From: harelb@math.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Date: 20 Jan 93 15:44 PST
Subject: MAP/MIM: AI on Sendero Lumenoso (SL
Nf-ID: #N:9301202341.AA03342@poly.math.cor:2110577882:000:3439
Nf-From: math.cornell.edu!harelb    Jan 20 15:44:00 1993


From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: MAP/MIM: AI on Sendero Lumenoso (SL)

		[please forward this to wherever else "rebuttals of
		MAP" have been made by the pro-MIM/SL people -- Harel]

To some the mere documentation below will not mean much, but for the
honest persons disputing my charges about Sendero, the following brief
excerpt should be reason enough for pause and reevaluation.

Recall that I said that I was distinguishing between "has committed
some human rights abuses" which, practically, applies virtually to
"Everyone" and "systematic, murderous campaign against civilians"

The most recent copy of the Amnesty International [yearly] Report I
have at home is 1990, which suffices (unless a vast improvement is
claimed to have taken place since then in Sendero's behavior) for our
purposes.

Like all AI's Country Reports, the focus is on governmental abuses.
As I wrote before, several times, there are "minimal standards" of
respect for human rights which "some human rights abuses" does not
necessarily violate, but which "systematic murderous campaign of
repression" certainly does (at least, speaking for my own standards),
so that such a group does not deserve our support -- let alone 100%
pure condemnation-free cheerleading at MIM's articles seem to
consistently provide for SL. Under such a situation, sometime "Life is
Tough" and "neither the government nor the main rebel group" deserves
our support, I wrote as well, to paraphrase -- suggesting direct
support for grass-roots organizations is both moral, possible
(including email I suggested), and productive.

Here are facts about Sendero such that I will not support any such
organization, nor does *cheerleading* for such an organization belong
in misc.activism.progressive

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Amnesty Writes:

    The clandestine *Partido Comunista del Peru' "Sendero Luminoso",
    Communist Party of Peru "Shining Path", remained active ... Its forces
    continued REGULARLY to murder captives in SUMMARY, EXECUTION-style
    killing, sometimes after torture and mock trials.

    MOST OF ITS VICTIMS WERE CIVILIANS but others killed included police
    and military personnel who were captured or incapacitated by wounds.
    [...]

    [Shining Path] KILLED OVER 350 PEOPLE in October alone


[CAPITALIZATION is mine]

Hence we have an organization "most" of whose victims are civilians,
"regularly" executing these captives of theirs, and we have a rather
high minimal figure for the number of *civilians murdered* by Sendero.

The Salpress report and other documentation I have online reveal a
completely different picture in the case of El Salvador/FMLN, and
basic research should suffice to debunk comparisons -- made by the
(previously, I hope) pro-Sendros writeers -- with the ANC.

As I said, "minimal grounds" suffice to condemn SL; for those
curious to compare with the [incredibly brutal, but then there is no
"progressive" out there I need to convince not to support them, so I
won't go on] Peruvian regime -- these were responsible, over the
entire year, for [perhaps all of the] "at least 503" cases of
"disappearances" and some "hundreds more" extra-judicial executions.

These are ample grounds for the statements made above about SL, MIM,
and relevance to misc.activism.progressive

--

Harel Barzilai
Co-founder, Co-moderator, misc.activism.progressive (MAP) -- UseNet

Newsgroups: alt.activism