Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/092892/09289925.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 7KB | 142 lines

                                                                                PERU, Page 47

His Turn to Lose


The capture of Abimael Guzman has decapitated the Shining Path
revolution, but the world's most brutal guerrilla group vows
to continue its bloody campaign

By JILL SMOLOWE -- With reporting by Laura Lopez and Sharon
Stevenson/Lima and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington


    Abimael Guzman was a successful revolutionary because he
never flinched: he was willing to destroy Peru and as many
innocent Peruvians as necessary to gain power. His Sendero Lumi
noso, or Shining Path, movement, perhaps the most radical
leftist insurgency still in operation anywhere in the world,
sowed terror throughout the country during a 12-year campaign
that took 25,000 lives, damaged $22 billion worth of property
and left some Peruvians fearing that his "forces of history"
might achieve victory. That is, until last week -- when Guzman
was captured by government forces in a bloodless raid on a
modest house in one of Lima's middle-class neighborhoods.

    Even with Guzman behind bars, the war for control of the
country is not over. But Peruvians savored the sudden feeling
of relief -- none more so than the autocratic Alberto Fujimori,
who has turned his presidency into a virtual dictatorship,
partly to quell the revolution. "Our fear was broken from one
day to another," was how Isabel Coral, who works with victims
of Shining Path violence, greeted the arrest. In their recent
year long assault on Lima, the guerrillas had come close to
terrorizing the populace into capitulation. Guzman's arrest not
only halted that momentum but, more important, it gave the
government's anti-guerrilla campaign a welcome boost. "In a
struggle like this one, morale and will decide who wins," said
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs
Bernard Aronson. "Perhaps this capture provides what Peru needs
most: hope and confidence that it can prevail."

    Although the immediate credit goes to the painstaking work
of DINCOTE, Peru's anti-terrorism squad, Fujimori will reap the
biggest reward. He had promised to pacify the country by the
time his term ends in 1995. But he lost international support in
April, when he unilaterally dissolved Peru's Congress, shut down
the courts and suspended the constitution -- largely in the name
of thwarting Shining Path. Frustrated Peruvians approved, but
the U.S. was so angry that it suspended aid. Now, in the
congressional elections that Fujimori has called for Nov. 22,
candidates who back him are expected to win big, and they could
help him enshrine strong presidential powers in a new
constitution. The capture may also ensure his re-election. Warns
Gustavo Gorriti, a Peruvian journalist and expert on Sendero who
lives in the U.S. but was briefly detained in Peru after the
Fujimori coup: "The fall of Guzman, the main enemy of democracy,
is paradoxically going to do a lot of harm to democracy in the
short term by strengthening Fujimori."

    A happy outcome for the President, however, depends in
large measure on how much permanent damage has been inflicted
on Shining Path. The loss of Guzman, worshiped with cultlike
ardor by his followers, has certainly dealt the movement a
psychological blow. "This has to hurt an organization that
exists on the myth of its leader," said Enrique Obando, a
specialist in security issues at the Peruvian Center for
International Studies in Lima. There is a strong chance that
Shining Path will try to spring its leader from jail to restore
his and the insurgency's tarnished aura of invincibility. "They
are going to move heaven and earth to get him out," predicts
David Scott Palmer, director of the Latin American Studies
program at Boston University, who has written extensively about
Shining Path, "whether it's by trickery, massive force or
intimidation -- like killing the entire family of the key guard
who oversees daily routine."

    At the same time, the government will have to take care
not to kill Guzman by accident or intent. In the past, security
forces have used tactics nearly as rough as Sendero's --
torture, indiscriminate arrests, shootings and disappearances
-- in their efforts to stop the guerrillas. Over the past five
months, Fujimori has suspended civil liberties, loosened
restraints on the police and revamped the judicial system so
that convictions are easier. To make a martyr out of Guzman
would cost the government its new psychological edge. In the
long run, says Aronson, "the government must fight Sendero with
democratic legitimacy."

    Shining Path also lost considerable logistical strength
when officials arrested five top lieutenants who were with
Guzman. "It is a uniquely top-down authoritarian organization
in its decision making and structure," says Aronson. "When you
capture its senior leadership, that has to make a difference."
Some experts expect a brutal battle within the movement to name
a successor: there is no obvious candidate. The movement may
also have been weakened by the defection of a faction that felt
Guzman had abandoned true Maoism and put too much emphasis on
terror rather than political action designed to win hearts and
minds.

    To say Sendero has been broken, however, would be
premature. Radical revolutionary movements in the Philippines,
India, Iran and Colombia have collapsed after losing their
leaders, but Shining Path seems too well entrenched for that,
and its fighters are highly disciplined, dogged and patient. "I
disagree with the conventional wisdom that if you lop off the
head, the body will die," says Gordon McCormick, a national
security analyst at the Rand Corp. who has written on Shining
Path. "Sendero has been highly institutionalized and has the
capacity for self-renewal."

    Support systems that operate legally -- such as lawyers'
and citizens-aid groups and regional committees with their
well-disciplined cadres -- are still intact. "I don't see them
disappearing," says Gorriti. "They're too close to victory for
that." Other analysts warn that the October offensive Guzman was
plotting at the time of his capture may still take place;
Shining Path operations are usually planned out in minute detail
months in advance. "Don't think this is the end of the party,"
Alfredo Crespo, Guzman's lawyer and a leader of the Democratic
Lawyers Association, allegedly a Sendero front group, told TIME.
"The revolution will continue -- and probably get stronger."

    But whether Shining Path withers or grows strong again
depends on how well the government performs. The conditions that
gave rise to the insurgency back in the 1970s -- poverty,
injustice, deep resentment over racial and class distinctions
-- still prevail. Until Fujimori finds a more stable, equitable,
democratic course, there will be impoverished Peruvians willing
to subscribe to an alternative vision, no matter how ruthless
or violent.