cruelty of political terrorists,''
peruvian sociologist hernando de soto said.

founded by dissidents of the chinese communist party in peru
about 12 years ago, the 'sendero luminoso' (shining path) movement
now counts thousands of indigenous and urban peruvians in its ranks.

social researchers carlos ivan de gregori and alberto flores
galindo say the native peruvians, and even some of foreign ancestry,
had been so disillusioned with the peruvian government and society
that they welcomed the movement's promises of radical changes.

the group has recently stepped up its activities in lima, sowing
terror among the city's residents.

on jul 16, the rebel group exploded a car wired with about 500
kilos of dynamite in the elegant residential district of miraflores,
killing 22 people and injuring hundreds.

the car-bomb attack was only one of the rebels' urban strategies
aimed at forcing workers to join a nationwide strike and students to
boycott school on jul. 22-23.

the exact number of victims who were either killed or wounded in
this recent wave of violence is still unknown since the government
has not released any official figure and many of the victims are
still dying.

but eyewitness accounts say over 10 peruvians died during the
''forced'' strike when explosions rocked several parts of the city
and rebels fired on those who refused to comply.

some of the incidents revealed the rebels' ruthlessness, as in
the case of a 70-year old cab driver whom they shot so he could not
leave his taxi. he died when they set fire to his car.

in 1979, shining path rebels hung dogs from electric posts in
lima, and attached signs saying 'muera teng siao ping' (death to
deng xiaoping), a chinese political leader who introduced a radical
economic modernisation programme in china. (more/ips)



peru: an (2)

peru's civil war, which began in the country's southern mountains
in 1980, has already claimed about 26,000 lives, according to
official records.

but the rebels are not about to be bothered by the growing number
of war casualties, which they explain in their 'blood quota' theory
as a price society has to pay to support and accelerate change.

'blood quota' is a term which frequently appears in the
movement's official documents to convince members to give their
lives to the cause and justify the killing of innocent people.

shining path says the faster those who deserve to die are killed,
the shorter the path to achieving what they have set out to do.

in 1985, shining path founder and supreme head abimael guzman
wrote that ''the blood quota is the compromise with our world
revolution... most deaths are caused by reactions and not by us.
they make lagoons and we only soak our handkerchiefs into them''.

a study by peruvian anthropologist manuel granados, published in
the theoretical magazine 'socialism and participation', describes a
'senderista' as ''being ready to cross the river of blood'', assured
that the party leadership is with him ''in the supreme instant of
total surrender to the purifying flames of the armed struggle.''

in the party's fourth general meeting in 1981, guzman traced the
revolution's path in the following months, stressing that the war
must cause thousands of deaths.

party member gustavo gorriti said this was guzman's way of
preparing his officers for the violence they would be unleashing.
''blood was going to flow in rivers and the only way to triumph was
to cross the river of blood,'' said gorriti in his book 'sendero,
historia de la guerra milenaria en el peru'.

to justify the violence and killings caused by the war, guzman
wrote: ''the cruel course the war is taking is nothing but the
bloodbath which we had started and we have made the incontrovertible
decision to cross it and conquer the other side.''
(end/ips/trd/al/mso/cir/92)