More Questions on the Peruvian Revolutions

[Kevin Cabral <kcabral@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

        I would appreciate being briefed on some of the factions involved,
and where their politics are. And I would also appreciate a history of
this revolution. Plus any reaction to the ridiculous sounding article
which was syndicated in many papers, including the right-wing Columbus
Dispatch. Here are some clips from the article:

        Please clarify me on what is really going on in Peru, as the
reactionary who wrote this piece seems to have little first-person
knowledge himself about it, my questions and comments in paranthesis:

-
American Jailed in Peru deserves little sympathy

        Human rights groups and legal-aid societies have taken up the
cudgels for Lori Berenson, the 26 yr. old New Yorker sentenced to life in
prison for hooking up with a terrorist group in Peru.

        But it is hard to sympathize with her plight.

        Berenson was a sandalista, one of those starry-eyed left-wing
idealists who thought she could help Latin America's poor by waging
revolution.

(Oh how I despise the bourgeoisie media)

        Peru is not the United States. It is a land of rich coastal
cities, appaling poverty in the Indian villages of the Andean highlands
and unspeakable savagery on both sides of a guerrila war which has killed
30,000 people in the past 15 years.

        Two insurgant groups appeared to be winning until President
Alberto Fujimori assumed dictatorial powers in 1992. Sendero Luminoso, the
Maoist Shining Path, was terrorizing Incan peasants while its smaller
urban cousin the MRTA specalized in bombings, bank robberies, kidnappings,
and assasinations in Lima, the capital.

(I'm not sure I understand this, aren't the MRTA and the Shining Path both
waging some sort of communist revolution. Why would they slaughter the
peasants?)

        Two years into his precidency, Fujimori dismissed Parliment,
suspended the constitution, picked his own legislature and issued a
Draconian set of anti-terrorism decrees that gave the army free rein
against both guerrillas and more peacable dissidents.

        His methods were not pretty, but they worked. Shining Path and the
MRTA were virtually decapitated with most of their leaders killed or
jailed. Terrorism declined, particularly in Lima, and investor confidence
in Peru was restored.

        Although Western governments decried Fujimori's "constitutional
coup" his economic performance, and his undeniable popularity with
Peruvians stilled most criticism.

(I don't understand this article one bit, please clarify me. Earlier on
the author talks about the guerrila war against Fujimori, then says he is
undeniably popular. Then after discussion the absurb poverty claims a
strong economic performance. Someone please give me more information on US
imperialism in Peru, and the truth about how the people feel about their
dictator and his relations with US business interests)

        For, besides taking on the guerrillas, Fujimori also cut inflation
from 7600 percent to 20 percent, reversed a 2.6 oercent decline in GDP to
7 percent growth. And raised foreign-exchange reserves from zero to 2.5
billion. His achievements won him re-election last year and a 65 percent
approval rating, the highest of any Peruvian president.

(How much of this stuff is truth, were the elections honest? Were the
polls? The 'economic successes' how were they done, and at whose expense?)

        Human-rights groups have rightly complained that more than 1,000
innocent people have been unjustly convicted of terrorism by secret
military tribunals designed to mete out swift punishment rather than get
at the truth. Berenson would be deserving of help if she were one of these
innocents. But she is not.

(Does the US have any involvement or support of the current government,
what is the story wtih Berenson?)

        By her own account, Berenson lived and traveled with a Panamanian
arms dealer who supplied the MRTA with the tools to do murder. The house
they rented in a Lima suburb was stocked with guns and explosives. Two
terrorists and a policeman were killed in a shootout there just hours
after her arrest.

        In her angry and defiant confession, televised for all to see,
Berenson defended her colleagues as nonviolent revolutionaries rather than
terrorists.

        The State Department's annual terrorism review says the MRTA is
"responsible for more anti-US attacks than any other group in Latin
America." It goes after dplomats, businessmen, and missionaries.

        In other words, Berenson was helping her friends kill her fellow
Americans.

-
Holger Jensen is international editor of the Rocky Mountain News, Denver
-





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