Re: Khmer Rouge? Huh?

[Justin Schwartz <jschwart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Matt asks me whether I condemn revolutionary violence. The answer is, not
in any unqualified manner. I supported the Sandinista revolution, the FLMN
war in in El Salvador, and the ANC's argmed struggle against apartheid.
Where peaceful measures are impossible, violence has a reasonable chance
of success, and the alternatives to violence are worse (e.g., submission
to horrific injustice or state sponsored violence), and finally where the
prospect of doing better than the status quo is nonneglible, I think
violence can be justified. In extreme circumstances I would even support
violence that had no chance of success, as in the Warsaw Ghetto rising.

All that said, violence does need both justification and limitation.
Killing people is ugly and it's not to be resorted to lightly. Moreover
the scope of violence should be constrained. I disagree with Paul that
there are no moral limits on what can be done in armed conflict but those
of expediency. Torture of prisoners, mass execution of civilian hostages,
killing of political opponents who also oppose the regime, these things
are not acceptable.

Now as to Peru. I'm no expert on Latin America, but from what I know,
which is mainly what I read in NACLA Reports (the North American Congress
on Latin America), two things seem to be the case. (a) The Fujimora govt
is a reasonable target for an armed rebellion that satisfies minimal moral
constraints on the use of violence, and (b) the Senderistas are not that
rebellion. NACLA has had several issues on them and the Khmer Rouge
analogy was suggested by several rights in those issues. I don't believe
that the Senderista conduct of the war is justifiable and I think they
would put a repressive and murderous dictatirship in power if they were to
win.

--Justin

On Mon, 5 Feb 1996, Matt D. wrote:

> Justin wrote:
>
> >And of course with the Senderistas one has to wonder about the justice of
> >their cause. Their conduct of the war and their ideology suggest that they
> >are Latin America's answer ti the Khmer Rouge.
>
> Bracketing, for the moment, what general conclusions we should reach from
> our study of the Cambodian/Kampuchean experience, what _specifically_
> about the PCP's "conduct of the war and their ideology" suggests to you that
> "they are Latin America's answer to the Khmer Rouge"?
>
> Devoid of any explication, this is a statement w/out meaning.  Or rather, it
> is a
> statement the meaning of which is exhausted by its political function, which 
> is
> to join the bourgeoisie in its condemnation of revolutionary violence.
>
> Presumably your goal is not to be a cheerleader of reaction, so please offer
> some details that we can engage with here.
>
> -- Matt D.
>
>
>
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