CIA-RDP96-00789R003700660002-8

Appt
Ned Peruvian Rebels' Influence
CIA-RDP96-00789R003700660002-8
Extends to Lima's Doorstep
Economic Crisis Said to Benefit Guerrillas
By Eugene Robinson
Washington Post Foreign Service
HUAYCAN, Peru-In this for-
saken little settlement a dozen
miles outside Lima lies Peru's lat-
est nightmare.
One day a few weeks ago, ac-
cording to Huaycan residents,
Shining Path revolutionaries in-
cited a raid on the potato fields of
a local landowner. Hundreds of
people-whether afraid of Shining
Path, sympathetic to the insur-
gents or just desperately hun-
gry-ripped the potatoes out of
the ground and carted them off.
Approved For Releasemonign asident,
except that Huaycan is at the por-
tals of Lima on the Central High-
way along which much of Lima's
industry lies. The road also links
the capital with the agricultural
valley that supplies much of
Lima's food. Huaycan's walls are
covered with Shining Path graffiti,
and observers of the group say the
town is becoming a stronghold of
the guerrillas.
The nightmare is that with
Peru's economy in shambles and
poverty deepening, the millions
living in shantytowns and hamlets
around Lima will turn to Shining
Path as a viable alternative, or at
least not oppose the guerrillas
when they appear-that soon
CIA-RBR96B00789R003700660002-8

Approved For Release 2000/08/09 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003700660002-8
Peruvian Economic Crisis Feeds Fears of Guerrillas Gaining Popular Support
PERU, From A9
there might not be one Huaycan,
but hundreds.
"That's what I worry about," said
Carlos Ivan Degregori, a scholar
with the . Institute of Peruvian
Studies. "We're in such a hypercrisis,
; such a situation without hope, that
many people see no exit. I fear that
Shining Path can get neutrality or
even sympathy from some poor sec-
tors, especially young people."
Until now mostly a rural phenom-
enon, the guerrilla insurgency not
only has launched a major new of-
fensive in the countryside in recent
months but has stepped up its ac-
tivities in metropolitan Lima, where
nearly a third of Peru's 20 million
people live.
Shining Path is held responsible
for assassinating 17 mayors of An-
dean towns last year and has
stepped up killings of soldiers and
policemen. The guerrilla group also
has shown a new presence in coast-
al regions to the north and south of
the capital, and along the length of
the Central Highway heading east.
The pattern formed is a rough
semicircle around Lima.
Some see the campaign as a gen-
uine attempt to surround and stran-
gle the capital. Others scoff at the
notion that Shining Path is that
powerful, and see instead an effort
to provoke a military coup-which
" the guerrillas would see as hasten-
ing their intended revolution.
Shming Path has described its phi-
losophy as the fullest development of
"scientific" communist thought, a
step beyond Maoism. It addresses
Peru's racial divisions by claiming to
champion the poor Indian minority.
As difficult as the group's ideas
and methods might be to under-
stand, even for Peruvians, there is a
developing consensus here that the
cia is losing ground in the war
against Shining Path. Most of the
country's population lives under a
state of emergency, and Garcia has
given the armed forces and police a
virtual free hand in the battle.
This month, the government
tried to regain the initiative by an-
nouncing a "total war" against sub-
version and appropriating $21 mil-
lion for arms and equipment. Primer
Minister Armando Villanueva said:
about 14,000 lives have been lost to
political violence since 1985 and
called on all political parties to join a
national effort against Shining Path
and smaller guerrilla groups.
Shining Path is thought to include
no more than 3,000 armed guerril the campaign "get shot at all the !
las but to have 10 times that many
sympathizers. The government has
been accused of repeated human
rights violations in which innocents
are killed. The guerrillas' influence
continues to spread.
"We will not win with the rifle," ...
said retired Gen. Adrian Huaman,
former leader of the war against
Shining Path, in an interview with
the newspaper La Republica. "What
we have to do is influence the
people, . . . convince them that the
current system is better." Hua-
man's view of the problem as po-
litical rather than military was
largely responsible for his losing his
command nearly five years ago.
Shining Path has spread from its
birthplace in the mountain city of
the spine of the Andes into northern
Peru and the Upper Huallaga Val-
ley-source of up to half the
world's supply of cocaine. There.
the guerrillas are reported to act as
intermediaries, winning for the
peasants higher prices for their
coca leaves from drug traffickers.
The drug trade is potentially a
vast source of funds for Shining Path, }
and the weaponry the group might
be able to purchase is of great con-
cern to the 15 to 20 U.S .- Drug En-
forcement Administration agents
who are actively supporting Peruvian
authorities in their campaign to erad-
icate coca in the valley.
The nine U.S. helicopters used in !
time," by both traffickers and Shin-
ing Path, said Craig Chretien, chief
DEA agent here. But so far, he said, :
agents have not encountered so-
phisticated weaponry. "We really
wonder where the money's going,"
Chretien said.
Shining Path's weapons of choice
are dynamite-plentiful in this min-
ing nation-and arms that they
0
300
MILES
COLOMBIA
ECUADOR
BRAZIL
PERU
Lima
.Huaycan
Pacific
Ocean
PERU
"SOUTH
AMERICA
Pacific
Ocean,
"Atlantic'
Ocean
BY LARRY FOGEL-THE WASHINGTON POST
steal from soldiers and police. The
group is not known to receive any
aid from outside the country.
The history and evolution of
Shining Path are complex ..
The full name of the group is the
Communist Party of Peru for the
Shining Path of Jose Carlos Maria-
tegui. Mariategui was a journalist
and political scientist of the 1920s
to whom all of Peru's leftist factions
pay homage.
Shining Path originated in
Ayacucho, a mountain city of
100,000 residents who are more
likely to speak the Indian language
Quechua than Spanish. It is home to
the University of Huamanga-a
venerable school that in the late
1960s and 1970s came under the
control of a formal, rather author-
itarian academic named Abimael
Guzman.
Guzman is now known by the nom
de guerre "Comrade Gonzalo." Some
think him dead, but most believe he
is alive and at the helm of the insur-
gency he created. His ideology was
rooted in Chinese communism.
Shining Path, according to the
scant public record, considers the
"Gang of Four" of Cultural Revolu-
tion fame as heroes and the current
Chinese leadership "revisionist."
The group's first violent action, de-
struction of ballot boxes, occurred
on May 17, 1980.
Shining Path uses Peru's ethnic
divisions and racism to advantage,
proclaiming itself the avatar of the
disadvantaged Indian millions, long
ignored or oppressed by Lima's
Spanish-origin elite. It also seeks to
evoke the days of the Inca empire's
glory.
Shining Path operates through
small cells, and tries both to win the
loyalty of villagers and to intimidate
them. In some remote areas, where
the Peruvian state has never had
much of a presence, Shining Path
has in effect become the law.
Townspeople know the guerrillas
will protect them if they cooperate
and kill them if they do not.
Few believe that Shining Path
can "win," in a classic military
sense. But at the same time, few.
believe the insurgency can be elim-
inated anytime soon.
And since the capital is assumed
to be Shining Path's ultimate goal,
in many ways the most important
battles now being fought are in
places like Huaycan.
Few in the bootstrap shantytown
of 24,000 are willing to talk about
Huaycan's notoriety as a haven for
Shining Path. People seem more
concerned with daily life. The gov-
ernment provides Huaycan with
virtually nothing. Townspeople are
on their own, and are proud, for
example, of the three communal
dining rooms they have built.
"It's a shame this reputation has
to come to us, we who are already
suffering so much," said Miguel Es-
pejo, 22, who works for the Roman
Catholic parish. "We would like to
'concentrate on the positive things
we are doing, but people in Lima
now automatically say Huaycan and
Shining Path in the same breath.
"Yes, Shining Path is here. Not a
majority, just a few, but they are
here. But what I think is that this
place is like everywhere else. I think
you can find Shining Path anywhere."
Approved For Release 2000/08/09 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003700660002-8
government of President Alan Gar- Ayacucho, southeast of Lima, up