FT on Harriet's Pissies

[quax@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

   Financial Times, May 13, 1996, p. 13.


   Shining Path wages flame war

   Simon Strong tracks the Peruvian communist guerrilla group
   to its Web site


   It was never easy to obtain official documents from Shining
   Path, the Peruvian guerrilla group which launched its war
   on the state in 1980. They had to be obtained from
   activists who tended not to be available for very long --
   death or asylum were usually just around the corner.

   Possession was also a risk. By 1992, after about 30,000
   lives had been lost in the war, the government's repression
   of the guerrillas had become so random and draconian that
   one man spent six months in jail as a suspected terrorist
   after being caught making a photocopy of my book on the
   subject.

   Last month, however, Shining Path launched a Web site on
   the Internet. The official documents of the Communist Party
   of Peru -- Shining Path's real name -- became instantly
   accessible worldwide. Distributors and readers alike need
   fear reprisals no longer.

   The Web site address arrived by e-mail in response to my
   own e-mail inquiry to a US pro-Shining Path magazine, New
   Flag, with whose address (lquispe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) I had
   in turn been provided by somebody close to the
   organization.

   Yet attempts to access the page through Compuserve failed.
   "Either Compuserve is denying access or it is being denied
   by the page," a hotline assistant said. After more
   consultation, he blamed the page format. He denied there
   was censorship.

   Netscape, however, proved no problem. Portraits of Marx,
   Lenin and Mao emerged like faded ghosts on to my aged
   black-and-white screen. Five buttons offered routes to
   "Frequently Asked Questions" about the "People's War", as
   well as to the party's documents in Spanish and English, to
   back issues of New Flag and information on "President
   Gonzalo" -- the nom de guerre of Shining Path's founder and
   leader, Abimael Guzman.

   For any analyst of the Peruvian guerrilla war, the Web site
   is a remarkable find. Party documents confirm, for
   instance, that Shining Path believes that Guzman's letters
   and videoed TV appearance in 1993 -- when, in an
   extraordinary jail cell volte face, he appeared to admit
   defeat and call for peace talks -- were an elaborate hoax.

   In the free-market fiesta of President Alberto Fujimori's
   Peru, such an interpretation of the incident is heresy.
   When I raised it on a radio news-show, the interviewer hung
   up. But woe betide Peru if it were right.

   However, not only does the Web site provide Shining Path
   with a means to combat the state's well-executed
   psychological warfare. It also has a more sinister side.
   The documents, turgid and propagandist as they are, convey
   neo-Maoist political guidelines to supporters worldwide.
   One page still under construction bears the ominous title
   "Instructions".

   Elsewhere on the Net, Shining Path activists engage in
   flame wars -- verbal lacerations -- that range from the
   farcical to the deadly. These occur mainly on Marxism
   discussion lists managed, it would seem by the address,
   from the University of Virginia in the US.

   "Harriet" is one of the main protagonists. Whether the
   discussions concern Shining Path's attitude to gay rights
   or "snitches" -- revisionists/informers -- Harriet bashes
   everyone with garrulous and articulate delight.

   Yet Harriet, who signs her letters with his real name,
   Adolfo Olaechea, goes beyond merely justifying the murders
   of leftwing Peruvian leaders. Those who defy Olaechea's
   perceived call to support the killing of Michel Azcueta, a
   district mayor in Lima who has survived several attempts on
   his life, are warned of the grim inevitability of Shining
   Path's final triumph and the retribution to come. "I was
   simply presenting an orthodox marxist point of view," says
   Olaechea.

   The marxism@virginia [as printed] discussion lists are
   high-volume. Within a week of my subscribing, Compuserve
   telephoned because my message basket was bloated and
   blocking up its system. To the infuriation of many
   participants, the lists are swamped by Harriet and his
   cohorts.

   According to Olaechea -- who in absentia has been sentenced
   to life imprisonment in Peru -- his country's intelligence
   service participates, too. "They sucked in messages on one
   Peru list in such a way that mine and others' were then
   lost in cyberspace," he says. "Also, they have used an
   account in Germany to send death threats in my name to try
   to create rifts."

   Although the high-velocity Net communication seems in
   itself to fan endless splits among Shining Path's
   international supporters, this is small consolation for
   Azcueta. Like the party's Web site, he could be hit
   anytime.

   [End]




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