Abimael Guzmán
Encyclopedia
Manuel Rubén Abimael Guzmán Reynoso (born 3 December 1934), also known by the nom de guerre Presidente Gonzalo (English
: Chairman Gonzalo), a former professor
of philosophy
, was the leader of the Shining Path
during the Maoist
insurgency
known as the internal conflict in Peru
. Shining Path had been active in Peru
since the late 1970s and began what it called "the armed struggle" on 17 May 1980. Wanted on charges of terrorism
and treason
, Guzmán was captured by the Peruvian government in 1992 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
He is currently incarcerated at the Callao
naval base, near the city of Lima
, Peru. While the activity of the insurgency increased shortly after Guzmán's capture, it has declined in the years following. It has been criticized for its violence against peasant
s, trade union
organizers, and elected officials, which were deemed by the group to be collaborating with the Peruvian state. Shining Path is on the U.S. Department of State
's "Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations
" list. The United Kingdom
, the European Union
, and Peru likewise describe Shining Path as a terrorist
group and prohibit providing funding or other financial support.
, a port town in the province of Islay
, in the region of Arequipa
, about 1000 km (621.4 mi) south of Lima. He was the illegitimate son of a well-off merchant, the winner of the national lottery
who had six children by three different women. Guzmán's mother, Berenice Reynoso, died when he was only five years old.
From 1939 to 1946 Guzmán lived with his mother's family. After 1947 he lived with his father and his father's wife in the city of Arequipa
, where he studied at Colegio De La Salle, a private Catholic
secondary school. At the age of 19 he became a student at the Social Studies department of San Agustín National University, in Arequipa. His classmates at the university later described him as shy, disciplined, obsessive, and ascetic. Increasingly attracted by Marxism
, his political thinking was influenced by the book Seven Essays on the Interpretation of the Peruvian Reality of José Carlos Mariátegui
, the founder of the Communist Party of Peru
.
At Arequipa, Guzmán completed bachelor degrees in philosophy and law
. His dissertations were entitled The Kantian Theory of Space and The Bourgeois Democratic State. In 1962, Guzmán was recruited as a professor of philosophy by the rector of San Cristóbal of Huamanga University
in Ayacucho
, a city in the central Peruvian Andes
. The rector was Dr. Efraín Morote Best
, an anthropologist
who some believe later became the true intellectual leader of the "Shining Path movement." Encouraged by Morote, Guzmán studied Quechua, the language spoken by Peru's indigenous population, and became increasingly active in left-wing political circles. He attracted several like-minded young academics committed to bringing about revolution in Peru. Guzmán was arrested twice during the 1970s because of his participation in violent riots in the city of Arequipa against the government of presidents Velasco Alvarado and Belaunde Terry. He visited the People's Republic of China
for the first time in 1965. After serving as the head of personnel for San Cristóbal of Huamanga University, Guzmán left the institution in the mid-1970s and went underground.
In the 1960s, the Peruvian Communist Party splintered over ideological and personal disputes. Guzmán, who had taken a pro-Chinese rather than pro-Soviet
line, emerged as the leader of the faction which came to be known as the "Shining Path" (Mariátegui
wrote once: "Marxism–Leninism is the shining path of the future"). Guzmán adopted the nom de guerre Presidente Gonzalo and began advocating a peasant-led revolution on the Maoist model. His followers declared Guzmán, who cultivated anonymity, to be the "Fourth Sword of Communism" (after Marx
, Lenin
, and Mao
). In his political declarations, Guzmán praised Mao's development of Lenin's thesis regarding the role of imperialism
in propping up the bourgeois capitalist
system. He claimed that imperialism ultimately "creates disruption and is unsuccessful, and it will end up in ruins in the next 50 to 100 years". Guzmán applied this criticism not only to U.S.
imperialism, but also to what he termed the "social-imperialism" of the Soviet Union
.
In February 1964 he married Augusta la Torre
, who died under unclear circumstances in 1989. It has been rumored that she was murdered by Elena Iparraguirre
, Guzmán's lover, with his complicity. Both have refused to talk about La Torre's fate since their imprisonment. In the fall of 2006, while in prison, Guzmán proposed to Iparraguirre, one of his long-time lieutenants who is also serving a life sentence in a separate prison. After fighting for the permission to marry with a hunger strike
, the couple wed in late August 2010.
group centered around Ayacucho
. In May 1980, the group launched its war against the government of Perú by burning the ballot boxes in Chuschi, a village near Ayacucho, in an effort to disrupt the first democratic elections in the country since 1964. Shining Path eventually grew to control vast rural territories in central and southern Peru and achieved a presence even in the outskirts of Lima
, where it staged numerous attacks. The purpose of Shining Path's campaign was to demoralize and undermine the government of Perú in order to create a situation conducive to a violent coup which would put its leaders in power. The Shining Path targeted not only the army and police, but also government employees at all levels, other leftist militants such as members of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement
(MRTA), workers who did not participate in the strikes organized by the group, peasants who cooperated with the government in any way (including by voting in democratic elections), and ordinary middle-class inhabitants of Perú's main cities. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission
later estimated that the resulting conflict led to the deaths of some seventy thousand people, approximately half of them at the hands of the Shining Path and a third at the hands of the state.
Initially Guzmán attempted to win over the support of citizens by punishing corrupt government officials and other unpopular leaders. However Shining Path's increasingly brutal methods together with strictly imposed curfews, the prohibition of alcohol and an overall sense of insecurity and fear lead to an increased popular reaction against the communist party. Eventually Guzmán's plan backfired as rural militia or "rondas" rallied support for the military against Shining Path. The very peasants Guzmán claimed to defend had turned against the Shining Path. This resulted in a cyclical state of violence in which Maoist guerillas embarked in ruthless punitive expeditions against Peruvian civilians living in the Andean region. In 1983, 69 people (including women and children) from the highland town of Lucanamarca were tortured and murdered by the Shining Path in what became known as the Lucanamarca massacre
.
Guzmán's image as a dispassionate murderer became widespread after he moved against the city of Lima. After a series of bombings and selective assassinations the whole nation was shocked in 1992 when a car bomb exploded in one of Lima's busiest commercial districts on Tarata street, thus causing many casualties and enormous material losses. To this day, Guzmán denies responsibility for the Tarata bombing
by claiming that it was a "deplorable mistake."
The movement promoted the writings of Guzmán, called Gonzalo Thought, a new "theoretical understanding" that built upon Marxism
, Leninism
, and Maoism
whereby he declared Maoism as a "third and higher stage of Marxism," having defined Maoism as "people's war." In 1989, Guzmán declared that the Shining Path (which he referred to as the "Communist Party of Peru") had progressed from waging a people's war to waging a "war of movements." He further argued that this was a step towards achieving "strategic equilibrium" in the near future, based on Maoist theories of waging people's war. Guzmán claimed that such an equilibrium would manifest itself by ungovernability under the "old order." When that moment arrived, Guzmán believed that Shining Path would be ready to move on to its "strategic offensive".
Theodore Dalrymple has written that "the worst brutality I ever saw was that committed by Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path
) in Peru, in the days when it seemed possible that it might come to power. If it had, I think its massacres would have dwarfed those of the Khmer Rouge
. As a doctor
, I am accustomed to unpleasant sights, but nothing prepared me for what I saw in Ayacucho, where Sendero first developed under the sway of a professor of philosophy, Abimael Guzmán."
, the National Directorate Against Terrorism (DIRCOTE) began casing several residences in Lima
because agents suspected that terrorists were using them as safehouses. One of those residences, in the upper-class neighborhood of Surco
, had been operating as a ballet studio. The DIRCOTE operatives routinely searched the garbage taken out from the house. The house was supposedly inhabited by only one person, the dance teacher Maritza Garrido Lecca, but it was soon noticed that the household produced more garbage than one person could account for. Furthermore, agents found discarded tubes of cream for the treatment of psoriasis
, an ailment that Guzmán was known to have. On September 12 1992, an elite unit of the DIRCOTE raided the Surco residence. On the second floor of the house, they found and arrested Guzmán and eight others, including Laura Zambrano and Elena Iparraguirre, Guzmán's female companion. Ironically Abimael Guzmán had been conducting a savage war from the comforts of a luxurious upper-class Lima residence. (This episode inspired Nicholas Shakespeare
's novel The Dancer Upstairs
).
At the time of capture, the police seized Guzmán's computer, in which they found a very detailed register of his armed forces and the weapons each regiment, militia and support base had in each region of the country. Guzmán had recorded that, in 1990, the Shining Path had 23,430 members armed with approximately 235 revolvers, 500 rifles and 300 other items of military hardware such as grenade
s. Guzmán was later exhibited publicly in a cage with a black and white striped uniform. The Shining Path remained active after Guzman's arrest.
, the port of Lima, where he currently remains. Subsequently, he is said to have negotiated with a presidential advisor at the time, Vladimiro Montesinos
, in order to receive some benefits in exchange for helping the Peruvian government put an end to the Shining Path's militant activities. Guzmán appeared several times on Peruvian television and in 1993 he publicly declared "peace" with the Peruvian government. This declaration split the Shining Path and raised questions about the organization's future. About 6,000 guerrillas within the party accepted it as a sign of defeat and surrendered. Others held that it was either a forgery or an insincere statement made under duress.
Although there is little doubt that Guzmán was indeed the leader of the Shining Path, more than 5,000 individuals presented an appeal to Peru's Constitutional Court in 2003 asking that the verdicts against more than 1800 other prisoners convicted of terrorism, including Guzmán, be voided. The court agreed, declaring that the military trials had been unconstitutional and ordering new trials before civilian courts. The new trials began in 2003. Since then, more than 400 prisoners who had been found guilty by military courts have been freed.
Guzmán's re-trial was scheduled to begin on 5 November 2004. The international press was held in a sound-proof chamber and all media was banned from observing the trial after the Shining Path cadre turned their backs on the judges and delivered a revolutionary salute to the media gallery. The only words Guzmán spoke in the presence of the international press were "Long live the Communist Party of Peru! Glory to Marxism–Leninism–Maoism! Glory to the Peruvian people! Long live the heroes of the people’s war!" After he made this statement, the courtroom microphones were silenced and the press was unable to hear any of the proceedings that followed. The trial resumed on 12 November. No reporters were allowed to observe the new proceedings but two more of the judges subsequently recused themselves. Guzmán's third trial began in September 2005 and was opened and closed amid a media blackout
. No reporters were allowed to attend. On 13 October 2006, Guzmán was sentenced to life in prison on charges of aggravated terrorism and murder
. At his sentencing, three judges listed the aforementioned charges in a verdict that lasted more than six hours.
He is currently incarcerated in Callao in one of four subterranean cells. His neighbours include Víctor Polay
, leader of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement
, and, ironically, Vladimiro Montesinos
, the former head of the National Intelligence Service
.
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
: Chairman Gonzalo), a former professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, was the leader of the Shining Path
Shining Path
Shining Path is a Maoist guerrilla terrorist organization in Peru. The group never refers to itself as "Shining Path", and as several other Peruvian groups, prefers to be called the "Communist Party of Peru" or "PCP-SL" in short...
during the Maoist
Maoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
insurgency
Insurgency
An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...
known as the internal conflict in Peru
Internal conflict in Peru
It has been estimated that nearly 70,000 people died in the internal conflict in Peru that started in 1980 and, although still ongoing, had greatly wound down by 2000. The principal actors in the war were the Shining Path , the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and the government of Peru.A great...
. Shining Path had been active in Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
since the late 1970s and began what it called "the armed struggle" on 17 May 1980. Wanted on charges of terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
and treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
, Guzmán was captured by the Peruvian government in 1992 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
He is currently incarcerated at the Callao
Callao
Callao is the largest and most important port in Peru. The city is coterminous with the Constitutional Province of Callao, the only province of the Callao Region. Callao is located west of Lima, the country's capital, and is part of the Lima Metropolitan Area, a large metropolis that holds almost...
naval base, near the city of Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
, Peru. While the activity of the insurgency increased shortly after Guzmán's capture, it has declined in the years following. It has been criticized for its violence against peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
s, trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
organizers, and elected officials, which were deemed by the group to be collaborating with the Peruvian state. Shining Path is on the U.S. Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
's "Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations
U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations
"Foreign Terrorist Organization" is a designation of non-United States-based organizations declared terrorist by the United States Secretary of State in accordance with section 219 of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act...
" list. The United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
, and Peru likewise describe Shining Path as a terrorist
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
group and prohibit providing funding or other financial support.
Early life
Guzmán was born in MollendoMollendo
Mollendo is a town bordering the Pacific Ocean in southern Peru. It is located in the Arequipa Region and is the capital of both the Islay Province and the Mollendo District...
, a port town in the province of Islay
Islay Province
Islay Province is the smallest of eight provinces in the Arequipa Region of Peru.-Political division:The province is divided into six districts which are:* Cocachacra * Dean Valdivia * Islay * Mejía...
, in the region of Arequipa
Arequipa Region
Arequipa is a region in southwestern Peru. It is bordered by the Ica, Ayacucho, Apurímac and Cusco regions on the north; the Puno Region on the east; the Moquegua Region on the south; and the Pacific Ocean on the west...
, about 1000 km (621.4 mi) south of Lima. He was the illegitimate son of a well-off merchant, the winner of the national lottery
Lottery
A lottery is a form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize.Lottery is outlawed by some governments, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of regulation of lottery by governments...
who had six children by three different women. Guzmán's mother, Berenice Reynoso, died when he was only five years old.
From 1939 to 1946 Guzmán lived with his mother's family. After 1947 he lived with his father and his father's wife in the city of Arequipa
Arequipa
Arequipa is the capital city of the Arequipa Region in southern Peru. With a population of 836,859 it is the second most populous city of the country...
, where he studied at Colegio De La Salle, a private Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
secondary school. At the age of 19 he became a student at the Social Studies department of San Agustín National University, in Arequipa. His classmates at the university later described him as shy, disciplined, obsessive, and ascetic. Increasingly attracted by Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, his political thinking was influenced by the book Seven Essays on the Interpretation of the Peruvian Reality of José Carlos Mariátegui
José Carlos Mariátegui
José Carlos Mariátegui La Chira was a Peruvian journalist, political philosopher, and activist. A prolific writer before his early death at age 35, he is considered one of the most influential Latin American socialists of the 20th century...
, the founder of the Communist Party of Peru
Peruvian Communist Party
The Peruvian Communist Party is a communist party in Peru. It was founded in 1928 by José Carlos Mariátegui, under the name Partido Socialista del Perú . In 1930 the name was changed to PCP...
.
At Arequipa, Guzmán completed bachelor degrees in philosophy and law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
. His dissertations were entitled The Kantian Theory of Space and The Bourgeois Democratic State. In 1962, Guzmán was recruited as a professor of philosophy by the rector of San Cristóbal of Huamanga University
San Cristóbal of Huamanga University
The San Cristóbal of Huamanga National University is a public university located in the city of Ayacucho in southern Perú....
in Ayacucho
Ayacucho
Ayacucho is the capital city of Huamanga Province, Ayacucho Region, Peru.Ayacucho is famous for its 33 churches, which represent one for each year of Jesus's life. Ayacucho has large religious celebrations, especially during the Holy Week of Easter...
, a city in the central Peruvian Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
. The rector was Dr. Efraín Morote Best
Efraín Morote
Efraín Morote Best , was a Peruvian anthropologist and academic administrator. From 1962 to 1968 he served as the Rector of San Cristóbal of Huamanga University in Ayacucho, Perú....
, an anthropologist
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
who some believe later became the true intellectual leader of the "Shining Path movement." Encouraged by Morote, Guzmán studied Quechua, the language spoken by Peru's indigenous population, and became increasingly active in left-wing political circles. He attracted several like-minded young academics committed to bringing about revolution in Peru. Guzmán was arrested twice during the 1970s because of his participation in violent riots in the city of Arequipa against the government of presidents Velasco Alvarado and Belaunde Terry. He visited the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
for the first time in 1965. After serving as the head of personnel for San Cristóbal of Huamanga University, Guzmán left the institution in the mid-1970s and went underground.
In the 1960s, the Peruvian Communist Party splintered over ideological and personal disputes. Guzmán, who had taken a pro-Chinese rather than pro-Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
line, emerged as the leader of the faction which came to be known as the "Shining Path" (Mariátegui
José Carlos Mariátegui
José Carlos Mariátegui La Chira was a Peruvian journalist, political philosopher, and activist. A prolific writer before his early death at age 35, he is considered one of the most influential Latin American socialists of the 20th century...
wrote once: "Marxism–Leninism is the shining path of the future"). Guzmán adopted the nom de guerre Presidente Gonzalo and began advocating a peasant-led revolution on the Maoist model. His followers declared Guzmán, who cultivated anonymity, to be the "Fourth Sword of Communism" (after Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
, and Mao
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
). In his political declarations, Guzmán praised Mao's development of Lenin's thesis regarding the role of imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
in propping up the bourgeois capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
system. He claimed that imperialism ultimately "creates disruption and is unsuccessful, and it will end up in ruins in the next 50 to 100 years". Guzmán applied this criticism not only to U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
imperialism, but also to what he termed the "social-imperialism" of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
In February 1964 he married Augusta la Torre
Augusta la Torre
Augusta la Torre Carrasco , also known as Comrade Norah, was a Peruvian Maoist revolutionary noted as number two in command of the Sendero Luminoso guerrillas...
, who died under unclear circumstances in 1989. It has been rumored that she was murdered by Elena Iparraguirre
Elena Iparraguirre
Elena Iparraguirre, also known as Comrade Miriam, is a high-ranking member of the Peruvian Maoist revolutionary and terrorist organization Sendero Luminoso . Iparraguirre was captured in Lima in 1992 along with her lover, Shining Path founder Abimael Guzmán. In 1992, she received a sentence of life...
, Guzmán's lover, with his complicity. Both have refused to talk about La Torre's fate since their imprisonment. In the fall of 2006, while in prison, Guzmán proposed to Iparraguirre, one of his long-time lieutenants who is also serving a life sentence in a separate prison. After fighting for the permission to marry with a hunger strike
Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
, the couple wed in late August 2010.
The "People's War"
The Shining Path movement was at first largely circumscribed to academic circles in Peruvian universities. In the late 1970s, however, the movement developed into a guerrillaGuerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
group centered around Ayacucho
Ayacucho
Ayacucho is the capital city of Huamanga Province, Ayacucho Region, Peru.Ayacucho is famous for its 33 churches, which represent one for each year of Jesus's life. Ayacucho has large religious celebrations, especially during the Holy Week of Easter...
. In May 1980, the group launched its war against the government of Perú by burning the ballot boxes in Chuschi, a village near Ayacucho, in an effort to disrupt the first democratic elections in the country since 1964. Shining Path eventually grew to control vast rural territories in central and southern Peru and achieved a presence even in the outskirts of Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
, where it staged numerous attacks. The purpose of Shining Path's campaign was to demoralize and undermine the government of Perú in order to create a situation conducive to a violent coup which would put its leaders in power. The Shining Path targeted not only the army and police, but also government employees at all levels, other leftist militants such as members of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement
Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement
The Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement was a Marxist revolutionary group active in Peru from the early 1980s to 1997 and one of the main actors in the internal conflict in Peru...
(MRTA), workers who did not participate in the strikes organized by the group, peasants who cooperated with the government in any way (including by voting in democratic elections), and ordinary middle-class inhabitants of Perú's main cities. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Peru)
The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in 2001 after the fall of president Alberto Fujimori, to examine abuses committed during the 1980s and 1990s, when Peru was plagued by the worst political violence in the history of the republic...
later estimated that the resulting conflict led to the deaths of some seventy thousand people, approximately half of them at the hands of the Shining Path and a third at the hands of the state.
Initially Guzmán attempted to win over the support of citizens by punishing corrupt government officials and other unpopular leaders. However Shining Path's increasingly brutal methods together with strictly imposed curfews, the prohibition of alcohol and an overall sense of insecurity and fear lead to an increased popular reaction against the communist party. Eventually Guzmán's plan backfired as rural militia or "rondas" rallied support for the military against Shining Path. The very peasants Guzmán claimed to defend had turned against the Shining Path. This resulted in a cyclical state of violence in which Maoist guerillas embarked in ruthless punitive expeditions against Peruvian civilians living in the Andean region. In 1983, 69 people (including women and children) from the highland town of Lucanamarca were tortured and murdered by the Shining Path in what became known as the Lucanamarca massacre
Lucanamarca massacre
The Lucanamarca massacre was a massacre of 69 peasants in and around the town of Lucanamarca, Peru that took place on April 3, 1983. The massacre was perpetrated by the Shining Path, the Maoist guerrilla organization that launched the internal conflict in Peru....
.
Guzmán's image as a dispassionate murderer became widespread after he moved against the city of Lima. After a series of bombings and selective assassinations the whole nation was shocked in 1992 when a car bomb exploded in one of Lima's busiest commercial districts on Tarata street, thus causing many casualties and enormous material losses. To this day, Guzmán denies responsibility for the Tarata bombing
Tarata bombing
The Tarata bombing was a terrorist attack in Lima, Peru, on July 16, 1992, by the Shining Path guerrilla group. The blast was the deadliest Shining Path bombing during the Internal conflict in Peru and was part of a larger bombing campaign in the city....
by claiming that it was a "deplorable mistake."
The movement promoted the writings of Guzmán, called Gonzalo Thought, a new "theoretical understanding" that built upon Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, Leninism
Leninism
In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...
, and Maoism
Maoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
whereby he declared Maoism as a "third and higher stage of Marxism," having defined Maoism as "people's war." In 1989, Guzmán declared that the Shining Path (which he referred to as the "Communist Party of Peru") had progressed from waging a people's war to waging a "war of movements." He further argued that this was a step towards achieving "strategic equilibrium" in the near future, based on Maoist theories of waging people's war. Guzmán claimed that such an equilibrium would manifest itself by ungovernability under the "old order." When that moment arrived, Guzmán believed that Shining Path would be ready to move on to its "strategic offensive".
Theodore Dalrymple has written that "the worst brutality I ever saw was that committed by Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path
Shining Path
Shining Path is a Maoist guerrilla terrorist organization in Peru. The group never refers to itself as "Shining Path", and as several other Peruvian groups, prefers to be called the "Communist Party of Peru" or "PCP-SL" in short...
) in Peru, in the days when it seemed possible that it might come to power. If it had, I think its massacres would have dwarfed those of the Khmer Rouge
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...
. As a doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, I am accustomed to unpleasant sights, but nothing prepared me for what I saw in Ayacucho, where Sendero first developed under the sway of a professor of philosophy, Abimael Guzmán."
Capture
In 1992, during the first administration of President Alberto FujimoriAlberto Fujimori
Alberto Fujimori Fujimori served as President of Peru from 28 July 1990 to 17 November 2000. A controversial figure, Fujimori has been credited with the creation of Fujimorism, uprooting terrorism in Peru and restoring its macroeconomic stability, though his methods have drawn charges of...
, the National Directorate Against Terrorism (DIRCOTE) began casing several residences in Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
because agents suspected that terrorists were using them as safehouses. One of those residences, in the upper-class neighborhood of Surco
Santiago de Surco
Santiago de Surco, commonly known simply as Surco, is a district of Lima, Peru. It is bordered on the north by the districts of La Molina, Ate and San Borja; on the south by Chorrillos; on the east by La Molina, Villa María del Triunfo and San Juan de Miraflores; and on the west by San Borja,...
, had been operating as a ballet studio. The DIRCOTE operatives routinely searched the garbage taken out from the house. The house was supposedly inhabited by only one person, the dance teacher Maritza Garrido Lecca, but it was soon noticed that the household produced more garbage than one person could account for. Furthermore, agents found discarded tubes of cream for the treatment of psoriasis
Psoriasis
Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease that appears on the skin. It occurs when the immune system mistakes the skin cells as a pathogen, and sends out faulty signals that speed up the growth cycle of skin cells. Psoriasis is not contagious. However, psoriasis has been linked to an increased risk of...
, an ailment that Guzmán was known to have. On September 12 1992, an elite unit of the DIRCOTE raided the Surco residence. On the second floor of the house, they found and arrested Guzmán and eight others, including Laura Zambrano and Elena Iparraguirre, Guzmán's female companion. Ironically Abimael Guzmán had been conducting a savage war from the comforts of a luxurious upper-class Lima residence. (This episode inspired Nicholas Shakespeare
Nicholas Shakespeare
Nicholas William Richmond Shakespeare is a British journalist and writer. Born to a diplomat, Shakespeare grew up in the Far East and in South America. He was educated at the Dragon School preparatory school then Winchester College and Cambridge and worked as a journalist for BBC television and...
's novel The Dancer Upstairs
The Dancer Upstairs
The Dancer Upstairs is a 1995 novel by Nicholas Shakespeare. It is based on the Maoist insurgency of the 1980s in Peru, and tells the story of Agustin Rejas, a police Lieutenant , hunting a terrorist based on Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Shining Path. In 2002 it was given a film adaptation under...
).
At the time of capture, the police seized Guzmán's computer, in which they found a very detailed register of his armed forces and the weapons each regiment, militia and support base had in each region of the country. Guzmán had recorded that, in 1990, the Shining Path had 23,430 members armed with approximately 235 revolvers, 500 rifles and 300 other items of military hardware such as grenade
Grenade
A grenade is a small explosive device that is projected a safe distance away by its user. Soldiers called grenadiers specialize in the use of grenades. The term hand grenade refers any grenade designed to be hand thrown. Grenade Launchers are firearms designed to fire explosive projectile grenades...
s. Guzmán was later exhibited publicly in a cage with a black and white striped uniform. The Shining Path remained active after Guzman's arrest.
Trial and imprisonment
Guzmán was tried by a court of hooded military judges under provisions of the anti-terrorism laws adopted by Fujimori's government. The idea of this was to protect the judges' lives for Shining Path was remembered for brutal retaliation against judges who convicted their members. After a three-day trial, Guzmán was sentenced to life imprisonment and incarcerated at the San Lorenzo Island naval base, in CallaoCallao
Callao is the largest and most important port in Peru. The city is coterminous with the Constitutional Province of Callao, the only province of the Callao Region. Callao is located west of Lima, the country's capital, and is part of the Lima Metropolitan Area, a large metropolis that holds almost...
, the port of Lima, where he currently remains. Subsequently, he is said to have negotiated with a presidential advisor at the time, Vladimiro Montesinos
Vladimiro Montesinos
Vladimiro Ilyich Montesinos Torres was the long-standing head of Peru's intelligence service, Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional , under President Alberto Fujimori. In 2000, secret videos, which he had recorded, were televised that showed his bribing an elected congressman to leave the opposition...
, in order to receive some benefits in exchange for helping the Peruvian government put an end to the Shining Path's militant activities. Guzmán appeared several times on Peruvian television and in 1993 he publicly declared "peace" with the Peruvian government. This declaration split the Shining Path and raised questions about the organization's future. About 6,000 guerrillas within the party accepted it as a sign of defeat and surrendered. Others held that it was either a forgery or an insincere statement made under duress.
Although there is little doubt that Guzmán was indeed the leader of the Shining Path, more than 5,000 individuals presented an appeal to Peru's Constitutional Court in 2003 asking that the verdicts against more than 1800 other prisoners convicted of terrorism, including Guzmán, be voided. The court agreed, declaring that the military trials had been unconstitutional and ordering new trials before civilian courts. The new trials began in 2003. Since then, more than 400 prisoners who had been found guilty by military courts have been freed.
Guzmán's re-trial was scheduled to begin on 5 November 2004. The international press was held in a sound-proof chamber and all media was banned from observing the trial after the Shining Path cadre turned their backs on the judges and delivered a revolutionary salute to the media gallery. The only words Guzmán spoke in the presence of the international press were "Long live the Communist Party of Peru! Glory to Marxism–Leninism–Maoism! Glory to the Peruvian people! Long live the heroes of the people’s war!" After he made this statement, the courtroom microphones were silenced and the press was unable to hear any of the proceedings that followed. The trial resumed on 12 November. No reporters were allowed to observe the new proceedings but two more of the judges subsequently recused themselves. Guzmán's third trial began in September 2005 and was opened and closed amid a media blackout
Media blackout
Media blackout refers to the censorship of news related to a certain topic, particularly in mass media, for any reason. A media blackout may be voluntary, or may in some countries be enforced by the government or state. The latter case is controversial in peacetime, as some regard it as a human...
. No reporters were allowed to attend. On 13 October 2006, Guzmán was sentenced to life in prison on charges of aggravated terrorism and murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
. At his sentencing, three judges listed the aforementioned charges in a verdict that lasted more than six hours.
He is currently incarcerated in Callao in one of four subterranean cells. His neighbours include Víctor Polay
Víctor Polay
Víctor Polay Campos is one of the founders of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, a Peruvian guerrilla organization that fought in the internal conflict in Peru...
, leader of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement
Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement
The Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement was a Marxist revolutionary group active in Peru from the early 1980s to 1997 and one of the main actors in the internal conflict in Peru...
, and, ironically, Vladimiro Montesinos
Vladimiro Montesinos
Vladimiro Ilyich Montesinos Torres was the long-standing head of Peru's intelligence service, Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional , under President Alberto Fujimori. In 2000, secret videos, which he had recorded, were televised that showed his bribing an elected congressman to leave the opposition...
, the former head of the National Intelligence Service
National Intelligence Service (Peru)
The National Intelligence Service was an intelligence agency of the Government of Peru. The agency was disbanded by Alberto Fujimori after its de facto chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, was caught paying bribes to major political, military and media figures. Fujimori later pleaded guilty to charges...
.
External links
- Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Peru: Final Report
- The Sendero File
- New start for Shining Path trial
- MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base
- A New Outrage from Shining Path Leader by The Toronto Star
- Peru and the Capture of Abimael Guzmán (Senate - 2 October 1992), Article in the Federation of American Scientists website