Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 01:58:03 EST Subject: Book review on Sendero Luminoso Book review MC45 for the Maoist Internationalist Movement The Washington Papers: Sendero Luminoso and the Threat of Narcoterrorism by Gabriela Tarazona-Sevillano with John B. Reuter Praeger Publishers with The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) 1990 This book is "intended to meet the need for an authoritative, yet prompt, public appraisal of the major developments in world affairs." From the Foreword: "... with the recent disengagement of the Soviet Union, Senderistas are convinced that they have become the vanguard for world Communist Revolution. "It is Sendero's links to the international drug trade, however, rather than its radical Maoist doctrine that make it a major source of concern to the United States.... "Professor Tarazona-Sevillano is supremely qualified to write about Sendero Luminoso. ... Her intimate understanding of Peruvian society and politics and her objective, dispassionate analysis makes this an invaluable study for students of low-intensity conflict, the drug war, and Latin America, as well as for all Americans concerned about armed conflict in a changing international system."(p. ix; by David E. Long, U.S. Coast Guard Academy) For the most part, the Washington Papers' public appraisal of the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP) is an accurate description of the party, its program, strategy and tactics and relations with the masses, interspersed with baseless ideological obfuscation. MIM calls it baseless because it has no grounding in the facts. The mission of the book--to prove that the U.S. is fighting a war on drugs in Peru, and that the PCP is a power in the international drug trade worthy of such an effort--is unfulfilled. What can you do when the evidence just isn't there to be found? Fortunately, no reader has to look further than this book to find the facts that disprove the imperialist dogma. Tarazona-Sevillano has done all the work for us--providing the history to disprove her own analysis--and we're grateful. Sendero Luminoso and the Threat of Narcoterrorism is a quick, easy read on why the PCP has such support from the Peruvian people, and why the imperialists are ultimately paper tigers in the face of the masses' strength. Bureaucrats or revolutionaries? The book has seven sections: History, Ideology and Goals, Strategy, Organization, Government Response, Narcoterrorism and a conclusion. Tarazona-Sevillano introduces the section on organization calling the PCP "an intellectually-based, hierarchical insurgency."(p. 54) Two pages later, she notes that "the Sendero leadership has wisely recognized that local people are better able ... to assess potential targets ... than members of the national leadership, who may or may not have visited the area. Hence, the National Central Committee allows the regional commanders a considerable sphere of autonomy."(pp. 56-58) In other words, enemies like to claim that the PCP is authoritarian, isolated from the masses and Peruvian politics. But in reality the PCP has a more flexible, resilient structure which makes it a difficult enemy for the "sluggish ... top-heavy command structure" of the Peruvian military to find and destroy.(p. 58) On the question of gender oppression, Tarazona-Sevillano can only document the work of the PCP in eliminating sex-based differences in party and military work--e.g., the important posts women hold in the party, and the fact that the PCP consistently works to recruit more women and put them in positions of power--and hope that the fact that this work happens in the context of such an evil movement as the PCP's will discredit it. (pp. 76-78) Whoa, that ain't communism The section on PCP-SL ideology is difficult to get through. Tarazona-Sevillano attacks the PCP in the typical fashion of reactionaries: she tries to explain how Gonzalo Thought stands out as an evolution of Marxism, but she does not have a clear understanding of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought (MLMZT). She refers to communism and socialism as the same thing throughout the book, which is probably the source of her statement that Gonzalo Thought calls for a direct leap into communism without an intermediary stage. Communists since Marx have recognized the need for socialism as the historical stage which follows capitalism and precedes communism. Mao developed the theory that socialism is the stage in which a new bourgeoisie--gaining strength out of its direct access to the means of production through state power-- would attempt to seize power from the masses. This struggle, between the masses and the genuine communists who are only the servants of the masses, and between the revolutionary masses and the new bourgeoisie is the Cultural Revolution. Maoists (like Gonzalo) recognize the importance of eliminating all remnants and new forms of capitalism before true communism (statelessness, propertylessness, the end of all power of groups over groups) can be realized. Gonzalo and the PCP do call for New Democratic Republics--base areas which are self-sufficient, building socialism, and ready to defend themselves against the imperialists. Real terrorists and parasite junkies Terazona-Sevillano's analysis of the struggle between the Peruvian government and the PCP includes both a measure of the violence ("for every member of the government forces killed in 1983, an average of 37 civilian deaths occurred ... indicative of the government forces' heavy reliance on violent tactics," and a comparative study of how to organize an effective peasant fighting force.(p. 91) The anti- terrorist laws in Peru (the first of which was enacted in 1981) made it legal for the government forces to arrest, imprison and kill anyone outside the circle of government officials and active supporters. In addition to using the anti-terrorist laws in its attempt to dismantle the PCP, the government has worked on establishing its own local units in the countryside. It does this by taking apart local structures and relocating, mixing and matching defense committee members from different villages. Peasants are forced to work with people they don't know and may or may not be able to trust politically. The PCP builds on local political organizations, helping peasants to organize for self-sufficiency within established structures, and with the people they have been working with all their lives. After trotting out the standard fare about the PCP being in bed with the Medellin family and the tremendous brutality the party inflicts on the people for the sake of a few drug dollars, Tarazona-Sevillano admits that there is one alliance the PCP holds in the drug trade: protecting the small farmers from traffickers. She goes on claiming that in reality the PCP serves to protect the traffickers, through "disciplining" the growers and protecting trade routes. Yet these two tactics are directly contradictory--either the PCP is protecting the growers from the traffickers or it is oppressing the growers for the benefit of the traffickers-- eenie, meenie ... Tarazona-Sevillano appeals to the idea that maybe the PCP would put away its ideology (not to mention the theory and practice of self-reliance which have gotten it into a position where it can attack the capital city of Peru) "by explaining that narcotics contribute to the corrosion and demoralization of the 'Yankee imperialists.'"(p. 118) To do this she ignores the depth of the PCP ideology she has described and its manifestations in practice.