In 1980, the Communist Party of Peru (PCP), known to the rest of the world as Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), gave a violent tug on the frayed fabric of impoverished Ayacucho and the snag was felt throughout the woof and warp of Peru. Although violence has been a factor in the past 500 years, linked to deeply rooted social, economic, ethnic and structural problems, Peruvian society has faced a major escalation this decade. Although other Latin American countries meet similar threats to the viability of their civilian institutions, Peru faces a specially complex array of adversaries. This trend has also introduced an erratic, unpredictable variable, combined with a breakdown of the normal channels for conflict resolution.
One measure of how far the situation has degenerated comes from the United States government. The State Department has placed Peru in the same risk category as El Salvador, Colombia and Lebanon because of terrorist activities. Although there are substantial differences in the quality and nature of political violence in these countries, this classification is due to the incidence or number of terrorist acts. Other foreign governments have arrived at the same conclusion about Peru's condition. For Europe, this classification can have a direct impact on GSO funding because many donor agencies have matching fund agreements with their national governments.
In the past 40 years, grassroots organizations, like campesinos and urban squatters, have employed tactics not sanctioned by the law and even acts of force to achieve their goals. They have, however, normally avoided outright and systematic violence in the pursuit of their objectives.
Because of the nature of this low-intensity conflict and the threat of institutionalizing violence as a political instrument, we will describe the major players whom grassroots organizations and their support agencies must face in the field.
The party came into being in 1970, breaking off from the Maoist Communist Party of Peru-Bandera Roja (Red Flag). The central core of Sendero, however, actually existed as the regional committee of the original Communist Party since 1964. Its main seedbed was the National University of San Cristobal of Huamanga and the public school system in the area. The key leader and thinker behind it is Abimael Guzmán, known by his nom de guerre, Chairman Gonzalo.
In the mid-1970s, Sendero's leadership decided that the time had come to start an armed uprising along the lines drafted by Mao Zedong in China. This decision required strengthening and fine-tuning a national party structure for the task. The Principal Regional (Ayacucho) and the Metropolitan Lima committees were the backbone of the organization, four other regional organizations started the gradual process of building its war machine.
Because party-sanctioned ideology has the weight of the Bible, it predetermines how its local cadres will observe and interpret reality. According to Sendero's version, Peru is a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society in which a form of bureaucratic capitalism holds sway. In more comprehendible terms, Peru is an underdeveloped, Third World country in which power is still wielded through semi-feudal means (control of the land as a political lever) and subordinated to imperialistic powers. The economy is dominated by monopolistic and merchantilist intermediaries for world powers which use the State to squeeze more exploitation from the population. (PCP 1988, II, 4-5)
In Sendero's thinking, what distinguishes Peru is that the conditions have matured for staging armed struggle and the one missing factor over the past 100 years -- a revolutionary leadership in the form of the Communist Party of Peru -- has fit into place.
Sendero holds out a utopian prospect of a world made anew through revolutionary struggle within a timeframe of a couple of decades. In the society which Sendero will set up, all failings would disappear -- children will not starve to death, men will not commit adultery or get drunk and mothers will not abandon their children. At a grassroots level, this kind of message has appeal and impact, compared to the breakdown of moral and ethic standards, corruption and chaos prevailing in large parts of Peru. This ideal future world, however, must first be won.
What does this mean in practical terms for rural development? Sendero's Maoist ideology, accentuated by Guzmán's thinking, requires a prolonged rural guerrilla war, drawing on the peasantry as a social base. This objective requires breaking the hold of semi-feudalism on the peasantry. Another target is imperialist dominion in the countryside.(PCP 1988, II, 5-6) From Sendero's sectarian view, grassroots support organizations represent an attempt by imperialist powers (predominantly European and American governments and donor agencies) to strengthen the imprisoning chains of capitalism in rural Peru.
In September, 1989, El Diario, a semi-official mouthpiece for Sendero, came out with a full condemnation of centers, relief work and charity efforts, including the Catholic Church. "Imperialism and social imperialism, through the furtherance of their `promotion centers,' intend to replace the tasks that correspond to this State to realize in public works. (This is) an attitude which fulfills one of the objectives of counterinsurgency policy by encouraging pacifism, the conciliation of classes and free (unremunerated) work, diverting the people's struggle towards electoral idiocy."
For Sendero, the presence of development programs, either through government or non-government agencies, is a crucial juncture in the evolution of capitalism in rural areas. It is the point at which rural producers become locked into the market. It is preferable for rural communities recede to Stone Age conditions that start a process which would lead to stronger ties to a bourgeois society.
This schematic interpretation of Peruvian reality, however, would remain a bizarre exercise in the dark arts of dialectic materialism if Sendero did not match it with an astutely designed and meticulously planned military strategy for taking power. Sendero starts with a flexible military-political strategy designed to work within the complex geographical, economic, social setting of the Andes. It carefully builds up from grassroots levels, taking full advantage of the backlog of local conflicts. Sendero exploits the tensions built up in the urban-rural continuum (issues like demand for public services and spending, the capitalist market and land conflicts). It makes a consistent, coherent use of violence as a means of intimidation and consolidation of alternative authority. It disrupts the chance of other political options from emerging or taking root in the local setting. It proposes a long-term societal model which aims to integrate society through its armed struggle. It makes use of effective pedagogical mechanisms which help it to reproduce its membership and ideology under adverse conditions.(Smith 1990)
More specifically on its organization, Sendero has centered its resources on creating a military apparatus capable of sustaining a self-sufficient revolution against the existing state. First, it is characterized by the single-minded subordination of the party, its cadres and resources to its military and political goals. This militarization has permitted Sendero to demonstrate a close, measurable relationship between objectives, actions and results. Second, it has a vertical, authoritarian structure and cell organization which has been almost impossible to infiltrate or break. The party leadership is a stable, permanent war staff, held in strategic reserve. This provides long-term planning "strategically centralized and tactically de centralized" and constant evaluation of the situation. Third, there is an absolute rejection of all organizations which do not subordinate themselves to the militarized party. (Smith 1990) An outgrowth of militarization is that "the Party's work with masses is carried out through the Army." (PCP 1988, IV, 1)
Unlike most left wing parties, Sendero has never used centers as instruments of its political strategy, though its members or sympathizers may have worked in them for short periods. This policy may be changing in the future. Luis Arce Borja, the former director of El Diario, gave a conference in Belgium in 1989, shortly after the killings of the two French development volunteers in Haquira, Apurimac. When pressed to explain why Sendero has assassinated the foreign volunteers, he claimed that six donor agencies were working in favor of the García administration, IU, ideological and political infiltration. "If you travel with and support García Pérez and his counterinsurgency and criminal plans, naturally you convert yourself into a target of the revolution, just as a campesino does when he goes over to the ranks of the Army." (Quehacer No. 59, 30-2)
Senderista pointmen, including Arce Borja, had approached European donor agencies. His revealing remarks showed that their inquiries had not turned up positive results. There have also been reports from some rural provinces of new promotion centers opening as a front for Senderista activity, though this may be a defensive mechanisms of provincial societies to reject unknown outsiders.
Carlos Ivan Degregori says that since Sendero has defined Peru as semi-feudal, it encounters other phenomenon in the Andes that do not fit into its vision. On his Long March, Mao did not meet engineers repairing power pylons, agronomists doing extension work and anthropologists advising campesino federations. "I consider that the degree of violence which SL develops is so great, among other causes, because it has to adapt reality to the idea and for this they not only have to stop time but turn it back." (Degregori 1989, 22)
From Sendero's perspective, GSOs, grassroots organizations and rural development, along with political parties, religious faiths and decadent bourgeois government, is "a pile of garbage traditionally inherited which we must clear away gradually," citing Engles (PCP 1988, V, 5). This kind of institutions and groups is the waste products of history or obstacles in the way of revolutionary creation.
In the final analysis, all projects and institutions not anointed by and subservient to Sendero will eventually come under its sights. With such a long hitlist, however, Sendero has a backlog of targets. Much depends on priorities and circumstances as to how often the guerrilla group puts its sights on GSOs and their local partners. Shining Path has preferred to chip away at the vulnerable underpinnings of Peruvian society, rather than stage an all-out assault on the government. It aims to wipe out the state and capitalism even if that means condemning the populace to Stone-Age subsistence.
Sendero operates in the Andes from the Huamachuco province of La Libertad department in the north down to Apurimac, encroaching on the western slopes around Lima. Its southern pole of development is in Puno, provinces of Azangaro and Melgar. It also operates in broad swaths of the jungle, like the Upper and Central Huallaga, the Apurimac-Tambo river valleys (Ayacucho and Junin departments). Sendero claims that it has spread its tentacles to all 24 departments in the country.
However, Sendero has been unsuccessful in entering the northern Sierra, including most of Cajamarca, Piura and Amazonas. It has also failed repeatedly to penetrate Cusco.
MRTA owes its political space to Sendero. The first three years of the Senderista offensive were disconcerting. Sendero showed that it was possible to engage in guerrilla warfare against a government that had inherent weaknesses. The protracted debate within the Marxist left as to whether the subjective and objective conditions for revolution were present was settled. Sendero, through its ruthless tactics and sectarian ideology, pushed back the frontier of tolerable political activities. The MRTA leaders thought that Sendero was giving armed revolution a bad name.
MRTA came together from the Marxist splinter groups that maintained loyal to the premise that effective social change would only come through armed violence. They were dissident factions which rejected mainstream parties' enthusiasm for legitimate politics, including participation in elections and Congress. The initial spark actually came during the chaotic 1980 negotiations to form a broad left wing coalition (Alianza Revolucionario de Izquierda, ARI). The coalition dealings collapsed, but the seeds and contacts for sedition were laid. Their initial actions seemed like Robin-Hood gestures, distributing "expropriated goods" in shantytowns and bank robberies. It even apologized publicly for killing a policeman in front of an embassy.
When it entered into action in early 1984, it was, in effect, preparing for the day when the rest of the Marxist left would have to go underground. It was a commonly held belief in left wing circles in the early 1980s that Belaúnde would not serve out his term and a coup d'etat would send the Marxist parties back into clandestine activities. MRTA would be the armed wing of IU.
MRTA finances its operations through bank robberies, extortion, contributions through the sale of bonds and other activities. MRTA applies this same practice to businessmen and shoptenders. It may also receive financing and assistance from abroad, probably Cuba.
The organization has international contacts which disturb the Peruvian military. It fits into the Latin American tradition of romantic guerrillas, which has its roots in Cuba, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, the Montoneros of Argentina and the Sandinistas. Some members went to Nicaragua to fight on the side of the Sandinistas in the late 1970s. For a time, it integrated the Batallón América with the Colombian M-19 and the Ecuadorian "Viva Alfaro, Carajo." Two Peruvians died in fighting in Colombia. It has contacts with other insurgent groups, like the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) in El Salvador. It may also have received arms from abroad. Its strategies and actions fit neatly into the pattern of insurgent groups in Latin America. However, with the falling fortunes of armed insurrections in the region, MRTA is finding that its role models and international allies are moving away from the political use of violence.
MRTA has steered clear of attacking GSOs and their local partners. It has sent letters and made visits to GSOs requesting contributions to their cause. MRTA leaders have in the past worked in GSOs. A MRTA founder helped set up a major Lima center in the mid-1970s. A minority of the smaller centers and individual staffers may hold some sympathies for MRTA. Because MRTA expects an authoritarian or military regime in Peru's future, it does not want to antagonize potential allies should other left wing forces decide for guerrilla warfare.
In other words, MRTA follows a war logic different from Sendero's. It may use centers as a cover for activists in a zone, but centers are not a means of penetration. It may collect information through its activists, but GSOs do not serve as purveyors of intelligence.
The Unidad Democrática Popular (UDP), a coalition of splinter groups operating outside the United Left, has thinly disguised sympathies towards MRTA. It functions as its political arm. UDP has concentrated its political efforts on militant union federations, like mineworkers, and some campesino organizations. It also participates within the National Popular Assembly. A weekly magazine, Cambio, serves as its public outlet.
MRTA originally confined its activities to urban areas and coastal pocket, (Lima, Ica, Chimbote, Trujillo). In November, 1987, MRTA opened up its first full-scale guerrilla front in the Middle Huallaga valley. The occupation of San José de Sisa took place with heavy media coverage and even interviews with column commanders. It has since expanded its areas of operation to the Middle, Lower Huallaga and Lower Mayo valleys, the Ene-Penene river basin and Junín in the central Sierra.
It has frequently tried to pressure the government into increasing investment in its base areas. It kidnaped the president of the San Martin development corporation in 1988 for this purpose. In 1985, it offered an informal cease-fire to the newly inaugurated García administration on the condition that the new government make just settlements with unions and increase the minimum wage. It also demanded the suspension of debt payments and the expropriation of foreign companies. There have also been signals that at least part of its organization would be willing to negotiate a peace settlement with the government if the right conditions prevailed.
This "reformist approach" has led Sendero to criticize it for trying to patch the structures of exploitation so it can stay on its feet. More pointedly, Sendero cannot accept other political organizations, armed or pacific, challenging its hegemony in priority zones. These differences have led to open confrontations and armed clashes. In the Upper Huallaga, Junín and the lower jungle foothills, Sendero and MRTA competed for control of territory, including open combats. In the Upper Huallaga, Sendero has passed on information to the army on MRTA cadres, supporters and supply dumps. In 1989, the two bands engaged in gun battles on the campus of San Marcos university.
However, by 1989, MRTA had suffered heavy losses in its feuding with Sendero, fighting with the armed and police forces and more consistent intelligence work by the anti-terrorist police. Because it conformed to Latin American guerrilla practices, it was easier to anticipate its actions and movements. In January, 1989, the army and police wiped out an entire column of 64 guerrillas to a man. Police captured at least two members of its national war council, Victor Polay and Alberto Gálvez. These leaders and 46 other MRTA activists escaped from the Canto Grande maximum security prison in June, 1990.
With two armed groups already in the field, it is always a temptation for other radicalized groups, especially youth wings of mainstream left wing parties, to join the fray. Pukallacta, Frente Patriótica de Liberación (FPL) and the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR-IV Etapa) have all dabbled in setting up guerrilla units. There are also many small cells which are insignificant nationally but can have importance at the grassroots level.
At different junctures in the past, some groups within Izquierda Unida began preparation for armed struggle or simply took defensive measures should they become targets for attack by Sendero, the armed forces, the police or right wing death squads. If a coup occurred, the most radicalized IU factions would probably go underground and start guerrilla activities. The youth wing of APRA, influenced by radical Marxist thinking and the party's own history, would probably follow suit. Military sources say that this potential for a wholesale civil war has been a dissuasive factor among malcontent officers tempted to overthrow the García administration.
Although the Peruvian army has a reputation for being one of the most progressive and social heterogeneous in Latin America, it does not have a clear political vocation, aside from a fascist faction within the Navy. On the other hand, the experience of the past six years of active duty in the emergency zone is changing attitudes. The reform-minded officer corps of the Velasco regime is giving way to officers whose formative experience has been fighting Sendero "with their hands tied behind their backs," as some officers say.
The Peruvian armed forces was reticent to get involved in fighting Sendero. It had just come out of 12 years of authoritarian rule which had damaged the chain of command and pool of officer talent. It had lost popular support and self-esteem. It was ill-prepared for an internal war, having concentrated over the previous decade on purchasing sophisticated weaponry to defend against a hypothetical two-front war against Chile and Ecuador. Although the army had successfully confronted a guerrilla insurgency in the mid-1960s, most of its counterinsurgency plans were stale, being based on the French school of tactics (Algeria and Indochina).
Since 1983, the military has played a leading role in the fight against Sendero and, later, MRTA. However, it has been difficult to evaluate what the military really think about the conflict. The army continues to believe that a maximum application of firepower will defend the insurgents, but the government does not let them. Probably a majority of the officer corps supports a Southern Cone strategy, with no questions asked.
|
"The military, as Brian Jenkins has noted, does not believe it has be `out-proselytized, out-mobilized, or out-fought,' but rather thinks it has been `unreasonably constrained and unjustly criticized' for doing what is necessary to stem the tide of the insurgency." (McCormick 1990, 44, citing unpublished RAND research.)
The Peruvian armed forces has a conscript-based military service, though recruits usually come from the lower classes. Middle and upper class youths easily get an exemption. This imposes several constraints on military tactics. Recruits from the Ayacucho emergency zone do not serve in battalions operating in the same region for fear of infiltration. Coastal and jungle recruits serve in the Sierra. This introduces ethnic, linguistic and cultural distinctions in the relationship between troops and the location populace. Urban soldiers look down on the Sierra Indians. They are ill-prepared for the hardships of operating in high altitude combat zones, with poor supply lines and inefficient logistical support. However, troops in the Huallaga come from the zone itself and perform more adequately.
In the training of the officer corps, there is a sharp distinction between officers rank of colonel and below and those officers groomed for general. The standard instruction and education follows the school of a black and white world -- Christians versus Communists, United States versus the Soviet Union. For officers with superior commands in their future, the armed forces offers intensive courses in the Center for High Military Studies (Centro de Altos Estudios Militares-CAEM). There the chosen few are given a political veneer and a more sophisticated vision of the world. This separation in professionalization processes explains why line officers do not have the capacity to discern political nuances among left-leaning groups and institutions.
"If Peru's anti-guerrilla experience over the past eight years accurately reflects the views, doctrine, capabilities, and constraints that shape current planning, the army has little appreciation for the dimensions of the problem it faces, little interest in or understanding of the principles of counterinsurgency, insufficient means to conduct a successful unconventional campaign, and no prospect of improving its material position in the foreseeable future. It performance has suffered accordingly." (McCormick 1990: 33)
The 86,000-strong National Police Force has had to carry the brunt of counterinsurgency in non-emergency zone areas and also play a subordinated role to the armed forces in emergency zones. It suffers from the rivalries among the three former police services -- Guardia Civil, Guardia Republicana and Policia de Investigación Peruana (PIP). The García administration combined the three services in a national forces, but has not overcome grudges and administrative turf divisions inherent in the division.
Up until the late 1980s, the police did not have specialized units for counterinsurgency operations. An infamous unit, known by its Quechua name, Sinchi, was nothing more than a grouping of recent graduates of the Mazamari training camp in the Central Sierra jungle. Sendero's tactic of assassinating policemen, frequently when off-duty or after their duty service in emergency zones, has brought severe tension on rank-and-file policemen.
The street-corner cop is poorly paid, making less than $100 a month. He has the equivalent of a secondary education, plus a year's training. Until 1985, police received only six months training.
The 1979 Peruvian constitution allows the Executive to declare a state of emergency for 60 days, renewable thereafter. It suspends four constitutional guarantees: the prerequisites of a search warrant to enter a private dwelling and to make an arrest, and the freedoms of movement within the national territory and of public meeting. Under a state of emergency, the Executive may also hand over the safeguarding of public order to the Armed Forces. Indeed, there may be a secret 1963 decree which automatically hands over authority to the military. If social unrest worsens, the government may also declare a state of siege. No government has invoked this second provision. (García Sayán 1987) However, once the government sets up a state of emergency, security forces interpret this authorization as a complete suspension of legal guarantees.
The first time the government invoked this faculty was in October, 1981. Since 1983, it has become, for all matters, permanent in Ayacucho. Both the Belaúnde and García governments have declared the whole country under a state of emergency on several occasions. By end-1989, eight departments were under state of emergency (Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Apurímac, Junín, Cerro de Pasco, Huanuco, San Martin and Ucayalí. There are also several provinces, like metropolitan Lima and Callao.
This measure has practical implications for GSOs. Because the military has the authority to restrict free transit and public meetings, the army has interpreted this as a mandate to monitor GSOs in emergency areas (as well as human rights investigators and relief assistance by international organizations). In Ayacucho, two GSOs had their authorization to go into the countryside suspended, though both eventually regained it.
However, since early 1989, army troops have taken up positions and patrolled areas that are not under state of emergency. For instance, in southern Cajamarca and Puno, commanders say that they have authority to seek and engage guerrilla units in their area and even follow them into other military jurisdictions. This trend increased in the later half of 1989 as the armed forces had to guarantee November municipal elections. This status will continue through April general elections and the July hand-over of office.
The declaration of a state of emergency produces a subordination of civilian institutions to military authority. Although the judicial system and government supposedly continue functioning, the military commander becomes ultimate decision-maker. Because civilian elites already fear for their property and lives, they seek security in the military. This forces a recomposition of the system of prestige and power, an additional polarization between haves and have-nots. From the choice of godfathers to potential husbands for daughters, the military take priority.
Where there is more economic activity, counterinsurgency becomes a business contract with local interests. A commander provides protection in exchange for use of vehicles, provisioning and even cash payment. This practice is clear in Puno where police unit provide protection for the remaining associative enterprises (Pisoconi and Santa Rosa in Melgar province, Sollocota in Azángaro and Aricoma in Carabaya) (IDL 1990,50). In the Central Sierra, army and police have built up a relationship with mining companies. During the 1989 national mining strike, military activity was aimed at breaking the strikers' back rather than fighting off the guerrillas.
Security forces, both police and the armed forces, are rotated regularly. These duty tours vary from three months to a year. This means that they rarely have an in-depth knowledge of the zone. They view centers as outsiders, even though they may have been there 20 years. Most centers and their staffs have internalized this facet since they expect periodic brushes with the law enforcement agencies as part of "getting to know each other."
The raw recruits just want to make it through their two-year hitch in the service and then get out. Most army troops come from coastal urban areas, adding a racial and ethnic component to their relationship with the locals in the Sierra. Few officers speak Quechua. "For the officers, it's a world they don't understand and fear," says an Ayacucho GSO worker. "It is easier to lump everyone together as a suspected Senderista than start to make distinctions."
In periods of tension and conflict, the military officers and police are quick to accuse the GSOs as being troublemakers or even the legal arm and logistical apparatus of Sendero. In their eyes, GSO projects (and even bilateral or multilateral development programs) are voluntarily or involuntarily agents of communism. Their best option, the military say, would be to leave the zone and clear the way for the army to do its dirty work without uncomfortable witnesses. The military cannot understand why foreigners (or university-educated outsiders) would want to work with backward Indians -- they have to be communists and sympathizers of Sendero.
In a cross between feudal fiefdoms and caste solidarity, local commanders have leeway in carrying out counterinsurgency strategy. An active military officer says, "The rules for respecting local authorities and human rights are in the regulations for emergency zone operations. It depends on the commanding officer and his personality to enforce them." As long as they do not break internal rules, they can improvise, from organizing sports events for local youth to dismantling all grassroots organizations which do not swear allegiance to the army. There has been only a scattering of reporting on this facet. Usually, human rights groups are able to determine which commanders are hardliners because complaints of abuses and disappearances start piling up for a specific zone. Sometimes, a "good officer" will find his way into press reports because he organizes community action programs.
Most of the corruption is petty -- using the petty cash box for purchases that are overpriced or never made (Large-scale military corruption comes from contraband and materiel purchase). However, the military top brass fears the corrupting influence of the drug trade. The commanding officer of the Upper Huallaga zone in 1984-85, General Carbajal, was drummed out of the service because of drug-related charges. In early 1990, three officers were court-martialled for drug trafficking and the regional commander of the Huallaga was relieved of his duties.
There is a structural abuse drilled into the soldiers and officers. They regard the "cholos" as second-class citizen, as guerrilla sympathizers, if not outright combatants. Other types of abuses, like torture or extrajudicial executions, require special initiative which usually depends on the commanding officer.
Anyone who wants to get ahead in his career does not take risks. The risk-takers end up like "Comandante Camion," a Marine officer who headed up the bloodiest repression in exile in Panama, but no chance to make general or president. There are few who stick out their necks on the other side of the counterinsurgency spectrum, like breaking out of the hawkish, bit conformist mold imposed by military training. "In this kind of war, it is enough not to lose to win in one's military career," says a GSO staff member who has observed the military close up.
General Alberto Arciniega, the commander of the Upper Huallaga theater of operations in 1989, is an exception which confirms the rule. He succeeded in reversing Sendero's advances in the valley through an aggressive military offensive, an outspoken political stance and an attempt to reach out to the local coca growers for support. He accomplished this reversal at the cost of human rights abuses in the zone, though less than might have been expected due to the scale of the operations. However, since being rotated out of the command at end-1989, he has been confined to a bureaucratic post in the Ministry of Defense.
The first action of the Rodrigo Franco Democratic Command (CFR) was the assassination of Manuel Febres, the defense lawyer of Senderista leader Osmán Morote, in July, 1988. The name was taken from a young Aprista leader, president of a state company, who Sendero assassinated in August, 1987. Over the next year, further assassinations, attacks and threats were attributed to Rodrigo Franco Command. CRF offered a flag of convenience for disgruntled individuals and groups to hide behind. In Ayacucho, the army used it as a means of intimidating the local population. (Instituto de Defensa Legal 1989)
However, there was already a record of paramilitary groups, closely linked to APRA. In Puno, GSOs, the Catholic Church, parliamentarians and other organizations received attacks and threats in 1986 and 1988. The national police force, the Ministry of Interior and the Attorney General's Office have shown scarce interest in resolving most of the crimes linked to the Rodrigo Franco Command. Military sources say that some CRF incidents show access to police intelligence.
A congressional inquiry led to a minority report charging that Rodrigo Franco Command had direct links to the Ministry of Interior, the National Police Force and APRA. It also charged that the Rodrigo Franco Command was responsible for the assassination of IU deputy Eriberto Arroyo and perhaps APRA deputy Pablo Li in April 1989. The majority report shrugged off the evidence.
Although it may seem contradictory, APRA suffers from pulls from two directions. MRTA and even Sendero in some areas pull on its youth wing. The para-military formula attracts its party strong-arm elements (bufalos and defense groups), strongly influence by 40 years of anti-communism and goon tactics to keep control of popular organizations. A source close to the military says that they have identified 75 armed groups within APRA, attached to the party, government or public entities to provide supplementary protection.
Paramilitary groups constitute a threat potentially more dangerous than Sendero for many GSOs. They operate in urban areas and target individuals and organizations that might appear to have left wing sympathies, not necessary for subversive groups. These include human rights organizations, unions, regional defense fronts and grassroots organizations. They open an even wider breach in law enforcement because it encourages disgruntled military and police officers to bypass the insufficiencies of the justice system. Its actions aim to deliver messages to a broader public so available targets serve that purpose as well as true subversives.
In periods of social and political upheaval, criminal activities are bound to rise, both out of the necessity to survive and through a breakdown of ethics and moral standards and of effective governance and law enforcement. In parts of the country, banditry and highway robbery have broken out. A frequently criminal practice has been extortion, using the pretext of belonging to armed groups, to demand war taxes or other payments.
Drug trafficking poses a major threat to the country. The growing of coca has been a traditional activity of Andean peasants for millennium. Due to the colonization efforts in the 1960s and 1970s, the government opened up large areas of the Andean jungle foothills. By the mid-1970s, coca growing for illegal trafficking gained a foothold and quickly expanded. By the 1985, trafficking and its criminal repercussions took on epidemic proportions, augmented by the involvement of Colombian mafia. During its deepest on-the-ground involvement, the Colombian mafia has arrayed an arsenal and manpower far above those held by either the government or insurgent forces.
Drug trafficking has concentrated in the Upper Huallaga valley where GSOs have not been active. However, it is also prevalent in the tropical valleys of the Marañon, Apurimac, Urubamba and Tambopata rivers, as well as Ene, Tambo, Perené, Pichis, and Palcazu rivers in the central Amazon. For that matter, the hardy coca plant is adaptable to all the tropical eastern slopes of the Andes and will also grow in other settings as well.
Both Sendero Luminoso and MRTA have developed working relationships with cocaine growers and the intermediaries of the Colombian mafia. The coca-growing complex in the Huallaga valley reveals a facet of Sendero's practices. The main contradiction in rural areas is the conflict between growers and purchasers of their produce. The Colombia mafias enforced their prices through armed violence. In the Huallaga valley, neither the State or a truly free market could intervene to moderate prices because the growing and merchandising of coca is illegal and penalized. Government and police authorities lost legitimacy because they were easily corrupted and colluded with the mafia. Abuses by authorities (theft and extortion) could not be appealed to the government because most coca growers engaged in an illegal activity.
Sendero, which already considers itself outside bourgeois law, stepped in to mediate this contradiction between growers and buyers by applying a superior violence. This authority, which combines a monopoly of violence and the administration of justice, also acquires the right to charge taxes for its services. What we are seeing take place in the Huallaga is the installation of a new state in its most primitive form (De Remetería 1989, 372-4).
In 1982-83, Sendero tried to enforce a similar function by closing down the Sunday fairs in Ayacucho, blocking access to urban markets. This was one of the reasons that many campesinos lost their allegiance to Sendero. They needed the market. The recourse was too extreme. In the Huallaga, Sendero found a more pragmatic, effective means of moving campesinos over to its side.
Both Sendero and MRTA have opened up new areas to coca cultivation, even imposing obligatory coca acreage on farmers and peasants who did not want to grow. This development may be due to the guerrillas' recognition that they can only maintain financial independence by guaranteeing that local residents have sufficient income to pay "war taxes" and other contributions as well as pushing the local populace outside the legal order.
This relationship with coca growing and trafficking is perhaps one of the more menacing features of the Peruvian insurgency because of its virulent nature. It is hard to conceive of Sendero spreading to Bolivia, Ecuador or Venezuela as a political phenomena. The Sendero-cocaine partnership, however, has more potential to take root in other Andean-tropical settings.
