From: harelb@igc.apc.org (Harel Barzilai)
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: THE REACTIONARY SHINING PATH (Artic
Date: 5 Jan 93 00:08:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1296500465:000:4037
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!harelb    Jan  4 16:08:00 1993


/* Written  8:29 pm  Jan  2, 1993 by harelb@math.cornell.edu in igc:reg.andes */
/* ---------- "THE REACTIONARY SHINING PATH (Artic" ---------- */
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.
	     ******************************************** 
			    =============
			    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. 
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