One area in which Sendero at first had considerable success was in the Puno region near Lake Titicaca. However, there it met with strong resistance not only from the government (then headed by the Aprista Party) but also from the nonviolent Left of the Izquierda Unida, which had a strong following among both the peasants and the urban people of the region. Shining Path finally virtually withdrew from the Puno area.[497]
The way in which the Senderistas used violence was undoubtedly an important factor in turning against them peasants and others who originally were sympathetic. The U.S. Embassy official previously cited was quoted by Tom Marks as saying, ”Sendero is brutal but not indiscriminate… we are seeing carefully designed and calculated terror. They target individuals in advance, then execute them in ways which have symbolic meaning. … Horrible methods of execution will be used, ways which are symbolic in a mythological sense.”[498]
One rural area in which the Sendero Luminoso had success for a considerable period of time was the upper Huallega Valley, the most important source in Peru of coca, the base of cocaine. There Sendero was able to establish control for some time through protecting the peasant growers of coca from both the government (and U.S.) authorities seeking to wipe out coca planting and sales, and from exploiting coca dealers. Control of the valley provided Sendero Luminoso with large amounts of money from the “taxed” it levied on the coca operation.[499]
Starting in 1989, Sendero Luminoso concentrated an increasing degree of attention on Lima and its environs. There it worked particularly in the shantytowns, the number and size of which had greatly expanded due in large part to the flight of peasants from the rural areas in which Shining Path had been operating. It had considerable success for some time in imposing its will on many of these pueblos jóvenes (youthful towns, or shantytowns). However, it was generally not able to penetrate the organized labor movement.[500]
The Capture of “Presidente Gonzalo” and the Decline of Sendero Luminoso
Shining Path continued to expand its area of operations through the administrations of President Fernando Belaúnde Terry (1980—1985) and his successor, the first (and only) Aprista Party president, Alan Garcia (1985—1990). The 1990 election of the dark horse candidate, Alberto Fujimori, in complete repudiation not only of the Apristas, but also of the right-wing parties, and of the United Left (IU) coalition, was undoubtedly due in part to the desperation that many citizens felt at the inability of succeeding chief executives to deal with the menace of the Sendero Luminoso revolutionaries.
Faced with a Congress controlled by the Opposition, President Fujimori in March 1992 carried out the autogolpe (self coup), dissolving Congress, purging the courts, and assuming dictatorial power—with the support of the armed forces. He justified this by saying that Congress refused to allow him to carry out policies to achieve two basic objectives—control the inflation that was totally out of control, and deal adequately with the guerrilla terrorism of Sendero Luminoso.
In the remainder of his first term, President Fujimori carried out a drastic neoliberal economic program that cut inflation dramatically, but at the cost of a massive increase in unemployment and intensification of inequalities of wealth and income.
In dealing with the problem of Sendero Luminoso, President Fujimori’s secret police were able—either from expertise or great good luck—to carry out a major coup only six months after the autogolpe. In September 1992 they arrested in Lima not only Abimail GUZMán but also more than half of the National Central Committee of Sendero Luminoso, the body responsible for “setting of ideology, strategy, and policy for the entire organization.”[501]
The Shining Path leaders were caught shortly before they were set to launch a terrorist attack in the Lima area, designed to establish what they called “strategic equilibrium” in the country.[502] What they meant by strategic equilibrium was described by the article in the pro-Sendero periodical already cited, which said “Strategic equilibrium does not imply that the main forces of the PGA [ People’s Guerrilla Army] (in addition to its local forces and militia) have already achieved equality with the government’s larger and much better equipped military. But this stage has been made possible by the PGA’s success in going over from guerrilla warfare to more regular warfare. Now it is able to mount biggerscale, better coordinated and more effective operations against the enemy.”[503]
Right after his capture, Abimail Guzmán called upon his followers to go ahead with their proposed attack in the Lima region. Carlos Degregori noted that “Lima was almost paralyzed by the fear of this new offensive,” particularly since two months earlier, in July 1992, Lima had been virtually closed down by a strike called by Shining Path.[504]
However, the planned Sendero Luminoso attack in the region of the capital passed without any serious crisis for the government. The arrest of much of the leadership of Shining Path had obviously inflicted a serious blow on the Maoist insurrection.
After the arrest of Abimael Guzmán and other top figures of Sendero Luminoso, a split developed within its ranks. One faction urged that there be negotiations with the Fujimori government, apparently designed to bring the “people’s war” to an end. The other group, including at least some members of the Central Committee of Shining Path who had avoided capture, called for a continuation of the war.
The most striking aspect of this controversy was the fact that there was considerable evidence that Abimail Guzmán (“Presidente Gonzalo”) himself supported ending the insurrection. In October 1993, Guzmán appeared on national television, urging such a policy. Of course, Guzmán was a prisoner, and there might be reason to believe that he had somehow or other been forced to make such a talk. However, even those writing in A World to Win, the periodical of the international group of orthodox Maoists and supporters of the Gang of Four, which had strongly supported the Peruvian “popular war,” and with which Sendero Luminoso was affiliated, clearly were not certain at the end of 1996 whether or not Presidente Gonzalo really favored bringing the conflict to an end.
Two other pieces of evidence tended to indicate that perhaps he did. In 1995, Margie Clave, “a principal CC member” was captured and, although immediately thereafter she called for the war to continue, six months later she stated that she had changed her mind, as a result of conversations with Presidente Gonzalo. Also, Luis Arce, who published a Sendero Luminoso periodical, El Diario Internacional, in Europe, likewise urged negotiations to end the struggle because that was what Guzmán wanted.[505]
The capture of Guzmán and other Sendero leaders came at a time when peasant resistance to the Sendero was growing substantially. The rural folk had increasingly organized—sometimes with government help, sometimes independently—what were called rondas campesinas (peasant guards), paramilitary peasant groups, to confront the Sendero. One Peruvian observer said that by November 1992 there were 120,000 families organized in these groups in the South Central departments alone, with additional groups organized in other parts of the country.[506]
497
Lewis Taylor, “Agrarian Unrest and Political Conflict in Puno, 1985-1987,”
502
Carlos Ivan Degregori, talk at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, November 18, 1992.
506
Isabel Corral, Director of Centro de Población Refugiada in Lima, talk at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, November 16, 1992.