NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/soc/culture/latinam/5164

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-27 | 3.0 KB

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From: [e-mail] (MIM)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Subject: The real propaganda on 25,000 dead in Peru
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 27 Dec 92 18:23:11 GMT
Sender: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Indiana University
Lines: 60


One annoying convention of the anti-Sendero Luminoso critics is
to hold the Sendero Luminoso "responsible" for the 25,000
deaths in civil war in Peru. This fools most readers into
thinking that the Sendero Luminoso killed 25,000 people.

The anti-S.L. critics are basically excusing regime
violence. It amounts to saying, "if S.L. did not start
a Revolution, the regime would not have had to kill so
many people, so it's the S.L.'s fault."

A careful reading of the various sources will reveal that
it is the government that has done the vast majority of the
killing in Peru. The reason people often don't hear it that
way is that the regime and bourgeois media repeat polemical
statements day in and day out and a certain percentage
of fools takes the statements as literal truths.

For the many simple minds too lazy to look into this, here
are the Peruvian government's own figures:

Dead since 1980 armed struggle started with S.L.
Presumed subversives. . . .11,872
Civilians. . . . . . . . . 10,286
Soldiers and police. . . . 2,095
Narcotics traffickers.  .  . .264
Source: El Pais, 9/20/92.

This means the regime killed almost 12,000 presumed Sendero Luminoso
members or their sympathizers, by the GOVERNMENT'S OWN FIGURES. That
is not the Sendero Luminoso speaking--the revolutionaries. That is the
fascist government speaking.

The only way to chalk up the deaths to the S.L. is to say that without
a Revolution, no one on either side would have died. But why do we
blame violence on one side?

We at MIM put it in reverse. There would have been no violence or
civil war if no one resisted the efforts of starving peasants to
take their own land. If the government did not forcefully resist
the organization of impoverished shantytowns, no one would have
used violence.

People who examine the conditions in Peru will understand why the
peasants and urban dwellers take to organizing their own livelihood
with the S.L. Instead of seeing active development in their
neighborhoods, the vast majority of Peru sees increasing poverty.
The government and ruling classes resist the peasants' and working
class's efforts to organize themselves economically for one reason--
property. The ruling classes use violence to protect "their" property.
That is the only reason there is war      in Peru today. A small elite
of people believes its "right" to private property is greater than
the "right" of poor and disease-stricken peoples to live. That
elite uses violence and S.L. critics everywhere go on repeating their
justifications for that state terrorism against the peasants and workers.

--Maoist Internationalist Movement
PO Box 559
Cambridge, MA 02140-0559
[e-mail]