...Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path)
Posted on 08/09/2003 3:11:33 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
When Shining Path guerrillas marched into this tiny hamlet deep in Peru's Andean jungle a fortnight ago, Tito Salazar's mind filled with images of neighbors hacked to death by rebels 20 years ago.
Able to muster just five useless, rust-caked rifles between them, the poor coffee farmer and his fellow villagers in these lush foothills looked on helplessly this time as the 70-strong, well-armed group of rebels vowed they meant no harm.
"'We are no longer terrorists, we are now guerrillas,' they told us. 'We are not going to kill you like before,"' Salazar said. Two days later he was mourning his brother Uldarico, blown up by the notorious Maoist rebels a few miles away.
The Shining Path, or Sendero Luminoso in Spanish, is slowly regrouping after lying dormant for much of the past decade since the capture of its leader. The government relaxed its guard after its success against the group and became preoccupied with other problems, giving rebels an opening.
As the rebels regather, Peru's poor farmers are trying to make a comeback with their own call to arms.
The trouble is, they don't have any.
"What we need are guns. Without them we have had it," said Salazar.
Similar pleas reverberate across the "red zone," a stretch of remote peaks and valleys 300 miles southeast of Lima that has been the Shining Path's stronghold since it emerged in 1980 in quest of communist revolution.
ARMED WITH STICKS
In the nearby town of Pichari, "ronderos" or farmers who take turns patrolling to ward off incursions, gather to talk tactics. They line a dozen decrepit rifles and shotguns against a mud wall. Only a couple still work.
"We'll use sticks to beat them away if we have to," said a local farmer who earned his nickname the Hunter aiding the military against the guerrillas in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Now, as a spate of recent attacks sows fear in a region blighted by two decades of civil war that killed from 30,000 to 60,000 people -- at least 15,000 at the hands of the rebels -- the farmers' prayers may soon be answered.
Peruvian Defense Minister Aurelio Loret de Mola told Reuters the government plans to arm thousands of farmers and peasants so they can help the military head into the mist-enveloped Andean slopes to hunt the guerrillas down.
"The strategy is to renew the weapons of the village self-defense committees and give them ammunition," he said, adding the government had not yet told the villagers to avoid subversives infiltrating a screening process under way.
It was precisely this kind of alliance between the military and civilian population that helped now fugitive ex-President Alberto Fujimori all but wipe out the guerrillas in the 1990s, when thousands of rebels were caught and jailed.
The government is also reopening 15 remote military bases, stepping up the pressure after a rash of attacks as part of a two-pronged drive to tackle the guerrillas and the drug trafficking trade that is financing them in exchange for protection.
SPORADIC ATTACKS
Shining Path rebels kidnapped and later released more than 70 workers building a gas pipeline in June and killed five soldiers and two civilians including Salazar's brother in one ambush this month.
Last year they murdered 10 people in Lima with a car bomb, just days before a high-profile visit by President Bush.
But in sharp contrast to the bloody 1980s, the Shining Path is changing its tactics and instead of terrorizing and killing farmers is trying to curry favor, promising to protect their illegal crops of coca, the raw material used to make cocaine.
Villagers say some coca farmers even occasionally play soccer with the guerrillas, who dress all in black and wear rubber boots.
Boston University Professor David Scott Palmer, who has closely studied the rebels, says they are trying to "show a so-called kinder, gentler Shining Path."
"The group is trying to regain support among the peasantry through a process of self-criticism," he said.
There are now two Shining Path factions. One is led by jailed Shining Path leader Abimael Guzman, who was captured in 1992 and is trying to secure an amnesty and "political solution" for his jailed comrades. The other is led by militants operating around Ayacucho.
Nevertheless, Guzman -- who signed a truce with the government in 1993 -- refuses to condemn recent attacks.
"His Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology recognizes that at certain moments armed activity can take place, but he is not promoting them," said Guzman's lawyer, Manuel Fajardo, who visits him regularly at his high-security naval base jail cell. "I have not heard him either condemn or praise what is going on," he added. (Additional reporting by Marco Aquino)
A dead commie is a good commie. We should help these freedom fighters.
Good enough. But first they need rifles.
Give them some rifles and they will clean house.
"The farmers win. The farmers always win."
...Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path)
He has a very nice cell, by my measure. It's on a island in the Pacific off the coast of Peru. The cell is brightly lit 24 hrs/day. The only access to the cell is via a hatch in the high ceiling and he is allowed out for only one hour a week.
To let him out, a rope or cable with a seat at the end is lowered into the cell to lift him out for a shower and exercise. Then he is lowered back into the cell. No TV, radio, books or newspapers were permitted when he was originally moved there following his capture over a decade ago. His conditions may have changed by now. Anybody know?
Meanwhile, American leftist Lori Berenson continues to rot in her Andean prison. I'm not feeling any sympathy for her.
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