"Blasts Propel Shining Path from Defunct to Dangerous" claims the imperialist paper (Calvin Sims, NYT, August 5, 1996). Let's analyze Sims' article: "Peru's long struggle against the Shining Path guerrilla group has taken a turn for the worse in the last week with a deadly series of bombings and attacks that have raised fears that the insurgency is making a comeback."
First, for "Peru" the NYT means the old rotten State controlled by U.S. imperialism, the big bourgeoisie, big landlords, the corrupt military and the narcogovernment of Fujmori, who are waging a counterrevolutionary war against the People's War led by the PCP. This same Calvin Sims reported in 1994 on "the defeat of the Shining Path," trying to spur imperialist investment in the country in spite of the military offensives of the People's Army of Liberation, which have continued unabated after the capture of President Gonzalo. If this were not the case, why have states of emergency and military curfews continued in most of the country since the capture of President Gonzalo in 1992? Why do the masked judges continue to exist? Why have psychological operations like the endless "capture of terrorists" publicized by the regime been intensified from 1992 to the present? How many times has the regime certified that the Maoist rebels were dead and buried, and now the NYT finds them in good health and spirits? All this black smoke is cleared up with the simple truth: The People's War continues as bold as ever!
The NYT continues: "While Peruvians [again, NYT refers to the same exploiters and blood suckers of the people] have learned to live under the constant threat of terrorism, the latest wave of assaults by the Maoist group, which was once believed to have been defeated, is particularly troubling because it was well coordinated and penetrated sensitive government and military targets. The guerrillas bombed a central police station charged with protecting the Peruvian Congress and the house of a general who is the military chief in a region where the rebels have a stronghold. Following assertions that the attacks were made possible by security lapses, the chief of Peru's anti-terrorist police resigned." [He refers to the PCP Regional Committee of Huallaga. The attacks referred to were carried out in Lima.]
"Experts on terrorism said that the attacks were the most successful the Shining Path has undertaken since its top leaders were captured three years ago. The arrests were considered a turning point in a civil war that has killed more than 35,000 people and cost $25 billion in damages since 1980". This is a shift from the NYT's position of previous years when it reported that "all the top leaders" were captured, the PCP was "decapitated" and "economic investment was booming." That was pure disinformation. The PCP has never had a single individual as leader, nor has it ever functioned on the will of any individual; therefore the capture of President Gonzalo may have temporarily disrupted the leadership, but it did not mean at all that the Party was "crippled" much less "decapitated." President Gonzalo himself described his capture simply as a "bend in the road." (Speech from the tiger cage, September 24, 1992)
Thereafter, the NYT quotes a notorious Senderologist working closely with the military: "'If you consider what has happened in the last few days, that the government was forced to remove its director of anti-terrorism because of these strategic attacks, you have to conclude that Shining Path has started to recover from its long demise,' said Carlos Tapia, a leading Peruvian researcher in terrorism...Tapia and other terrorism experts attribute the success of the recent attacks to new leadership within the Shining Path, which was severely crippled when the military captured Abimael Guzman Reynoso, Shining Path's founder. After his arrest, he called for his comrades to forge a peace with the government. Many subsequently turned themselves in under a government amnesty program."
Here we have the major ingredient of the SIN/CIA disinformation campaign as part of their psychological warfare. According to the PCP Central Committee, who continue to lead the People's War, the "Peace Agreement" scheme atributed to President Gonzalo is nothing but a conterrevolutionary hoax cooked up by the intelligence services in collaboration with a few capitulators in prison (purged from the party). The same senderologists or agents of reaction now recognize that the "Peace talks" hoax has been completely smashed by the People's War.
The slander that President Gonzalo has betrayed the revolution can be easily refuted by the fact that the regime, in spite of its slandereous allegations, has adamantly refused to allow him to come forward before the national and international press. What is their fear? Another speech from the cage? President Gonzalo's views on the People's War are well-known through his prolific speeches and writings and his unblemished revolutionary practice. The innuendos that "he is calling for peace" or "there is a fierce struggle within the PCP for peace talks" is a complete fallacy fabricated by the intelligence services and a handful of traitors in prison, and promoted by some opportunist "supporters" of the People's War abroad.
The NYT continues: "Political violence in Peru had not stopped even before the current series of attacks. In the last 18 months, analysts estimate, about 450 people have died in political violence in Peru, and the government has detained more than 500,000 suspects." Which means 558 arrests every day as an average! Here's the real face of 'Peruvian democracy' supported, financed and controlled by U.S. imperialism conducting a brutal generalized repression against the people as part of its low intensity warfare. This fact also unmasks the hypocritical claims of the U.S. State Department and Congress that human rights in Peru have "improved."
The NYT describes the PCP offensives: "The recent attacks began on July 26, when a car bomb exploded outside the police station two blocks from the Congress, killing one passer-by and wounding at least seven other people... Last Monday, the Shining Path took responsibility for a bombing outside the home of an army general, Manuel Varela Gamarra, who is the military chief in the Upper Huallaga Amazon region, where the rebels have a stronghold. On Wednesday, two Shining Path gunmen shot and killed a prominent community leader, Epifanio Santamaria Rodriguez, in the Lima shantytown of San Martin... Shining Path guerrillas also attacked a construction company in the highlands, destroying equipment and property. In each case, they either claimed responsibility or they left signs that they were responsible for the attacks."
The NYT becomes a mouthpiece of the CIA slander machine when it alleges that the PCP kills "community leaders" and/or "leftists" (and since when does the NYT care about the lives of leftists?), when in reality the targets of the selective annihilations are known agents of the armed forces and/or the old State. Here, NYT turns Sr. Santamaria, a prominent gangster of the paramilitary urban rondas, into a "community leader." Furthermore, the destruction of imperialist equipment and property used to exploit the workers and plunder the resources of the country is a legitimate action of the revolution.
NYT admits the failure of the counterinsurgency effort: "Military officials declined to discuss the attacks. But military staff members said that security forces have declared a full alert and that the government is considering extending a state of emergency, already in effect in 19 districts of Lima and many provinces, that gives security forces broad powers to combat terrorism." Since the military coup of April 1992, in which the U.S. assumed directly the counterinsurgency war, and in which the last constitution was trashed, the armed forces have had total impunity to act as they wish in any part of the country. What (further) "broad powers" is the imperialist outlet talking about?
Once again the CIA/SIN line on Peru is propagated by NYT: "With the capture of its central leaders in 1993, Shining Path is divided into two factions: one that heeded Guzman's call for peace and another that continued the fight under the leadership of Oscar Ramirez Duran, who was a top aide to Guzman and is believed to be hiding out in the highlands along the Huallaga River." Where is the evidence for this falsehood? The grossly fabricated letters, cut and paste videos presented by Fujimori at the U.N. on October 10, 1993, and a few tortured prisoners calling for talks in the prison of Yanamayo, Puno, all of that was publicized by the intelligence services and has not been taken seriously even by the reactionary press in Peru. Who invented the tale of "Chairman Feliciano"? Who invented Margie Clavo "as leader" of the PCP? Who is obsessed with the "peace of the cemeteries"? Only the reactionary regime. There is only one leadership of the Peruvian revolution: The PCP Central Committee. The "split" of the Party exists only in the obsessed mind of the imperialists.
The NYT concludes with more wishful thinking: "But terrorism experts said that contacts within the group indicated that Shining Path has now splintered into numerous factions. The factions are being coordinated by a new group of leaders who had been part of the Shining Path hierarchy during its infancy in the 1970s but who had left the group after a dispute with Guzman over the timing of his decision to take up arms in 1980".
This is a deception, a big lie. Those "numerous factions" do not exist! The Party is united and strong as steel; precisely for this reason it continues to victoriously lead the Peoples' War. Perhaps what the NYT calls "splintered factions" are the various sectarian organizations and individuals abroad that claim support to the People's War but do so on their own terms, with their own personal interests, limitations and even distortions. For instance the case of CoRIM, RCP-USA, Luis Arce Borja, Adolfo Olaechea, etc. There is even the strange case of MIM, an undercover gang that many believe is hatched by counter-intelligence. To say that any of these are factions of the PCP would be utterly absurd.
As for the "factions...being coordinated by a new group of leaders,..."etc, let's debunk this speculation with ease: Many of those expelled from the Party in the 70s and just before the initiation of the People's War, later participated in the elections for the Constitutional Assembly under military dictator Morales Bermudez, or have fled the country. Their leader Saturnino Paredes was a member of this bourgeois tendency. Of the few who fled the country, one Javier Esparza has become an advocate of capitulation but today has no affiliation of any kind with the PCP. The myth of "coordinated factions" is just ignorant speculation.
The fact that has been proven to the world beyond any doubt is the capacity of the PCP to continue leading the People's War towards the conquest of power according to the tactical and strategic plans designed by President Gonzalo, which is the guarantee of victory and the installation of the Republic of New Democracy in Peru.