[Marxism] Gary Leupp on the trial of Sendero's Guzman

[Charlie Parks]

November 11, 2004

The Sendero's New Trial
Guzman's Fist
By GARY LEUPP

He hadn't appeared in public in 12 years, this former professor and 
university provost, Marxist philosopher specializing in the thought of Kant, 
and Chairman of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP, popularly known as Sendero 
Luminoso or "the Shining Path"). From 1980 he had led what became the most 
powerful communist insurgency in the Western Hemisphere. By the time of his 
capture in 1992, U.S. intelligence analysts estimated that up to one-half of 
Peru was more in the hands of the Senderistas, fighting their Maoist 
People's War, than those of the Peruvian state. He was regarded by his 
followers as the "Fourth Sword" of Marxism, and by his foes and the 
mainstream press almost everywhere as a "terrorist" responsible for all 
70,000 deaths in a long civil conflict. Abimael Guzman (aka Presidente 
Gonzalo) met the press and the people in a Lima courtroom November 5.

It was reminiscent of a scene in September 1992. The Peruvian security 
apparatus with assistance from the U.S. had nabbed Guzman and nine others in 
a safe house in Lima belonging to one of the country's most talented 
ballerinas, a party supporter. Computer disks in the home quickly led to the 
seizure of half the members of the party's Central Committee. Within days 
Guzman, dressed in prison stripes and confined in a small cage, was paraded 
before Peruvian and international journalists in an effort to humiliate him. 
He responded with a fiery spontaneous lecture urging Peruvians to open their 
eyes and understand their history of humiliations. "We are here in these 
circumstances," declared, referring to the calculated spectacle even as he 
transformed it. "Some think this is a great defeat. They are dreaming and we 
tell them to keep on dreaming! It is simply a bend, nothing more, a bend in 
the road. The road is long and we shall arrive. We shall triumph. You shall 
see it. You shall see it." That was the last time he spoke in public.

full: http://www.counterpunch.com/leupp11112004.html