Klassenstandpunkt: The Right Opportunist Line in Peru – a Gang of Traitors and Collaborators Who Want to Annihilate the People’s War

We publish this translation of one of the documents that was published by German comrades in ‘Klassenstandpunkt’ No. 20 along with other important documents, e.g. on imposing maoism or the reconstitution of the PCP. We consider the document on hand as of utmost importance in the very moment but also in the future.

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The Right Opportunist Line in Peru – a Gang of Traitors and Collaborators Who Want to Annihilate the People’s War

Following the announcement of the death of Chairman Gonzalo on September 11^th 2021, the International Communist Movement (ICM), and in particular the left within it, has given the world a powerful response to this assassination of the greatest Marxist-Leninist-Maoist of our time. Actions developed in many countries of the world, leading to an even greater unity, towards a United Maoist International Conference.

However, some sinister forces also raised their heads, trying to profit off of the death of Chairman Gonzalo and to proclaim to the world their black views by cynically using his assassination to create confusion and further delay the necessary General Reorganisation of the Communist Party of Peru. In the first place, it is the revisionist and capitulationist second right opportunist line (ROL). They structured themselves in the party after Chairman Gonzalo was taken as prisoner of war on September 12^th 1992, led by US imperialism (especially the CIA) and the Peruvian secret services. They were able to use a gang of traitors to blow up the Central Committeeⁱ and imprison, torture and murder many comrades, and the ROL willingly played and continues to play the “game”. The fact that these people are now trying to raise their heads again demands that proletarian revolutionaries everywhere step up the struggle against this revisionist brood.

However, with the rise of the new great wave of the world proletarian revolution, a number of new forces have also emerged who do not know the history of the struggle against the second ROL.ⁱⁱ In the FRG, there are many young revolutionaries new to the revolutionary movement who lack the fundamental knowledge to understand the present situation of the PCP and the People’s War in Peru and, consequently, to be able to distinguish between friend and foe in a complex situation. Therefore, it is more than necessary, as the basis of the struggle against the ROL, to once again handle the history and to expose these traitors again and again.

The Two-Line Struggle in the PCPPrior to Chairman Gonzalo’s Imprisonment as a Prisoner of War

Like nothing else in the world does, the right opportunist second and third linesⁱⁱⁱ did not come out of nowhere. It emerged as an echo of bourgeois ideology in the ranks of the party and especially in the Central Committee. This caused Marxist principles to be “sent to hell” and replaced by bourgeois views. Of course, it is difficult to fully understand the internal struggle of the party and especially of the Central Committee, because it is INTERNAL. However, it is possible to follow the two-line struggle in the party if one carefully studies the party documents.

The two-line struggle against the right opportunist positions of some party members began at the 1st Plenum of the CC in 1990. The two-line struggle here was mainly about the definition of the Strategic Equilibrium and against those who were against the position of Chairman Gonzalo. The plenum also decided to carry out an orientation campaign with the document “Elections, No! People’s War, Yes!” and it was subsequently carried out. The struggle in the party then intensified, especially in the 2nd and 3rd Plenum of the CC, i.e. in 1991/92. This was at a time when the seizure of power became a tangible and immediate prospect throughout the country. Thereafter, some members of the Central Committee began to discuss the distribution of ministerial posts in the newly emerging state. However, Chairman Gonzalo stipulated that no CC member would be given a post in the government of the new state, but that they would continue to work exactly as before so as not to corrupt themselves. This shows the echoes of bourgeois ideology and how the ideology of the proletariat was abandoned by some.

In the 2nd Plenum, Chairman Gonzalo states the following:

“As for the rectification campaign, let us embody that it is a way of waging the struggle and let us strive to apply it; let us remember that its aim is to unite, differentiate and lead, adjusting ourselves more to the Basis of Party Unity, applying that the slightest departure from Gonzalo thought would lead us to slip into revisionism; to prevent a right opportunist line from being structured in the Party, which would be revisionist and would entail four changes: change of Party, change of line, change of leadership and change of people’s war. Handle the agreed party documents, leave aside free interpretations and study what does not correspond to them.”^iv

Accordingly, it can be concluded. 1.) Before the 2nd Plenum the alignment campaign was carried out, which was decided at the 1st Plenum and then evaluated at the 2nd Plenum^v ; 2.) Chairman Gonzalo warns that a right opportunist line could be structured in the party, which would be revisionist; and 3.) this would bring changes in the party, the line, the leadership and the People’s War. This extract highlights some questions about the two-line struggle prevailing in the PCP at that time. For, on the one hand, a rectification campaign serves to combat and correct fundamental ideological and political problems in the life of the party and its work, which is also followed by a certain organisational expression.

This organisational expression or necessary development was embodied by the PCP at the time in “Three Fundamentals and Three Guidelines” as a simple formula:

“If we look at the ‘three fundamentals and the three points of reference‘, we have more evidence: ‘Strengthen the People’s Guerrilla Army, especially promote the main forces’, ‘Develop the New Power and build the open people’s committees’ and, at the top of the three, referring to the Party: ‘Consolidate the consolidation and forge the cadres’. We must also bear in mind ‘Prepare the strategic offensive by building the conquest of power’, because being in strategic equilibrium, is what the coming stage; our strategic offensive, will be built on.”^vi

Thus, these “Three Fundamentals and Three Guidelines” are an expression of the two-line struggle that emerged on the road to the conquest of power throughout the country. This two-line struggle was obviously directed against right positions in the party, which, however, at that time – due to the correct handling of the two-line struggle by Chairman Gonzalo – could not yet be structured into a right opportunist line. But these right positions already had at their core the change of line, party, leadership and people’s war, exactly these changes the second right opportunist line strived for. In addition, the second plenum also dealt with the problem of capitulation and its trilogy^vii to combat capitulationist tendencies.

The aforementioned “Three Fundamentals and Three Guidelines” and the perspective of conquering power throughout the country also demanded the need to militarise all the party’s work. But at the beginning of the 1990s, the work in the city was not completely militarised. In the 3rd Plenum^viii this issue is discussed:

“So how do we propose the Front in the yellow zones under the control of the Peruvian state? That can be seen in point 5, I repeat, the other is seen later, it is in another part. It says “In the zones occupied by the enemy or dominated… to follow the policy of, on the one hand, developing the united front to the maximum, and on the other, to keep the Party organisation clandestine and make it compact, select and effective”. Didn’t we talk about that before too, remember what we have seen in “construction”? It’s the same thing, you want to develop the broadest Front? Sure! Very well, then you have to think about keeping the organisation clandestine and while you open the Front, it is open, the Party is not, the Party is clandestine; and our Front is not going to have those characters of openness, it cannot, but in one way or another always the Party is secret and the Front is open, even if this Front has more or less clandestinity, more or less kind of openness or apparatuses that can come out according to the conditions, that tells us here; what we have seen before is what you put to us here.”^ix

The issue of militarisation is, of course, also analysed in the question of the development of the army in the city:

“b. People’s Guerrilla Army. Three forces. Main force. The problem of how to develop the main force, the local force and the base force in Lima poses the problem of this army in the city, and where is the problem? Developing structure, it is very important to develop this. We have already been discussing this with the Permanent and the Political Bureau, and these are things that we are not going to talk about now, why? Because when you communicate things that are not yet agreed and not mature enough, they can disturb, they are applied and things get crossed, it is not good. So, the problems of the structure that has to be developed, is confirmed by what we have been seeing in the other committees, that is, just as in the countryside also in Lima it is being expressed, so the structure that we have in the People’s Guerrilla Army must be developed, developed to a higher level of “integrated forces”.

Regarding the main force, the problem of selecting it for training without depriving the others of the best, that could not be the case, there is always a proportional distribution according to the needs of each force, you can’t concentrate all the best and leave in the Bases, in the base forces, in the local forces the not the best, you can never do that, it is a proportional distribution, there are never equal distributions, that is wrong, you have to see that linked to preparation and training; the main force, like any other force, has to be prepared and trained, in the same war? Agreed, because we are not going to put a main force for five months to prepare itself without taking action, it couldn’t be, but there has to be preparation, special training, but how it develops, it starts by having a stronger, more developed political level; it is a problem that exists.”^x

and

“The second part refers to the problems they face. The Committee has had a problem of construction for a long time and there is conservatism, so now we have to put these problems in a bigger perspective as problems of development. Here the most important thing is to build the Party for the conquest of power, which is about the leadership, which is the guide, which keeps the course: and in these words that we are putting (and it is good to keep in mind) here what is being put forward in our terms is the need to organise networks in Lima, which allow the work to be developed in all possible circumstances and in the hardest and most violent repression that comes, but this also requires considering a new type of much higher, more clandestine, more secret organisation in accordance with what we need. This is going to involve serious but important changes, to raise them at this time would not be convenient. Strengthening the army, especially the main force. If one compares the figures, it is really non-existent, apart from the problems it has had, the fact that it has fulfilled such and such issues does not imply that it is making progress. But this is a force that has been reduced to its minimum, it does not correspond to the quantity of the base forces or the local forces, and the fact that the local forces fulfill the functions of the main force without being the main force does not make sense. That’s why we say that these are problems of structure, what we need to focus on now is to strengthen the main force in particular, it has to grow urgently, otherwise it will become unbalanced and lead to serious problems for the army and the war.”^xi

Consequently, this meant that the cadres involved in legal work in particular, also including members of the Central Committee, had to leave their posts. So they had to get out of Lima, out of the “democratic organisations” and go to the countryside to lead the People’s War from there, as was determined at the same meeting:

“f. The problem of displacement. In order to transfer the centre to the city, it is necessary to promote and complete tasks in the countryside, and if we don’t have a more developed contingent? We need cadres for that, otherwise how will the problem of the transfer be solved? This task needs to be seen.”^xii

Opposition to the fulfillment of these tasks and to the steps necessary to prepare the party for the conquest of power throughout the country was immense in this body responsible for the work in Lima.

At the same time, there were also problems in the Cangallo-Fajardo Zonal Committee^xiii. In this committee the main forces were organised. This meant that a force that was originally organised at regional committee level was organised at zonal committee level. Thus, the revolutionary army grew totally out of proportion to the population of the area. Consequently, there was a militaristic criteria. But at the same time, conservatism showed itself in ambushes, and so no modern weapons were captured, since the main source of weapons was the reactionary armed forces. As a result, this relatively huge army, which was highly developed in some areas, could not take further steps due to militarism and conservatism in the matter of actions, which were necessary to develop the strategic equilibrium and to achieve the conquest of power in the whole country. There are also many references to this in the documents of the 3rd Plenum of the Party:

“For example, they disobey orders, others focus on personal attacks and seek revenge, others listen to wrong ideas and say nothing, they speak in the meeting without investigating, without asking questions, in short, they should read and study all this. For example, working undisciplined without a plan, isn’t that happening to you? Of course it is! This text is very important, all this is the same document, you should consider about rectifying the wrong ideas in the Party, complementing the quotations Chapter XXIV. This they have to see, the first part of the quote, urgent. It is peremptory that you must study it, this as part of the Committee’s specific Rectification Campaign. […]^xiv

You should start to identify, weed out and sweep away as much as possible the ideas alien to the Party, alien to M-L-M, Gonzalo Thought. That is what is in unity. We must apply the quotations about People’s War; there you find how to make the People’s War according to the position of the Party, according to the positions of the Proletariat; and making People’s War is our main task as communists in this country. Who prevents the war from expressing its power with alien ideas, with mistaken ideas that must be eradicated by the rectification campaign? Sweep away the alien ideas with the document “On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party.” So apply the rectification Campaign with the two documents that are part of one whole. It’s not a matter of study, one does not study what is wrong, the issue is to embody what is in conformity, so we can give power the People’s War, to arm the head in order to arm our hands; when one arms the mind, that is arming the hands to fight better.”^xv

and

“In the organisation of the Communist Party in the 4th Army Corps of the Red Army, there are various non-proletarian ideas which greatly hinder the implementation of the correct line of the Party. If these ideas are not definitely corrected, it will be impossible for the 4.ƒ Army Corps to take up the tasks entrusted to it by the great revolutionary struggle in China.” Mao Tse Tung, On the Rectification of Erroneous Ideas in the Party, 1929.

It seems to us to be very good and it suits our own reality, which is different, our own specific experience, our own experience must be seen clearly, otherwise we would make mistakes in our reality, there is the material basis, the great majority are from peasant backgrounds and others come from the petty bourgeoisie, very interesting. This is where the social roots lie…. This is therefore a good document, starting from the first question, which lists the errors, raises the solutions, and then you can look at this quote.

[…]

“What is the point… but do we think as it says here,” some comrades may say, but deep down, for example, “there are comrades who consider that there are opposing interests between the political and military problems”? Some comrades may say so, but deep down, for example, are there or are there not such problems? for example, they say, “there are comrades who consider political and military problems as opposing interests”, you see!So it’s not a problem that one says military problem at the top and political problem at the bottom, it’s not like that, but it is presented in opposition to the politics of the military, they present themselves there and refuse to recognise that the military is only one of the means […] they think that the Red Army, like the white army, has only one task, which is to fight, what happened to the main force in the zone? they are not degenerating into these criteria, here it is then, but the concrete has become in fact reduced to a single task […] “Purely military point of view”. Organisationally, they subordinate the organisation of the Red Army, in charge of political work, to those in charge of military work. Why doesn’t the political department of the army function in this committee? Why isn’t it like in other committees? Why doesn’t it work, and this is the first thing that should work, if not, how the control of the party is conceived in the PGA, how the absolute political leadership is exercised, how it is forged, how the course is imposed in the army, then I think it is right, apparently one thinks it is not like that, but appearance is one thing, this problem has to be solved (flying the Zonal Main Force).”^xvi

So in the city there was the contradiction, of pushing for militarisation and actually taking on the tasks of People’s War, and in the countryside there was militarism and conservatism. In the public part of the “Central Document”^xvii of the 3rd Plenum, there are also several allusions to these problems and the two-line struggle that developed and had to develop against them (including through the rectification campaign):

“We have to see how the comrades handle Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. There is empiricism, you have to see how to combat it; there are serious difficulties in this; there is a lot of subjectivism, a lot of individualism, it is a problem of ideology. In the Communist Party of China at one time they studied “On Practice” and “On Contradiction”, very important, because if you don’t know reality, how do you handle it, contradiction, if you don’t study it, how do you handle the leap? These are problems to think about, “Karl Marx” is Lenin’s text, some things Chairman Mao developed further, for example on contradiction.

[…]

The content of the Rectification Campaign must be construction. See the advisability of studying Lenin’s “Karl Marx”. The documents of the Great Culmination Rectification Campaign are three: l) Quotations from Chairman Mao on the People’s War; 2) Chairman Mao’s “On our policy” Volume II p. 461; 3) “On Party building” (Red Flag #46). Emphasising that all serve as a basis for the Sixth Plan and the Strategic Plan for Construction.

[…]

(2) they talk and talk and what do they do? understand elementary things, understand the specifics of the main thing. Some people are always on their toes, they prefer to repeat than to move their heads, out of right-wingism, deep down they don’t want war.

[…]

Thus the plan, the more it is handled the more it develops, the more initiative and the more weight the subjective capacity has, the more criteria for unitary work, the more the war needs more thought, we see so much localism, so much bastardised localism. Either war is understood as a great unity or some will fly away.”^xviii

This last statement, in particular, makes it clear that the party, with the Rectification campaign, intended to carry out a purge, which to some extent must always be the result of such a campaign. This provoked a corresponding response from those against whom this campaign was directed. Chairman Gonzalo was taken prisoner of war (we will return to these circumstances later) before the 3rd Plenum and the Rectification campaign could be concluded. As a result, Chairman Gonzalo was unable to continue his correct handling and development of the two-line struggle against the right opportunist positions. In the dungeons of reaction, many of the people representing these different right positions came together thanks to the deliberate planning of the secret services. There could the second ROL structure itself.

Chairman Gonzalo captured – “Success” of the Peruvian reaction?

We will continue to try to follow the events chronologically, even if this is not always easy, because many things that we know today – especially about the work of the secret services – only came to light many years later. Many things were not revealed to the world because they were officially released by the Peruvian government, but because of disputes between the different factions of the Peruvian ruling classes, which led to different journalists publishing certain information that was leaked to them.

Chairman Gonzalo was taken prisoner of war on 12 September 1992, which is important to clarify. Because soon after the “arrest” of Chairman Gonzalo, this term was used: “arrest”. As if Chairman Gonzalo was a common criminal, this term was used. But Chairman Gonzalo was captured as a prisoner of war. The Callao naval base was transformed by his struggle into a Shining Trench of Combat, the highest in the People’s War.

Chairman Gonzalo’s imprisonment is a result of direct action by and under the leadership of the CIA^xix. Although various Peruvian reactionaries want to chalk it up as their “success”, the action would never have been possible without direct CIA leadership, as part of the so-called “low-intensity war”. A 2000 Washington Post article describes in detail (but certainly not in full) how the CIA was directly involved in fighting the People’s War in Peru. We reproduce here a translation of the article in excerpts.

“It was an astonishing achievement for Peru’s police. “Superman” helped too.

“Superman” was the cops’ nickname for a tall, dark-haired American who, they thought, resembled actor Christopher Reeve, and who served as their main contact in the Central Intelligence Agency.

For months, Superman and personnel brought to Peru by the CIA had trained, equipped, financed and coached the detectives. When the cops needed cars, the CIA paid for them; when they found a Shining Path document in English, Superman translated.

And when police radioed headquarters with word of Guzman’s arrest, Superman was there to hear the news and join the celebration. Indeed, the US. government found out before Peru’s then-president, Alberto Fujimori, or his intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos^xx, did.

‘They were very close to us,’ Benedicto Jimenez^xxi, who commanded the special police unit, said of the CIA, adding: ‘I think that without that support, it would have been a bit difficult to get where we got.’

Reluctant as ever to discuss its relationships with foreign services, the CIA has permitted mention of its role only in one sentence of a 1996 report on intelligence reform. The agency declined comment for this article, which is based on interviews with current and former US. and Peruvian officials who, for the most part, spoke on the condition that they not be identified.

Helping catch Guzman, these sources concurred, was a CIA triumph. But the episode also sheds light on the agency’s murky relationship with Montesinos, whose alleged corruption and human rights abuses triggered a political crisis in Peru this year that forced both him and Fujimori from power.

Montesinos knew of the CIA’s role in Guzman’s capture. One former US. official said, “It could not have happened without his support.” Yet others familiar with the operation said Montesinos was a marginal – or disruptive – factor.

He backed a separate, secret Peruvian army intelligence unit tasked with killing the same Shining Path leaders the police were trying to arrest, according to US. and Peruvian officials.

[…]

Nevertheless, the CIA kept up its ties to Montesinos, whom it regarded as the rising power in the Fujimori government.

[…]

Peru’s National Police set up an anti-terrorism agency known by its Spanish initials, DINCOTE^xxii. But DINCOTE’s efforts too were brutal and self-defeating.

“Torture consisted of beatings, shock, dunking people in cold water,” recalled one US. official who served in Lima. “Nothing real high-tech. Nothing real useful either.”

Some DINCOTE agents even posed as terrorists and kidnapped civilians for ransom, according to former DINCOTE officials.

[…]

By early 1991, senior officials in the Bush administration were fretting that Peru might succumb to the guerrillas. Among US. intelligence analysts, said one former official, “it was essentially a competition game as to when Shining Path would be taking over. Some said three years, some said five.”

One of those most alarmed was Bernard Aronson, the Bush administration’s assistant secretary of state for Latin America.

[…]

To Aronson, this was a Latin American Khmer Rouge. Upon returning from Peru, he contacted the CIA’s clandestine division and urged it to help stop Shining Path. “If this concern has been a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10,” he told his CIA counterpart, “make it a 12.”

Officials involved saw no need for a presidential “finding” authorizing covert action because the CIA’s purpose would not be to influence or change the government in Peru, but to help it.

Knowledge of the program was closely held; even Aronson was briefed on its details only after Guzman had been captured. There does not appear to have been a prior briefing to Congress, though it also does not seem likely that many members would have objected.

[…]

Essentially free to chart its own course, the CIA turned to Jimenez’s group. Still short on resources, the group had made episodic progress, scoring its biggest success on Jan. 31, 1991, when it seized Shining Path documents, including proof that Guzman was still alive – a video of the guerrilla chief dancing at a party^xxiii.

Jimenez’s group also identified Shining Path’s logistics and financial chief for Lima. Tailed by the cops, he unwittingly led them to other cadres.

Tradecraft

By this time, the Peruvians needed help not only gaining information but also making sense of the data they had. To address both issues, the CIA set up what the police called an “academy” in DINCOTE headquarters.

CIA officers showed the detectives how to analyze, cross reference and classify documents. Together with an expert from Britain’s Scotland Yard, CIA personnel also taught the detectives how to conduct surveillance in disguise.

The agency hired Peruvian actors to help undercover officers play the part of, say, a street vendor or homeless schizophrenic. The CIA gave Jimenez’s detectives spy gear: telephoto cameras, listening devices, night-vision goggles and a video camera that could be concealed in a briefcase. And the agency rented cars so police could follow suspects from a variety of vehicles.

Occasionally, CIA officers stood behind two-way mirrors watching the police question suspects, then advised the Peruvians on their techniques, according to a former senior Peruvian police official.

Jimenez, believing more could be gained by interviewing suspects than by beating them, wanted an interrogation room where they might feel at ease. At his request, the CIA furnished it with living room furniture, Jimenez said.

Police videotape of the interrogation of Guzman and other Shining Path leaders shows them sitting at a round, wooden table; they chat with detectives dressed in white sweat shirts and blue jeans who politely serve coffee and cigarettes.

The CIA provided cash to buy meals for undersalaried detectives who frequently worked 12- or 15-hour shifts. By the time of the Guzman raid, the agency was supplying about $5,000 per month, according to former Peruvian police officials. With such support, the police unit expanded to 82 members by the time of the arrest.

The CIA also kept Montesinos informed of its aid to the police.

For example, the agency delivered cash to DINCOTE in Montesinos’s presence, according to a former senior Peruvian police official who witnessed this.

Montesinos was well known to the CIA. In the 1970s, as a captain on the staff of Peru’s leftist prime minister, he had been recruited to sell the agency military secrets.

Found out by his Peruvian bosses, Montesinos was cashiered and jailed. In the 1980s, he resurfaced as a lawyer for drug traffickers and police officials accused of drug-related corruption.

In 1990, he attached himself to Fujimori, helping the then-presidential candidate fix a tax evasion case. Fujimori installed Montesinos as de facto chief of Peru’s security apparatus.

Montesinos quickly reestablished contact with the CIA. In May 1991, about the time Aronson was urging the CIA to help catch Guzman, the agency hosted Montesinos at its Langley headquarters.

The CIA began training, funding and supplying an anti-narcotics unit inside the SIN^xxiv. Peruvian opposition members would later accuse Montesinos of using this unit to harass them.

In 1996, a captured Peruvian drug trafficker testified that he had been making $50,000 monthly protection payments to Montesinos since May 1991. The trafficker recanted in a second court appearance at which he appeared haggard and confused.

Yet even before the CIA stepped up its separate assistance to the hunt for Guzman in 1991, Montesinos knew what Jimenez’s cops were up to.

[…]

It was risky for Jimenez’s unit to clash with Montesinos. But, said a former senior police official, the unit’s link to the CIA gave it a certain autonomy.

‘It would have been harder without the support of the CIA to break with the SIN,’ the official said.

Montesinos also made subtler attempts to penetrate DINCOTE. In early 1991, he appointed Gen. Antonio Ketin Vidal, then working for him at the SIN, as the No. 2 official at the anti-terrorist police. Later that year, Montesinos promoted Vidal to the top spot.

The CIA supported Vidal’s ascent, says a former US. Embassy official, because the agency had been persuaded both that he was competent and that the prior DINCOTE chief, Gen. Hector Jhon Caro, was to blame for cash missing from the police payroll.

[…]

On April 5, 1992, Fujimori seized nearly absolute power in a military-backed “self-coup” planned by Montesinos.

While popular among Peruvians desperate for order, the move undermined Peru’s legitimacy abroad and permitted Shining Path to recast its war as a fight against dictatorship.

The Bush administration cut off overt US. aid to Peru. Nevertheless, Washington continued the covert CIA effort.

[…]

Endgame

Amid the deepening chaos, pressure on Jimenez’s unit increased. On June 22, 1992, Jimenez decided to arrest the Shining Path logistics and financial chief. Confronted in the CIA-furnished interrogation room with surveillance photos and videotapes, the man gave police a detailed confession, including two key facts: He had recently seen Guzman in Lima, and he knew of a house just rented for Shining Path leaders.

CIA trainers had urged their Peruvian charges to sift for clues. With the newly identified safehouse under surveillance, police officers disguised as sanitation workers began picking up the garbage left outside.

A male architect and female dance instructor were the home’s only visible occupants. The trash, though, told a different story.

The first clue was five different kinds of discarded hair. Further investigation produced evidence that Guzman himself might be in the house.

One day’s trash yielded a medicine package Superman helped identify as a Swedish ointment for psoriasis, from which Guzman was known to suffer.

Also, Superman identified a part of a label from a bottle of Absolut vodka, known to be Guzman’s brand.

Then came empty cartons of Winston Lights, Guzman’s favorite smokes, and fish bones, evidence that someone in the house ate a low-fat diet like the one Guzman followed, notwithstanding his taste for tobacco and alcohol.

This fortified Jimenez’s belief that, when he finally ordered a raid, his men would find Guzman.

Yet when the moment came, neither he nor the CIA knew for sure. In fact, as Jimenez tells it, the Americans were surprised to learn he had ordered the raid. Vidal had assured them it was still two weeks away.

When Superman and another American confronted him, Jimenez explained his decision with a line from Emerson: “Trust thyself.”

And once Guzman was in custody, all was forgiven. The CIA station chief in Lima, who previously had left contact with the police up to Superman, appeared at DINCOTE headquarters with two celebratory bottles of whiskey.

Today, Jimenez says he kept the agency – and his own Peruvian superiors – in the dark to avoid “interference.” As US. officials recall it, DINCOTE feared that, if Montesinos found out before the public that Guzman had been captured, then either his SIN or the army would try to snatch the prisoner and kill him.

Everyone realized a political windfall would accrue to whoever could claim credit for getting Guzman. Money was at stake too: the government posted a $1 million reward for Guzman, “dead or alive.”

The US. Embassy feared a murder would make a martyr of “Presidente Gonzalo.” It could also have besmirched the CIA.

In the end, US. officials say, it was Vidal who thwarted a possible “disappearance.” Showing “real courage,” one US. official said, Vidal declined to play the role of Montesinos’s man, and instead got word to the Peruvian media that Guzman had been captured alive.

[…]

State Department officials favored keeping a distance from a figure they believed to be involved in human rights violations. Despite Montesinos’s purge of the CIA’s proteges, the agency wanted to maintain ties with him. ‘Those were conflictive years in Peru with the agency,’ recalled a State Department official.

The Colina Group ‘was Montesinos’ baby,” said another former US. diplomat. ‘Courageous Peruvians were telling us about it, and the CIA was constantly slapping down any suggestion that Montesinos was responsible for it.’”^xxv

Understanding that the CIA directed the war capture of Chairman Gonzalo from the beginning is important to understanding subsequent events, how Yankee imperialism, the Peruvian reaction, and the ROL traitors are closely linked in the fight against the Party and the People’s War. Because for this common purpose, the ROL also works till this day using secret intelligence methods. It is also central to understand that with the self-coup of Alberto Fujimori on April 5, 1992, Yankee imperialism directly took the lead over the counterrevolutionary war. The coup dissolved parliament and thus eliminated it. Thus, APRA^xxvi, which had previously been in the majority in parliament and represented another faction of the Peruvian ruling classes, could no longer obstruct Fujimori’s machinations by subjecting him to “parliamentary control”. Thus, all projects to combat the People’s War could be carried out undisturbed by parliament. Fujimori’s re-creation of a “Democratic Constituent Congress” did not change this. Yankee imperialism officially ended all military and economic aid after the self-coup, EXCEPT for the alleged counter-narcotics aid (military) and the so-called components of “low-intensity warfare”. However, after two weeks, the US. government under George H.W. Bush changed its mind and recognized Peru’s freshly elected autocrat as a legitimate representative.

“Low-intensity warfare” and Psychological Warfare

In order to better understand the execution of the “anti-subversive war” in Peru by the United States, it is necessary to become familiar with the conception that Yankee imperialism has of this type of intervention. The so-called “low intensity warfare”, also called “low intensity conflict”^xxvii, is the conception that US imperialism has drawn up as a result of the defeats it has suffered, including in Vietnam. In a 1990 US military field manual^xxviii, LIC is defined in the glossary as follows:

“Low intensity conflict is a political-military confrontation between contending states or groups below conventional war and above the routine, peaceful competition among states. It frequently involves protracted struggles of competing principles and ideologies. Low intensity conflict ranges from subversion to the use of armed force. It is waged by a combination of means, employing political, economic, informational, and military instruments. Low intensity conflicts are often localized, generally in the Third World, but contain regional and global security implications.”^xxix

The introduction further narrows the term:

“The term low intensity conflict reflects an American perspective. Indeed, the term is a misnomer. To peoples more directly affected, the threat is immediate and vital. To us, it is subtle, indirect, and long-term; but potentially it is just as serious. The actions which take place in low intensity conflict are distinguishable from those in conventional war, more by differences in kind, than by degree of intensity.”^xxx

US imperialism applies the concept of “low intensity warfare” in different areas. One of the main areas is counter-insurgency. But also, for example, in the preparation phase of the open intervention in Afghanistan, the concept of LIC was initially used. In this case, counter-insurgency was not carried out, but, on the contrary, insurgent forces were incited against the ruling regime, which is also described in the field manual cited here. But what we are mainly interested in here is how US imperialism directs regimes in counterinsurgency and “counter-terrorism”. How the US can “support” these “host nations” in doing so is also covered:

“Operations by US forces in support of a host nation conducting counterinsurgency include:

– Intelligence operations.

– Joint-combined exercises.

– Civil-military operations, including CA and PSYOP.

– Humanitarian or civic assistance.

– Logistical support operations.

– Populace and resources control operations.

– Counter-drug operations.

– Tactical operations.”^xxxi

Psychological warfare or psychological operations (PSYOP) are of particular importance in this context, which recalls what the Communist Party of Peru analysed in its Basis of Party Unity on the Two Principles of Reaction to Destroy the Revolution:

“Reaction has two principles to destroy the revolution: to annihilate the leadership and to isolate the guerrillas from the masses, but in synthesis its problem is to annihilate the leadership because it is the one that allows it to maintain the course and to materialise it.”^xxxii

This is precisely the aim of the LIC and especially of the PSYOP. Destroying the leadership is not only a question of physical destruction, but above all of discrediting the leadership in the eyes of the masses and making it untrustworthy. Sowing doubts about the party leadership among the militants, the fighters and the masses is the central aim of the PSYOP. Thus, the ranks of the revolution become disorganised and lose morale. This is what US imperialism formulates in concrete terms:

“Psychological operations support the achievement of national objectives and target specific groups. PSYOP’s objectives for the main target groups are as follows:

• Insurgents – create dissension, disorganisation, low morale, subversion and defection within insurgent forces. Also important are national programs to win insurgents over to the government’s side.
• Civilian population – to gain, maintain and strengthen civilian support for the government and its counterinsurgency programmes.
• Military forces – to gain, preserve or strengthen military support, with an emphasis on building and maintaining the morale of these forces. The loyalty, discipline and motivation of the forces are critical factors in combating insurgency.
• Neutral elements – to gain the support of uncommitted groups inside and outside of the threatened nation by revealing the insurgency’s subversive activities. Also important is bringing international pressure to bear on any hostile power sponsoring the insurgency.
• External hostile powers – to convince the hostile power supporting the insurgents that the insurgency will fail.”^xxxiii

and

“Planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign government, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator’s objectives.”^xxxiv

On the issues on which PSYOPs are based, the following is stated:

“Overall themes directed against the insurgent forces stress the futility of fighting, the importance of family ties, and the acceptability of amnesty programs. Planning should carefully coordinate PSYOP with tactical operations to avoid losing the element of surprise and to maximize the effectiveness of tactical operations.”^xxxv

This brief digression already gives us a better understanding of some of the developments described in the Washington Post article quoted above and how and why US imperialism is reacting in this way.^xxxvi

For the psychological warfare against the people, a whole staff of experts in different fields, including film technology, among others, was assembled. But psychologists and psychiatrists were also brought in. In the process, the mafioso Montesinos relied on an old acquaintance and convicted criminal: Segidfredo Luza^xxxvii. Both had been working for the SIN for more than two decades when they talked about what they would do if they got hold of Chairman Gonzalo, according to a Peruvian journalist in 1994:

“’Look, Dr. Montesinos’ explained the psychiatrist. ‘I have thoroughly analysed Guzmán’s personality, his physical characteristics. He is a pnyknotic, he collapses easily. Like all pnyknotics, he has a tendency to cyclothymia and manic depressive psychosis. And you can get what you want out of him. With a very low potassium diet, a long period of diazepam^xxxviii, and then lithium, he can serve the government for anything. Once you’ve got him, leave him to me.’”^xxxix

Despite the absurdity of the perverse torturer Luza’s comments about Chairman Gonzalo, one can clearly see how they intended to manipulate Chairman Gonzalo through alteration of diet, living space (small cell, in absolute isolation), systematic disinformation and massive use of drugs. Especially when it comes to the use of drugs, Luza’s suggestion, which was quoted here, is far from exhausting all possibilities of manipulating a person in captivity.

We quote below from the PCP in a 1991 document on how US imperialism has exercised and continues to exercise the leadership of the “anti-subversive war” in Peru:

“The Yankee imperialist participation in the counter-subversive war is a fact and is manifested in all areas of Peruvian politics, there is a Treaty of military intervention which, as we have shown, is a complete interference in matters of economic and military policy, totally violating the Peruvian Constitution.

Some time ago, they built a counter-subversive base in Santa Lucia and planned to build a similar one in the Ene valley; There is a Yankee detachment there with 14 agents of the Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA) which depends on the US Department of Justice, nominated “Vietnamese killers” by the local masses, who besides patrolling with UH I H. helicopters, act by contaminating the fields with SPIKE, they act by contaminating the fields with the internationally forbidden SPIKE or by planting poisonous mushrooms as the Peruvian agronomists have proved and who have destroyed the crops of all kinds, to “eradicate” coca, attacking the peasants and not the drug traffickers; We have already denounced the arrogance with which they act, to the point that they are described as “rambos”, because they are cowards who give the worst jobs to the Peruvians and enjoy a series of benefits such as only drinking their canned soft drinks. In addition to the DEA, the NAS^xl, a financial organisation that depends on the DEA, the CORAH^xli, a North American eradication project, the National Police and since the end of February or the beginning of March, the FAP have been operating at this base.

There are Yankee advisors for counter-subversive warfare, confirmed by the same traitor; there are AWACS (warning and control system) aircraft^xlii that have collaborated with the FAP on at least two occasions, according to the Lima magazine “OIGA”^xliii, referring to the words of the President, it would be a Boeing E-3B sentry that proved its effectiveness in the Gulf War, evidently not for the eradication of coca cultivation, but for the preparations they are trying out in the Yankee intervention in the counter-subversive war.

[…]

In the “New York Times” magazine it was published: “50 consultants are going to Peru”; in response to this news, the Minister of Defence Torres Aciego^xliv said that it was up to the Ministry to decide whether or not the American instructors would come, but a few days later he announced the “arrival of Americans in order to confront terrorism more effectively”, “they are coming to train in the anti-subversive struggle”. Levitsky^xlv said: “The US decided to send military advisors to Peru because it believes that it is impossible to fight drug trafficking without also confronting the Marxist guerrillas of the Shining Path…dozens, not hundreds”. General Velarde, head of the CCFFAA^xlvi had a round table with Levitsky and the director of the National Security Liaison Office for what? it was never reported, obviously not for the fight against drugs.

Peruvian Prime Minister Torres y Torres Lara^xlvii first reported that there were no US troops in Peru and immediately added “only training assistance will be accepted”. He said that in June 1989 US Army instructors from the 1st Battalion 7th Airborne Group from North Carolina, based in Panama, arrived for a jungle operations course with the National Police. He reported the signing of two annexes to the Treaty in July 91 and said that in August 15 members of the US army are in Mazamari for training. What a coincidence, precisely when the counter-subversive war has intensified since the end of 1989 and this year, when the plan in the centre of the country has acquired genocidal characteristics known as those of Korea or Vietnam, where the bodies were torn to pieces in order to punish. And who is to say that there are only dozens of them?

Another very important fact to evaluate the growing participation of Yankee imperialism is the series of meetings between the Peruvian government and the Yankee rulers, for example the meeting between the US and Peruvian military in which they exchanged experiences on military justice and human rights, a meeting presided over by a rear admiral of the Peruvian Navy. Others such as those of the head of the US Army Southern Command^xlviii George Joulwan^xlix who visited Fujimori, the president of the CCFFAA, Quainton and advisors were present. On 11 November, another US mission visited the Peruvian president, Congressmen and Undersecretary of State for Latin America, PH. McLean^l, congressmen for foreign affairs, human rights, budget and economic affairs, for what? Obviously to legislate mainly on pacification, and one has to wonder whether the Americans themselves were not involved in the passing of the last 126 Decree Laws.

That is also why the CIA agent and Yankee ambassador specialising in genocide is accusing: “Both the members of the SL and the MRTA and the forces of law and order that affect human rights are enemies of democracy, which must be preserved”. He has even congratulated the genocidal country-seller for the ‘liberal revolution’ he is implementing and in one of the many forums in which he participated he expressed the opinion that it was not about sending US troops to Peru: “we are raising the possibility of assistance to the Peruvian military and police forces through equipment and instructors, to the extent that the Peruvian government requests it….it is not about militarising the fight against drugs, but about contributing elements for an integral strategy…we can share our experience and to a certain extent our own resources, but it is not about the US pointing out the solution”. Shortly afterwards, he added that one could not differentiate between a drug trafficker and a terrorist if one was in combat. And in the first fifteen days of December he had a long meeting with the Political-Military Command of the Mantaro Front, with General Pérez Documet to coordinate civic action programmes within the so-called Agreement, for the rehabilitation and repair of roads; he also handed over a thousand dollars worth of tools to the Salesian Youth Centre^li San Juan Bosco Another coincidence! the convergence of the Yankees with the Catholics, especially the Salesians, whose senior representative has just come to Peru.

Later, a US mission visited Jauja and Huancayo “to see progress in the counter-subversive struggle”, meaning that under the Treaty they wanted to implement pilot plans and check their results.

But what is the result of such an intervention? They have just published in The New York Times of 10 November that drugs and subversion dominate Peru, therefore it is an evident failure recognised by themselves, they even report an attack by the Peruvian army against a police helicopter that was applying herbicide with the participation of elements of the DEA; that the focus of US actions continues to be repressive and they say that the efforts of SL to capitalise on these failures are achieving successes and that according to a poll carried out by them 34% think we will be able to triumph. Also in Newsweek magazine in an article “Support for Justice” Secret Agreement, they point out that Bush is losing the war on drugs in the Andean nations despite the military escalation in the region; based on Pentagon documents from the Southern Command, etc.; it underlines the alliance between the guerrillas and drug traffickers and the coca producing peasants, especially in Colombia and Peru. It also reveals the strong frictions between civilian agents and the military as the US military escalation in Latin America is within the framework of “low intensity warfare”; for the DEA and the CIA the objective is to dismantle the cartels and prosecute their members. In this operation “Support for Justice”^lii elite training groups for Latino military personnel such as the Green Berets^liii, Delta Command and the New Seals participated.

[…]

From the above we can conclude that the direct participation of US imperialism in the counter-subversive war being waged in Peru has already begun, with a signed treaty, with the presence of military instructors, with operational groups and with the use of new weapons, even if only on a trial basis. In addition to its actions in the elaboration, execution and evaluation of specific counter-subversive, political and economic action plans behind the story of the War on Drugs, its internal contradictions regarding the management of the “low intensity war” in Peru are becoming more acute”.^liv

The Yankees also took control in other areas, as when they sent a JAG corps^lv to Peru^lvi. Under the pretext of “human rights training”, which of course also served as a fig leaf for the Peruvian regime, US imperialism was thus able to intervene directly in the legal and legislative processes, and this in a government in which the president acts as an autocrat. It is worth recalling the 126 legislative decrees mentioned above.

It is clear that US imperialism has direct control of the “low intensity warfare”. Here we have limited ourselves to a comparatively brief description. An article in the next issue of “Klassenstandpunkt” will explain in more detail how the US imperialism develops and wages “low intensity war”.

With this understanding, we want to shed light on the events that took place after Chairman Gonzalo became a prisoner of war, to show how imperialism, reaction and revisionism are in joint action to try to destroy the people’s war in Peru.

The Machinations of the Second Right Opportunist Line

Shortly after Chairman Gonzalo became a prisoner of war, a right opportunist line, which is the revisionism of Gonzalo thought, was structured in prisons. The Central Committee of the PCP summed it up in 1995 as follows:

“Finally, something more in this vein. During the Third Plenum of the Central Committee, Chairman Gonzalo warned us of the danger of the rise of a revisionist line and said that there were indications that an opportunist line in opposition to the seizure of political power was already being hatched. He told us that if the Initiation of the Armed Struggle required a hard struggle against the ROL of that period, there was even more reason to think that a still greater struggle, an earth-shaking struggle, would have to occur before there could be a still greater leap such as the seizure of power. Events have once again proven him right, but what we have experienced has been anticlimactic, because this revisionist abortion has been incapable of defending its ideological and political positions in the internal struggle and has simply split the Party with the help of the reaction itself and probably infiltrated agents as well, having bolted in a gallop after the arrest of Chairman Gonzalo.”^lvii

The danger of Chairman Gonzalo being assassinated in prison was very high; there were many calls for the death penalty,^lviii among other things. But the international campaign in defence of his life and – mainly – the development of the people’s war in Peru prevented the assassination at that time. US imperialism came to the conclusion that he should not by any means become a martyr, because that would have strengthened the movement. Consequently, his imprisonment of war was to be used politically to defame him, in order to undermine the morale of his combat troops, in line with the PSYOP in “low intensity warfare”.^lix Accordingly, numerous hoaxes and lies were concocted. A willing helper in all this was and is the right opportunist line. Some people of the former party leadership or part of the so-called party leadership play an important role in this.^lx

One of them was Edmundo Cox Beauzeville, who had important military functions for the CC, first in Puno and then in Lima. After Chairman Gonzalo became a prisoner of war, he proposed in the Central Committee to form a “historic contingent” of the party’s best fighters to attack the Callao naval base as a suicide squad in order to free Chairman Gonzalo. This plan was rejected because it had no chance of success. The contingent would not only have had to attack the naval base and free Chairman Gonzalo from an underground cell, but would also have had to fight its way through the entire metropolis of Lima, because from the naval base (by the sea) there was only the route of retreat through the city. The whole plan would have been a good excuse to shoot Chairman Gonzalo in the back during a supposed or real jailbreak. After his arrest on 22 August 1993, Cox also becomes an avowed traitor. He denounced all the party work known to him in Lima which was thus liquidated. All those who were not arrested or killed were ordered to leave Lima to avoid the same fate.

Another is Osman Morote^lxi. He was harshly criticised before the First Congress of the PCP, but after his arrest in May 1988 he was always considered by Peruvian reaction as the number two in the party, which he never was. Like many other party members who were prisoners of war at the time, Morote was held at Canto Grande^lxii in Lima. It was here that Peruvian reaction carried out a genocide from 6-9 May 1992. In the process, death squads with death lists also entered the prison and began systematically executing important party leaders in their cells. But Morote was not on these lists. The reason why his name did not appear was explained by the commander of the death squad – the so-called “Colina Group” – in a late statement while in prison, quoted in a treatise of the “Inter-American Court of Human Rights”:

“On the 6th of May 1992, a group of members of the Colina commando, disguised as policemen, entered the Castro Castro prison, taking advantage of the riot that the PNP^lxiiiwas trying to uncover, according to Martín Rivas.^lxiv The order was to eliminate thirteen Shining Path leaders imprisoned there, in order to dismantle the organisation’s leadership The orders were given by Montesinos Fujimori read the result in the media 35 dead.^lxv The Red Cross was prevented from entering during the executions”.

At the last meeting,” he says, “when everything had been established, Montesinos came up with an idea. He had a list of the main Shining Path prisoners, and on that list appeared the members of the Central Committee, that is, those closest to Guzmán, those who were the ideological and military support of Shining Path. He proposed that when the prison was taken over, given that there were going to be confrontations, because the terrorists had weapons, a special team should enter the cellblock where the leaders were, to subduethem right there.

“This plan was taken to Fujimori for his knowledge and authorisation. That was the scheme that was followed. Moreover, Fujimori followed it step by step in every detail.

“A military platoon entered, in the last raid, with a defined objective: to annihilate every member of the Shining Path leadership, leaving only one of them, Osmán Morote Barrionuevo, safe”.

“In the final meeting before taking the complete plan to Fujimori, two decisions were taken. One was to leave Osmán Morote alive. He was Abimael’s enemy, because his own boss had denounced him and sent him to prison for dissenting with him. So he was going to be very useful to us, he was going to owe us his life and we would give him better treatment, remember that Morote was wounded that time? That’s why all the leaders died except him. If he was unharmed, suspicions would be aroused, that’s why he was shot in the buttocks, where there is no danger, and then the press made up the story that Morote was a coward and wanted to flee, and that’s why he was shot in the ass.

“There was no doubt that the mission belonged to the Colina Group. It had been created for that purpose, it had been operating and executing various actions and the high command trusted them”.

“On Saturday 9 May 1992, on the orders of Fujimori and Montesinos, members of the Shining Path leadership were subjected to extrajudicial executions”.^lxvi

Thus, Morote was deliberately left alive because he was hostile to Chairman Gonzalo’s leadership.^lxvii It is exactly these types of people who survived the massacres and were the leaders who became the heads of the ROL. And this genocide in Canto Grande served to prepare the formation of this group of people. This was the case of Morote, who was held in solitary confinement in Canto Grande after his arrest until 1992^lxviii, when he was placed among the rest of the prisoners to begin his work for the reaction.

Through the direct action of the Peruvian reaction, especially the Peruvian secret services, under the direction of the CIA, everything possible is done to bring these different people together and to make them elaborate – structure – their line. So this band of traitors works directly with the enemy, which is only possible while keeping Chairman Gonzalo in total isolation and thus eliminating him. His alleged (first) conviction took place on 7 October 1992 in a non-public military court, where the judges wore balaclavas to protect their identity. It was also here that it was decided and announced that he would be held at the naval base on the island of San Lorenzo.^lxix He was taken there that same month, but then, in April 1993, he was taken to the Callao Naval Base^lxx, where he was held in an underground cell until his assassination was consummated after 29 years. This also means that after his historic speech in prison on 24 September 1992, Chairman Gonzalo did not have the opportunity to address the party, the press and the world public again in full, live and direct, without the censorship and distortion of the Peruvian secret services and the CIA. ^lxxi

Then there have been other “trials” which have only shown that the Peruvian state (whoever governs) does not respect its own laws when it comes to fighting the people’s war. They have tried desperately for decades to create a legal basis for the war captivity of Chairman Gonzalo. The MPP^lxxii summarised these attempts as follows:

“Chairman Gonzalo is in conditions of absolute isolation which prevents him from addressing the PCP and the international proletariat and the peoples of the world again, “sentenced to life imprisonment” by a military court in a summary trial shortly after his arrest. In November 2004 he was presented to a parody of a “new trial”, due to the annulment of the “previous conviction”, because the Inter-American Court of Human Rights declared null and void the process that condemned him together with other prisoners, for having been judged by null court and criminal law; “new trial” that was immediately broken by government order, because as soon as Chairman Gonzalo entered the courtroom he launched slogans in favour of the People’s War, the Party, the Peruvian people and Maoism. Then, from mid-2005 to mid-2006, a new parody of a “new trial” was staged again; supposedly “oral and public”, but which was conducted almost in secret and where Chairman Gonzalo was not given the word; he was not allowed to speak. Counting the reaction with the complicity of the lawyers of the opportunist right-wing line (ROL), he was “condemned” again to life imprisonment, applying the same null laws, packaged as new “Anti-terrorist Decree Laws”, to try to validate his trial and conviction.

Currently with this new genocidal fascist and fatherland-selling fascist government of the single party of Kucksinsky-Fujimori with the service of the revisionist and capitulationist rats of the Movadef, they are taking accelerated steps to get Fujimori and other civilian and military genocidaires who are in golden prison out “through the big door”, they say “with a law or measure of a general nature”.To this end, since August 2016 they have been setting up the hoax of a new trial against Chairman Gonzalo to condemn him for crimes against humanity, a trial like all the previous ones, absolutely invalid, without any basis in the reality of the material facts, an accusation based on the fallacies of low-intensity war propaganda. All these trials are therefore null and void according to the legal system of the old bureaucratic landlord state, at the service of imperialism, mainly Yankee imperialism”.^lxxiii

What is clear and important for us is that there is not a single piece of evidence behind the accusation that Chairman Gonzalo is behind the opportunist right-wing line. All there is are testimonies of proven traitors and nothing more. At no time when Chairman Gonzalo had the opportunity to support this line did he do so. On the contrary, in all the trials in which he had the opportunity, he was faithful to the party line and its thinking, for example, shouting slogans in favour of the people’s war in court.

In these conditions, the ROL began to spit its venom and spread its revisionist positions. In doing so, they were not only guided and supported by the CIA, the INS and the SIE,^lxxiv but also received a great deal of support from the bourgeois press, support which continues to this day. In October 1993, the rats of the ROL published a text entitled “Take up and fight for the new great decision and definition”. In this text they make various references to quotations and writings of Chairman Mao, Lenin and Engels, in between they mix up their positions and talk about a revolutionary ebb, that the people’s war cannot develop, outline a plan for a peace agreement and call for a 2nd Party Congress in prisons to “authorise” their revisionist line. This was a first attempt to spread the positions and create confusion among the party, the people and the ICM. The bourgeois press supported it diligently, as this text was published in the newspaper “La República” and the big Peruvian newspapers, among others.

Between May and November, Laura Zambrano,^lxxvMartha Huatay,^lxxviMaría Pantoja, Osmán Morote and Elena Iparraguirre^lxxvii were taken to Lima, to the dungeons of the SIE. If these people had not collaborated before, the last of them was broken there by means of torture and then agreements were reached on how to proceed.

Then, on 1 October 1993, Fujimori announced to the world – at the UN General Assembly – that Chairman Gonzalo had written him a letter asking for peace negotiations,^lxxviii dated 15 September of that year. This was the beginning of the lie of the so-called “peace letters”. This lie was to gain credibility with the help of ROL supporters abroad. In Sweden, the main person responsible for the usurpation of the party’s foreign work – the MPP – by the ROL began to disseminate an alleged telephone conversation with Chairman Gonzalo, which he claimed to have had on 22 October, in which the surrender line was said to have been exposed.^lxxix In this telephone call, the full transcript of which was made public in the early 2000s (and which was even reproduced in the Peruvian Congress when the Fujimori regime fell and the so-called “Vladi videos” were released), but which today is very difficult to find on the internet, two people are clearly heard talking from the military base in El Callao, one, presumably Chairman Gonzalo, is only talking about personal matters, and the one transmitting “the new line” is “Miriam”. Here it is clear that it is “Miriam” and not “Chairman Gonzalo himself” who continues to put forward the “line” among ROL supporters. Thus, the ROL began to try to turn the MPP into a tool of surrender.^lxxx On October 7 of that year, Fujimori mentions a supposed second letter, on the same day that the PCP published a statement against the surrender. Then, on 3 December,^lxxxi a video appeared showing different former CC members^lxxxii , with someone supposedly representing Chairman Gonzalo sitting in front of them, and the rat “Miriam” sitting to his right. The interpreter, who is supposed to be Chairman Gonzalo, reads out another third letter with the supposed signatures of the various attendees.^lxxxiii The newspaper “El Diario” (the “voice of Sendero”, as the reaction said) wrote about the video that it is obvious that the voice and the video do not match.^lxxxiv

In a statement of 7 October 1993, the Party Central Committee denounces the lying history of the Peace Letters:

“To serve these counter-revolutionary aims, and in desperation and impotence in the face of the advance of the People’s War and as part of the psychological warfare that is part of the “low-intensity warfare” they are waging, they have mounted an evil and perverse hoax. On the one hand its useless aim is to slander Chairman Gonzalo and to continue with their premeditated, treacherous and demented plan to kill him. On the other hand, it is an attempt to peddle their rotten dream of “Sendero’s capitulation”. This is just one of the many lies that the reactionaries periodically spread, this time trotted out by that genocidal sell-out puppet who is hanging from the bayonets of the Armed Forces, advised by the traitor Montesinos and the murderer Luza […] under the orders of Yankee imperialism, principally through the sinister CIA. All this is a vain attempt to defeat the People’s War. It is nothing but a clumsy and ridiculous hoax that nobody with an ounce of brains could take seriously. It will go up in smoke like the previous hoaxes when confronted by the unstoppable whirlwind of the People’s War.”^lxxxv

In the peace letters, as well as in various writings of the ROL^lxxxvi, the abandonment of the bases of operations and the demobilisation and disarmament of the revolutionary army, among other things, are proclaimed. But Chairman Mao laid down important principles on these same issues as early as 1945:

“For our part, we can’t see why we should let them seize our Liberated Areas. It is also quite natural that we should counter-attack.”

[…]

“If they start fighting, we fight back, fight to win peace. Peace will not come unless we strike hard blows at the reactionaries who dare to attack the Liberated Areas.

[…]

“Does this mean that we are going to hand over our guns to the Kuomintang? Not that either. If we hand over our guns, won’t the Kuomintang have too many? The arms of the people, every gun and every bullet, must all be kept, must not be handed over.”^lxxxvii

So no revolutionary movement, let alone the Communist Party in the world, if it is serious about its cause, would put forward such a programme. And in a 1994 document, the CC of the CP makes clear once again what the attitude towards these positions is:

“Keep in mind that 1) What goes against principles cannot be accepted; 2) It is an international communist norm that one cannot lead from inside prison and these monstrosities are in antagonistic opposition to principles, especially all this business about the “peace agreement”…..”^lxxxviii

This clearly means that regardless of whoever it is and whatever position he holds in the party, it should not be accepted, if it goes against the principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, and no one can lead the party from prison.

The peace letter manoeuvre is obviously a tall tale. Politically, as has been shown, it was already clear in 1993; today there is (even more) evidence, in black and white. A dissident group in the army called the “Sleeping Lion”, which took a stand against Fujimori, repeatedly issued communiques and denounced the military’s machinations. ^lxxxix

But the fact that the “peace letters” were a real fraud was confirmed again in 2008. Numerous former state officials were questioned in the trial against Fujimori, including Merino Bartet, former deputy head of the SIN. At the hearing on 13 August 2008, he confessed that he himself was the author of these alleged “peace letters”.^xc Thus, an important element of the lies of the ROL and the reaction was simply vaporised, and this before an official Peruvian court. In 2002, he already told the reactionary magazine Caretas that he was the author of the “peace letters” and why it was so easy for him to write them:

“But these letters have the unmistakable Shining Path style….

-Well, I’ve read so many of the senderist texts that I know very well how they write. I have studied the minutes of their congresses and the famous “interview of the century”. In short, all the senderist production and especially the so-called “guiding thought” or “Gonzalo thought”. I have reviewed the same books as him, so it was easy for me to reproduce his style.

-Did you have access to Guzmán’s library?

-Yes, I went to the house on Bellavista street in Surco where he was almost captured in 1990 and where his library was seized. When I entered his study I thought I was entering my own. They were the same books, the same type of bookshelves, the desk was similar. On top of his desk there was a mess very similar to mine”.^xci

Bartet’s confessions are an example of the secret service methods used by the ROL in cooperation with the Peruvian secret services, led by the CIA. It is also clear from the outset what the aim of the “peace letters” is, i.e. not to open negotiations at all, but to spread the word of “defeat” (i.e. surrender):

“(the letter) should be taken into account as a valuable element of internal perspective; not to negotiate, of course, but, ultimately, as an explicit acknowledgment of defeat, unimaginable until recently, of the advocates of a perverse and fanatical ideology like few others in this century. We hope that this call for peace by the leader of Sendero will influence the more or less desperate actions of his harassed followers, thus bringing about the longed-for and urgent pacification of the country”.^xcii

On 22 March 1995, other important former party leaders, “Nancy”^xciii and “Roldán”, were arrested.^xciv After their arrest, both shouted slogans in public in favour of Chairman Gonzalo, the Central Committee led by “Feliciano” and the continuation of the armed struggle. Approximately half a year later, on 17 September, “Nancy” appeared in a television interview in which she made a so-called “self-criticism”. It is important to know that “Nancy” had a baby with her when she was arrested, which was probably hers. It can therefore be assumed that the reaction took advantage of this circumstance to threaten to torture and/or kill the baby in order to break “Nancy”.

In her “self-criticism” she claims that she met Chairman Gonzalo and “Miriam” and that they cured her of her “ideological illness”, her “right-wing opportunism” and her “bourgeois splittist line”. He mixes some questions of two-line struggle, which probably have a kernel of truth, with outright lies, as the ROL always does, confusing and muddling things up. He takes a position in favour of a peace agreement and claims that this is Chairman Gonzalo’s line. The interview was broadcast on the programme “Contrapunto” on Peruvian television’s “Canal 2” and then printed and distributed in the bourgeois newspapers (“El Comercio”).^xcv For some who had rejected the amateur dramatics of the previous videos, the interview was supposed proof that the peace agreement was Chairman Gonzalo’s line, and they switched to the ROL. For some right-wing forces – especially the RCP – in the ICM, the interview was also proof. This is probably a serious case of wishful thinking. This accusation was backed up with an alleged phone call between Chairman Gonzalo and “Miriam” in Sweden on 25 September.^xcvi In this phone call, Chairman Gonzalo supposedly speaks positively about the peace agreement, and “Miriam” dedicates a few lines of “self-criticism” to “Nancy”, probably to give her authenticity.^xcvii

But the manoeuvres, dreams and desires of reaction and revisionism are again being shattered. This time by the reactionary journalist César Hildebrant.^xcviii In autumn 1995, Hildebrant broadcasts a programme in which the journalist Marianella Muñoz, who conducted the interview with “Nancy”, relates how the interview was prepared and carried out. Below are some extracts from the transcript of the programme:

“Marianella Muñoz: Well, from there I spoke briefly with him and he told me that we were going to watch a video. He had a big TV, very big, and he said we were going to watch a video. Margie Clavo Peralta was there with Vladimiro Montesinos. Vladimiro Montesinos was acting as a reporter, he was- (H[ildebrandt]: He was on the video and he showed you the video, Vladimiro acting as a reporter and asking questions to Margie Clavo).

–He asked her questions, the same questions he later gave me in a questionnaire, and he told me to watch the video because that’s how I want you to interview Margie Clavo Peralta.

[…]

Marianella Muñoz: [That was] what he wanted, in his own words too, because when I read it I said, well these questions are very long, very intricate, maybe I should shorten them…. (H: They were badly written, they weren’t journalistic.) They weren’t journalistic, they were well written but they weren’t journalistic. (H: And what did he say?) He said no way, that we had to respect what he had written and that I had to respect it too. (H: And Luis Vargas^xcix agreed with this?) Of course. (H: Logically.)

[…]

César Hildebrant: When you met Margie Clavo Peralta, what happened?

Marianella Muñoz: Well, she gave me her own tape, a tape she already had, she gave me the tape and there was a navy commander and two other people with balaclavas. (H: The commander with balaclavas.) I don’t know if he was a commander but there were two marines with balaclavas. Later I found out that there was a commander who supervised the whole press operation. (H: Vladimiro wasn’t there?) No, not with me.

[…]

Marianella Muñoz: Well, I used some synonyms at the beginning of the interview, what surprised me is that Margie Clavo Peralta was helpful, she knew it was a fake interview, because the journalist had not written it, Vladimiro Montesinos had written it. (H: What did Margie Clavo tell you?) She agreed with this- (H: What did she say?)-she said something like that we should not try to make trouble, not to go beyond what had been stipulated.

[…]

Marianella Muñoz: The interview could not be formulated because I used too many synonyms, I tried to explain to the marines that they were synonyms that meant essentially the same thing, it was the same question, but they made the phone call-(H: To Montesinos)-of course, they said she is saying this and Montesinos said-(H: Correct her)-yes, correct her-(H: And what did you say, did you have to correct yourself, repeat the question?)-yes but in the next question the same thing happened again. There were about 14 questions.

César Hildebrant: At the end they wrote them down, didn’t they write the questions on a Bristol board?

Marianella Muñoz: Yes, like a teleprompter, they put it there with a very big marker.

So, once again, this was an action directly directed by the CIA man Montesinos. And “Nancy” also defected to the ROL side and was totally in on the plan. Reason enough not to believe a word she said.

A video of Jorge Olivares also appeared, but his “self-criticism” was less widely disseminated, probably because he was much lower in the party hierarchy. But a “behind the scenes” version of his video was published. In this, he can be seen joking with the reporter, Montesinos can also be seen directing and sitting behind the camera in this video.

Parallel to all these machinations of reaction and revisionism, they also opened another front in an attempt to further demoralise and disintegrate the party. According to a Peruvian bourgeois magazine, at the end of 1995/beginning of 1996, the ranks of the ROL (or supporters of the peace agreement) consisted of no more than 100 supporters. Most were concentrated in Lima. It was reported that 30-40 of them were released from prison “under the table” to carry out disintegration work among those who adhered to the CC and the People’s War. This was allegedly arranged mainly in Huaycán, Pachacamac (Villa El Salvador), El Agustino and San Cosme.^c One of the most famous cases, which also had international repercussions, was that of the so-called “Negro José” (Black José). He was one of those who left prison to infiltrate the party’s work in Lima, carrying out disintegration work and spreading the ROL’s line of surrender. When his activities as an enemy agent became apparent, he was liquidated by the party on 4 May 1996.^ci Again, proof of how the ROL recruited mainly in the prisons and then used it in collaboration with reaction, with the aim of liquidating the Party and the People’s War.

The Machinations of the ROL in the Shining Trenches of Combat

Throughout this period, the ROL was also active in the Shining Trenches of Combat, i.e. in the prisons of Peru. Those placed there by reaction tried to recruit many prisoners of war for the ROL. Comrade Inés, from the women’s prison of Chorrillos, among others, described in an interview how this was done:

“Q: What is the situation for them, the ones who support the peace accord? Do they face the same conditions as the rest of the prisoners? What is the attitude of the authorities with respect to those who are calling for a peace accord?”

A: They have facilities such as access to the authorities, they have frequent contact and dialogue with them (like with the Ad Hoc Commission^cii). Father Lansier,^ciii representative of Fujimori, visits them constantly and co-ordinates with them. Their organisation is permitted and openly recognised. They co-ordinate and participate in the activities organised by the prison authorities. They are enthusiastic participants in the championships – contests organised by the prison directors. They are always doing Peruvian dances to entertain the authorities, for the genocidal Colonel Ernesto Castillo Leon and his agents of SIN, who are always coming to the prison. They play volleyball with them. They do not denounce the genocidal conditions in the prison, on the contrary, they have a very good relationship with the guards for whom they even do their laundry.

Q: How do the supporters of the peace accord act with respect to the rest of the detainees?

A: Every woman prisoner who arrives at the prison is subjected to tortuous harassment in order to try to break her and have her join their ranks. They utilise any method they can to try to accomplish their goals. They have physically assaulted the compañeras. The harassment is constant. Generally the newly arrived women prisoners are put into cells with these individuals. Here they dedicate themselves to harassing them twenty-four hours a day. If they cannot convince them, they try to break them down psychologically. They repeatedly rattle off their peace accord gibberish. The compañeras resist and then they are openly denounced by the defenders of the peace accord. In front of the guards, they accuse them of things so that the guards will punish them. In front of the social assistants and other authorities, they ask them to become informants against those who have remained firm. They look for every opportunity to provoke them, including organising “searches” with the guards in order to steal and destroy their belongings. They publicly snitch on the compañeras from the Leadership, doing this in front of the agents of SIN, the Ad Hoc Commission, Father Lansier and the genocidal Colonel Castillo. For example, the Ad Hoc Commission uses the information provided by the peace accord prisoners to process the cases and prevent the release of compañeras. Father Lansier has pointed out publicly that there are many detainees who have no evidence against them in their judicial procedures but who they cannot free because they have been informed (by the peace accord prisoners) that these compañeros have remained firm.

[…]

Keep well in mind that it is being demonstrated very clearly that the black grouplet is collaborating with the reaction – it is completely out in the open – they act in collusion with each other to snitch on and harass the compañeras. I believe firmly that they are part of the genocidal plan against the political prisoners and prisoners of war – this is how they act. It is important to denounce the fact that it is they who poisoned the tea water on more than one occasion, but the actions of the Party made them abort their sinister plan. It is also important to see who these low-lifes are – who their delegates are. Many of them are snitches, wretches who took up the sinister repentance law^civ. They even turned in masses; in this way they are all used by the prison authorities as their representatives. Another question which is important to clarify is that the Party has taught us to distinguish, that besides the heads of the black grouplet, there exist some detainees who have been duped and threatened into following this revisionist nonsense about peace accords; they trick them by telling them that they are going to be freed. This is seen clearly in the public betrayals seen among them. Many have left their ranks in order to gain the benefits given to “the repentant” who are among the common prisoners or in areas where there is a more lenient regime being applied.

With respect to the arguments that they put forward, they are very absurd and weak. They say that they uphold the peace accord in order to defend Chairman Gonzalo, but their conclusion is amnesty for prisoners with the exception of Chairman Gonzalo – since “the reactionaries will not accept that point”. What are they struggling for then? They are doing this only because they cannot stand up to the prison conditions, because they seek their own freedom. The sinister accusation that Chairman Gonzalo is the author of these letters is unfounded and inconsistent. None of them say that they have met with Chairman Gonzalo personally. Although there are public statements from them, none of them have left the prison for that purpose. They themselves have admitted this in front of the masses and compañeras who they have tried to force into submission. So the only thing on which they base themselves is the proof given by Fujimori – his trick video.”^cv

In this way, the ROL representatives tried in every possible way to break the new prisoners, there were informer activities and active cooperation with the guards.

Often, in the torture campaigns of the reaction in the prisons, it is the former leaders of the party members who take it upon themselves to break the prisoners. Thus, this right-wing opportunist line has been structured and strengthened in the prisons. To create more confusion in the party, these ROL supporters issued communiques in the prisons, one of which, in December 1993, called to “fight for a peace agreement to end the war” and was signed by 300 prisoners (out of a total of 1114 at the time). In January 1994, letters and statements from 168 prisoners (out of a total of 234) in Chorrillos prison in favour of a peace agreement were also published. It shows that the two-line struggle is being waged in the prisons. The publication of these texts was intended to demoralise the party, which at the time was facing a massive military campaign – including air strikes – against the bases of operations. However, the ROL was never able to fully win over the POWs, despite its torture, political campaigning and cooperation with reaction. In one of the most difficult moments in the life of the party, when only six months earlier the CC had been blown to bits by a revisionist coup, on 6 February 2000, the prisoners in Yanamayo prison rose up, with comrade Carlos Ponce shot dead by police forces and dozens wounded by gunfire. Subsequently, the prisoners issued a communique in which they adhere to the leader Gonzalo and the People’s War and denounce the ROL.^cvi So the comrades continue to fight, albeit in extremely difficult conditions.

Emergence of the Third Right Opportunist Line

As mentioned above, the People’s War continued to develop after 12th September 1992. New political and military plans were elaborated and implemented. On the basis of the 3rd Plenum of the Central Committee in 1992, the work continued.

Now it is important to bear in mind some facts about “Feliciano”. As he was the third of the three members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CC (after Chairman Gonzalo and “Miriam”), he was the one with the highest responsibility in the Party, so the leadership of the Party rested with him. Before Chairman Gonzalo was a prisoner of war, “Feliciano” was in charge of the main regional committee, so he was also responsible for the Cangallo-Fajardo zonal committee, i.e. the party apparatus in which – as described above – there were problems with conservatism in ambushes and with militarism. That is, the person politically responsible for these problems (this is probably what the rat “Nancy” tried to use in her “interview”) suddenly becomes the person responsible for the whole party. In the above-mentioned regional committee, there were also people who are better known today, like “José” or “Raul”.^cvii They were even worse militarists than “Feliciano” and they were also the ones who later became the heads of the third right opportunist line. We will not delve into their process here, because the main danger today is the second ROL and its revisionism, but some things must be stressed here in order to understand the situation of the PCP today.^cviii Moreover, the traitors of the third ROL are not inferior to the traitors of the second ROL in terms of treachery.

After Chairman Gonzalo was taken prisoner of war, the two main members of the Central Committee elected to the CC at the 1st Party Congress in 1988 were “Feliciano” and “Julio”, the latter in charge of the Huallaga Regional Committee. Under the leadership of “Feliciano”, a militarist clique could then emerge in the party, because he did not manage to dominate these central points since the 3rd Plenum. In other words, in Huallaga “Julio” had his independent militarist kingdom and “José” with his cronyism had his in Ayacucho. “Julio” and “Jose” allied themselves and, with the help of the reactionary army, staged a coup d’état and delivered “Feliciano” directly – literally – into the hands of reaction. Brigadier General Eduardo Fournier Coronado describes how this happened in his book “Feliciano – Captura de una Senderista Rojo”.^cixIn short: These militants collaborated with reaction, showed where “Feliciano” was supposed to be and even passed on false radio messages under the direction of the Peruvian army, luring him into a trap. Representative of this betrayal is the posing of “Raul” (the brother of “Jose”) together with a person called “Blanca” (who also played a dark role in this betrayal) in the uniforms of the Peruvian reactionary armed forces. With their help, “Feliciano” was captured on 14 July 1999, after several attempts.^cx

Already in the mid-1990s, work began to analyse and combat the problems that existed in the party, which was to become the third ROL:

“Taking unjustified measures for trifles without relating them to principles and norms, feudal criteria and personal power expressed also in the exercise of personal and class leadership, obstinate changes of decisions, lying in the face of criticism, undervaluing the role of women in the revolution, total passivity (I do nothing and let everything happen), competition, retreat and struggle; wrong or too late treatment of problems; double language, etc.”.^cxi

That is why these rats of the third ROL started to prepare their coup with the help of the reaction, because they realised that they were going to be crushed and swept away.

The coup d’état blew up the Central Committee and the two traitors “José” and “Julio” shared the spoils, which in this case was the party. “José” and his progeny took Ayacucho^cxii as their caudillo’s territory and “Julio” took the Huallaga as his. After the coup, there was no longer a national PCP leadership committee, but only regional and local structures, many of which were under the domination of different warlords. In this sense, the Central Committee was blown up and the task of general reorganisation was set. A key difference between the third ROL and the second is that they do not refer to Chairman Gonzalo. They do not hide behind his name and they do not try to reinterpret his leadership to conclude a peace agreement “based on Gonzalo thought”. Are they rats and traitors? Yes, no doubt. But the most evolved revisionism in the world is the second right opportunist line, because it is the revisionism of Gonzalo Thought while vindicating it. They are the ones who ensured that the situation arose in which the third ROL could raise its head in the first place. It is not a linearly increasing process in which the second and third ROLs move, so that the last ROL to emerge is the most developed. The main enemy today is the opportunist second line of the right!

The Second Right Opportunist Line Today and its Machinations in Europe

Chairman Gonzalo was assassinated at the Callao naval base on 11 September 2021.^cxiii This was nothing more than an assassination. Chairman Gonzalo was the only “patient”, the only one who was sick, in the whole prison he was in. According to the Peruvian reactionary press, he was taken to the naval base hospital as early as 5 August of that year, supposedly for an infection. He then allegedly insisted on staying in his cell instead of in the hospital. In the cell, he was allegedly not medically monitored. But he was always monitored – the reaction has informed us several times – 24 hours a day. In this case, they allegedly only discovered that he was dead when they woke him up. They used to check each breath of Chairman Gonzalo, each movement was monitored. But in this case, no one was supposed to realise that he was dying until it was certain that he was dead? They deliberately killed Chairman Gonzalo. This act as the culmination of three decades of torture to destroy him. This understanding is important in order not to fall into the usual assertions that Chairman Gonzalo was old or that in a country like Peru it is a miracle that he lived so long. It is a miracle – if you want to use the term – that he lived and fought for so long in the circumstances in which he was imprisoned, in total isolation and with no contact with anyone except those who were his enemies, torture for 29 years.

After the assassination, a debate arose over what to do with Chairman Gonzalo’s body. The reaction wants to prevent a “place of pilgrimage of terrorism” and even passes a new law in parliament within a few days for the bodies of “condemned terrorists” to be cremated. On 24 September,^cxiv, the body of Chairman Gonzalo was cremated and then his ashes were scattered in an unknown place. Between these days, from the time of death to the cremation, the second ROL carries out a campaign demanding the handing over of the body. The point is that they try to present themselves as the “legitimate” continuators of the party. In doing so, a person comes to light who has always been there, in the videos, in the phone calls, with his letters, stories^cxvand poems.^cxvi We are talking about the rat “Miriam”. She is now the last resort to maintain the deception of the ROL, the CIA and the Peruvian reaction.

The role of “Miriam” from the outset is made clear by an example shortly after Chairman Gonzalo’s capture, recounted by an academic in his doctoral thesis:

“In the context of the process of internal recomposition of the Shining Path at the beginning of 1993, the news-spectacle about this group returned, fundamentally, thanks to the fact that Comas had access to some videotapes that summarised the three days of dialogue that Abimael Guzmán and his captors had. The recordings were made on 15, 17 and 18 September 1992, a few days after the capture. This testimony helped Comas to present an image of Abimael Guzmán that was completely different from the one projected by the government and most of the Lima newspapers. Firstly, Comas gave the videos the highest profile because of the circumstances in which they were produced. These recordings would not have been made without the collaboration of Elena Iparraguirre, the number two in the Shining Path hierarchy, who convinced Guzmán that the conversation and the videos could in the future become a relevant document for the history of the Party.”^cxvii

“Miriam” has been trying for years to present herself as the legitimate successor of Chairman Gonzalo in order to serve the plan of the CIA and the Peruvian reaction, which has now taken on completely absurd proportions. To this end, she uses one argument above all: “I am Gonzalo’s wife! On 12 September 2021, the ROL published on the website of its supposed “National Committee of Political and War Prisoners of Peru” a telephone call in which “Miriam” demands the release of the body of Chairman Gonzalo. She ended the phone call with the words: “Glory to my husband!” The argument that she is the successor of Chairman Gonzalo, an absolute political stupidity. First of all, the lie that she is the wife. The communists do not respect the legislation, the decisions of the courts and even less the bureaucracy of the bourgeoisie, in Peru there is the new power (although very weak at the moment) and there is the party. So the only recognised authority for communists in Peru to celebrate marriages is the party. Chairman Gonzalo sat in total isolation for 29 years, so who was supposed to marry him in front of the party? Himself? “Miriam?” What the reaction has in its files has no meaning for the communists, so from the party’s point of view it cannot be an argument at all. And even if it were. When the revisionists put her on “trial”, did Jiang Qing shout “Long live my husband”? No, she shouted “Long live Chairman Mao!” because she clung to his leadership and did not have to use alleged family ties to set herself up as his successor. The revisionists had to kill her because she did not give up the struggle and stuck to the correct line. Therefore, “Miriam’s” role in the activities of the ROL is deeply obscure and she is now forced to play it out publicly, because all the other lies have already been crushed.

In Peru, the ROL has founded MOVADEF^cxviii as a political party, with which it also participates in elections and represents its demands for a general amnesty.

Apart from their dark practices in Peru itself, the right opportunist second line is again very active internationally, carrying out a revisionist counter-offensive against the spread of Gonzalo thought and the new rising wave of the world proletarian revolution. On the international level, they are trying to link up with other forces, signing declarations with the “TKP-ML” (the right-wing liquidators of the TKP/ML), the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the so-called “(New) Communist Party of Italy”, a so-called “Communist Party of Mexico” and some others.

The ROL is also developing a public sphere of influence on the internet. It has many Facebook pages and is also present on other social media, runs several blogs, where it presents itself as something totally different than “the peace people”. For example, there is a Facebook page where the header is a picture of someone with a slingshot. They have pages with pictures of people with Molotov cocktails and so on. On these pages there are also documents from different Maoist organisations in Latin America and Europe (which actually defend Gonzalo Thought), as well as their international declarations, and in the middle are the ROL materials. That is, if you don’t know them, you get the impression that they are part of the fighting people, and that they are part of the International Communist Movement. The ROL also tried to take over the international demonstration in Hamburg on 18 September 2021, but without appearing in public and without showing their faces. They edited the video that was published on the YouTube channel of the comrades of demvolkedienen.org, as well as some other actions of the ICM, together with their own actions into a separate video and presented it as if they were related to these actions. On one of their YouTube channels there are videos and video excerpts from the demonstration in Hamburg, the demonstration in Greece and some actions in other countries (even from their revisionist allies), the film “You must tell the world” (stolen from DemVolkeDienen), in between there are statements of the rats “Miriam”, Morote, Pantoja, Zambrano and the whole pack. In part they have taken up the slogans of the ICM after the assassination of chairman Gonzalo, in part they have changed them slightly. They have even changed the image of their own campaign to make it look more like the image used by ICM. This is again the usual intelligence method they have always used.

The ROL continues to receive strong support and coverage from reaction and its media. On 7 November 2021, the TV channel “Panamericana” published a report on the alleged activities of “Sendero Luminoso” in the programme “Panorama”. In this report, great attention is paid first of all to a video showing the ROL selling red balloons – no joke! – as a great act of “terrorism”. Great attention is also paid to a ROL blog, of which the full address is presented. A so-called expert (“Senderólogo”) then announces that there is a supposedly “complete virtual library” of “Sendero” on the blog. This “library” again mixes party documents with those of the ROL, again the same method of the secret services.

However, this mob is not only developing its international sphere of influence on the Internet, but is also working intensively on a revisionist counter-offensive in Europe. One of the main headquarters is in France (Paris), the other in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berlin). At the “Revolutionary May Day Demonstration” of 2021 in Berlin, the ROL made its first organisational appearance in a long time. The ROL has also had some successes in other parts of the revolutionary movement in recent years. In the “Junge Welt” they manage to publish articles from time to time, also in other media of the movement they try to spread their poison. They also managed to get an article entitled “On the situation of the long-term prisoners in Peru” (with an appeal for international solidarity) on page 6 of the special issue of 18 March of the “Socorro Rojo” newspaper of 2021. Especially the rat “Miriam” is highlighted under her civilian name. In the same issue, on page 15, for the first time (as far as we know), the addresses of the international political prisoners include the address of the Callao naval base, where Chairman Gonzalo was still detained at the time, but also the prison addresses of several ROL leaders, among them “Miriam”, Morote, Pantoja and Zambrano. This is the way they operate mainly in the FRG. But they do not appear and announce that they want to put an end to the People’s War, but appear as “political prisoners” or “revolutionary prisoners of war”. This makes it difficult for those unfamiliar with the subject to see through this manoeuvre.

That is why it is necessary for all comrades to have a general idea of this history. Because the people in the ROL who do this work are not simple idiots (in the intellectual sense). They are well trained in theoretical questions and know the basis of party unity, but they are revisionists of Gonzalo thought and then claim that “this and that has changed, therefore it is no longer valid today”, or that “they do not know the situation in Peru”, therefore they cannot say anything about it. That is why the comrades must arm themselves against this revisionist pack and fight and denounce them.

Conclusion: Revisionism is the main danger!

A question that often arises is: how did we go from the strategic balance in the People’s War in Peru to the present situation where the problem is the General Reorganisation of the Party? What has caused this damage to the party? The short answer is: revisionism. All the damage done to the Peruvian revolution, to the world proletarian revolution and to the Peruvian Communist Party and its leader has been done by the work of revisionism. This, sustained by a huge military offensive, a massive bombing of the New Power, fascist terror in the cities, imperialism and reaction.

“Fortresses are conquered from within” is a military cliché. The role of revisionism and traitors is more harmful than any fascist terror of reaction. For we expect nothing else from the class enemy, that is their “job”, to fight against the communists. But to be betrayed by those with whom one has fought side by side for years and decades, that is what hurts, as the present situation of the Communist Party of Peru shows. Without the support of the traitors, it would not have been possible for the reaction to do so much damage and bring the party to the present situation.^cxix This is a good – though hard – lesson for all communists of the world to be vigilant against revisionism, especially in the ranks of the Party, and that revisionism is the main danger and must be fought always and everywhere.

At this point, it should be noted that Chairman Gonzalo warned that a well-conducted people’s war can suffer defeats, which of course will always be relative and temporary, due to two situations: the insufficient development of guerrilla warfare because of the lack of modern weapons, i.e., because the reactive forces have not been wrested by destroying their living force, and secondly, the other hill, that of reaction, has not been sufficiently taken into account. And both of these are problems for which the rightists, who later became revisionist traitors, were the main culprits and which they did not correct despite the two-line struggle well conducted by the Chairman. We must end with the full certainty that with the general reorganisation of the party in and for the People’s War, firmly under the leadership of Chairman Gonzalo and his everlasting Gonzalo Thought, the People’s War will rise to greater heights, in the service of the Peruvian revolution and the world revolution.

iFor more information, see below (Endnote II)

ii The International Communist Movement, and in particular its left, as a whole, is well aware of the role and history of the ROL, as it clearly expressed in the declaration “Eternal Glory to Chairman Gonzalo!” of September 24th 2021: “It has been the rat Miriam, who is the head of the revisionist and capitulationist right opportunist line, who from the first moment, has lent her “prestige” to give “credibility” to the hoax of the “peace agreement”; it has been she, who with her “phone call”, with the video montages, the “poems” and the “mamotretos”, who has made possible the damage that the reactionary operatives have caused to the PCP and the People’s War; that rat will go down in history as the most sinister arch-traitor; who, following the example of Lin Piao, iconised Chairman Gonzalo in order to overthrow and kill him, the most filthy revisionist who in vain tried to liquidate the Party and the People’s War and ended up with her hands stained with the sacred blood of Chairman Gonzalo.” Therefore, this article is addressed first of all to the new forces of the ICM and the FRG.

iiiThe first ROL was structured within the party before the beginning of the People’s War and was mainly directed against the initiation. It was purged from the party before the initiation. In the interview, Chairman Gonzalo explains: “No. In our case the all-out struggle took place at the IXth Plenum in I979 in order to initiate the people’s war. There we waged a fierce struggle against a right opportunist line that opposed the initiation of the people’s war. It was there that expulsions and purification of the Party took place. But as is well established, such purging strengthens a Party, and so it was in our case. The proof is that we initiated the people’s war and have been carrying it out for eight years. At the Congress, there wasn’t this kind of struggle to purify the Party. […] Well, here we can point out the first problem that we had. The first problem that we had was an antagonistic struggle against a right opportunist line that opposed starting the people’s war. This is the first problem that we had. We settled this question fundamentally in the IXth Plenum, and the remnants were swept away completely in the February 1980 Plenum. That was the first problem we had, and from there we had the struggle to purify the Party that we talked about before. And we had to struggle fiercely to weed out elements from the Central Committee itself. That’s the way it is, but that is how we strengthened ourselves and were able to enter the process of initiating the people’s war.” And in the Basis of Party Unity, this struggle for initiation is summarised as follows: “And in the Basis of Party Unity, this struggle for initiation is summarised as follows: “This decision was fought through three intense struggles: against the right opportunist line, which was opposed to initiating the armed struggle, which denied the revolutionary situation, claimed that there were no conditions and that there was “stability”; they were excluded and the party decided on a new stage and a new objective. The second struggle was against a new line of the right wing, which assumed that it was impossible to start the armed struggle, that it was only a “dream” and that it was not necessary to take such a decision because it was a question of principle. The third struggle was over differences of opinion within the left, in which the different shades of opinion on how to develop the people’s war were noted and it was determined that the proletarian shade was that of Chairman Gonzalo and that this was the one that had to be imposed later; the whole party undertook to move away from Chairman Gonzalo’s leadership.” (Our translation from the Spanish original, note; ci-ic.org) However, not all supporters of the first ROL were simply expelled from the party, but some were transferred to lower positions and later some of them became heroes of the People’s War.

ivPCP, “¡Construir la conquista del poder en medio de la guerra popular! (2º Pleno del Comité Central)””, 1991; emphasis added. (Our translation; ci-ic.org)

vOn the rectification campaign based on the study of the document “Elections, No! People’s War, Yes!”, 1991

viPCP, “¡Construir la conquista del poder en medio de la guerra popular! (II Pleno del Comité Central)”, 1991. (Our translation; ci-ic.org)

vii“In the face of revolution, the reactionaries use a double tactic: armed repression and the offer of amnesty and conscription, i.e. capitulation. However, the question of refusing or accepting capitulation is at the centre of the two-line struggle. The trilogy of the capitulationist line is: 1. to direct their attacks against the officials, not against the emperor; 2. amnesty and conscription; and 3. suppression of the revolution”, see PCP, “Fundamentals of Political Ideology (2nd Plenum)”, 1991.

viiiIt is important to study the 3rd plenum, there are four important documents here: “Central Document”, “Informe de la Reunión de la Dirección Central con el Comité Regional del Norte (Report of the Meeting of the Central Leadership with the Northern Regional Committee)”, “Informe de la Reunión de la Dirección Central con el Comité de Ayuda Popular del Perú (Report of the Meeting of the Central Leadership with the People’s Aid Committee of Peru)” and “Informe de la Reunión de la Dirección Central con el Comité Zonal de Cangallo-Fajardo (Report of the Meeting of the Central Leadership with the Zonal Committee of Cangallo-Fajardo)”. Some of these can be found in Spanish or in an (unofficial) English translation on the Internet.

ixPCP, “Informe de la reunión de la dirección central con el Comité de Ayuda Popular Perú”, 1992. (Our translation; ci-ic.org)

xPCP, “Informe de la reunión de la dirección central con el Comité de Ayuda Popular Perú”, 1992. (Our translation; ci-ic.org)

xiIbid.

xiiIbid.

xiiiIt is the zonal committee in the area where Chuschi is located, i.e. where the People’s War started. Within the Ayacucho Regional Committee, the main regional committee, the Cangallo-Fajardo Zonal Committee was the main zonal committee. That is to say, within the main regional committee of the whole People’s War, it was the main zonal committee, the most important place of the People’s War, so to speak.

xivThis refers to Chapter XXIV “Correction of erroneous opinions” in the words of the Chairman.

xvPCP, “Report of the Meeting of the Central Leadership with the Cangallo-Fajardo Regional Committee”, 1992; an excerpt of this document can be found in English in the former US newspaper “New Flag” Vol. 4, No. 1 of 1996.

xviPCP, “Informe de la reunión de la dirección central con el Comité Zonal de Cangallo-Fajardo”, 1992. (Our translation; ci-ic.org)

xviiThe problem with the Central Document is that, for the most part, it is a draft of a larger document and many things have not been elaborated accordingly.

xviiiPCP, “III Plenum of the Central Committee – Central Document”, 1992. (Our translation from the Spanish original, note; ci-ic.org)

xixCentral Intelligence Agency; most important foreign intelligence service of the USA.

xxVladimiro Ilich Lenin Montesinos Torres (born 1945); was de-facto head of the Peruvian secret service SIN, the cited article gives a good impression of this CIA puppet and criminal

xxiBenedicto Nemeiso Jiménez Bacca (born: 1953); is considered the creator of the “Grupo Especial de Inteligencia” (GEIN); in this article he is portrayed as the “good guy”, the “democrat”, but he was also part of the genocidal counter-insurgency, only with a special role within it.

xxiiDirección Nacional contra el Terrorisme de la Policia (National Direction of the Police against Terrorism).

xxiiiThis refers to the video of the first party congress of the PCP, which is also shown in excerpts in the documentary “People of the Shining Path”. It also shows the entire PCP Central Committee at that time.

xxivServicio de Intelegencia Nacional (National Intelligence Service).

xxvwashingtonpost.com, “‘Superman’ Meets Shining Path: Story of a CIA Success”, 2000

xxviAlianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA), founded in 1924. It formed the government in Peru in 1985-1990 and 2006-2011, both times with Alan García as president.

xxviiLow Intensity Conflict (LIC).

xxviiiThe above-mentioned manual was therefore also valid when the reaction led to Chairman Gonzalo being taken prisoner of war.

xxixHeadquarters Departments of the Army and the Air Force, “Military Operations in Low Intensity Conflict”, Field Manual 100-20, 1990.

xxxIbid.

xxxiIbid.

xxxiiPCP, “Linea De Construcción De Los Tres Instrumentos De La Revolución”, 1988. (Our translation; ci-ic.org)

xxxiiiHeadquarters Departments of the Army and the Air Force, “Military Operations in Low Intensity Conflict”, Field Manual 100-20, 1990.

xxxivIbid.

xxxvIbid.

xxxviAlthough the United States had and still has the leadership over the counterrevolution in Peru, it is far from being the only state that promoted the struggle against the people’s war. The military line of the PCP briefly addresses this fact: “The reactionary armed forces continued with the counterrevolutionary war, following the concepts of their US imperialist masters, the theory they established according to their experiences in counterrevolutionary warfare, mainly taken from Vietnam and specifically drawn to the struggle against armed insurgency in Latin America, especially in Central America. This is the basic theoretical source combined with the ‘anti-terrorist’ experiences of Israel and its counterpart in Argentina, together with advisors from the Federal Republic of Germany, Taiwan, Spain, etc.” (Our translation from the Spanish original, note; ci-ic.org); social-imperialism also actively supported the fight against people’s war, e.g. in 1988 the GDR signed contracts with the reactionary Peruvian army for the supply of assault rifles, see: demvolkedienen.org, “GDR: Assault rifles against people’s wars”, published on 19 January 2021.

xxxviiLuza murdered his own wife in 1966 and was sentenced to life imprisonment, but only until 1972. He was pardoned and released by the Velasco military regime. The PCP carried out an operation in 1994 in which they almost completely destroyed his house with a bomb.

xxxviiiDiazepam belongs to the benzodiazepines, formerly known as “Valium”, and is used as a sedative. Its use can cause fatigue, drowsiness, lack of concentration and much more. If taken in high doses for a long time, it causes hallucinations, anxiety, suicidal tendencies and similar effects.

xxxixCaretas, 29 September 1994; quoted from El Diario Internacional, “Operación Capitulación”, November 1994. (Our translation from the Spanish original, note; ci-ic.org)

xlLaw Enforcements and Narcotics Affairs.

xliControl and Reduction of Coca Cultivation in Alto Huallaga; Agency responsible for the destruction of coca fields.

xliiAirborne Warning and Control System, the US Air Force’s airspace surveillance system.

xliiiPeruvian magazine founded in 1948, published until 1995.

xlivJorge Torres Aciego (1927 – 1999); was a major general in the Peruvian reactionary army, was Minister of Defence under Fujimori from July 1990 to November 1991 and was Peruvian Ambassador to Israel from 1992 to 1995.

xlvSteven Levitsky (b. 1968); American political scientist, currently at Harvard University, his focus is on Latin America.

xlviJoint Command of the Armed Forces.

xlviiCarlos Guillermo Torres y Torres Lara (1942 – 2000); Peruvian lawyer and politician, was Minister of Labour (July 1990 – February 1991), President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs (February – November 1991), and then a member of Fujimori’s Congress.

xlviiiFounded in 1963 and subordinate to the US Department of Defence, it is responsible for the military activities of US imperialism in Central and South America and the Caribbean, including the defence of the Panama Canal.

xlixGeorge Alfred Joulwan (b. 1939); former US Army General, served twice as a soldier in the war of aggression against Vietnam, from 1990 to 1993 he was supreme commander of Southern Command and thus also responsible for military operations in Peru.

lJ. Phillip McLean, was Director of the Bureau of Andean Affairs from 1984 to 1987 and Assistant Secretary of State for South America from 1990 to 1993.

liSociety of St. Francis de Sales, a Catholic religious missionary community named after the 17th century bishop of Geneva of the same name. Founded in the 19th century as a Christian response to the growing impoverishment of the masses, it combines its missionary work with social assistance.

liiMilitary operations under the responsibility of the US Southern Command under the pretext of supporting counter-narcotics operations in Latin America.

liiiThe US Army Special Forces, known as the “Green Berets”, specialised, among other things, in counter-insurgency. They have long experience of genocidal operations in oppressed nations.

livPCP, “Sobre La Dos Colinas (Documento De Estudio Para El Balance De La III Campaña)”, 1991; omissions appear without brackets in the original. (Our translation; ci-ic.org)

lvJudge Advocate General’s Corps; supreme judicial authority for the armed forces of U.S. imperialism. They apply military jurisdiction on the basis of the US Constitution and general military criminal law.

lviSee Jeffrey F. Addicott (International and Operational Law Division, Office of the Advocate General), “JAG Corps poised for new defence missions: Human rights training in Peru”, 1993.

lviiCentral Committee of the Communist Party of Peru, “Against the Genocidal and Country-Selling Dictatorship, Persist in the People’s War! “, 03/1995

lviiiOn 15 September 1992, the Washington Post reported: “Fujimori told a crowded and chaotic news conference: ‘We have struck at the heart of the Shining Path’. Although the constitution prohibits the death penalty and Peru has signed treaties banning it, he said the death penalty for Guzman “would have to be considered”. He added: “From a personal point of view, I would be in favour of the death penalty”.

Fujimori seized powers by decree in April in defiance of the constitution, claiming they were necessary to win the war against the Shining Path unhindered by corrupt legislators. He then passed an anti-subversion law that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for convicted leaders.” (“Peru’s Leader Advocates Death Penalty for Rebel”) Almost a year later, the New York Times reported on August 6, 1993: “At a meeting of Latin American leaders last month in Brazil, President Fujimori said that if he had ever met Guzmán in person and had a gun pointed at him, ‘he would have sent him to hell‘.

Whether the guerrilla leader will be executed is still an open question, as the constitution only allows the death penalty in cases of war treason. […] But a vote in Congress this week has made it almost certain that Shining Path leaders captured in the future will risk a quick sentence and execution as Peru prepares to become the first Latin American country in recent years to expand the use of the death penalty.” (“Peru expected to extend death penalty to terrorists”).

lixIt should be noted that even in bourgeois armies it is common practice to regard as false any report that goes against the mobilisation of troops for war. This is the case, for example, in the Norwegian army, as laid down in a 1949 directive: “An armed attack should be interpreted as an order for full and immediate mobilization across the country if the King (Government) is put out of play by the enemy. Orders issued in the name of the Government to suspend mobilization shall be considered false.” See “Directives for military officers and military leaders in case of armed attack on Norway”, cf. the article “Consider as false any call for capitulation” on tjen-folket.no (English section).

lxThe people’s war approach of using mainly people from the ranks of the fighting organisation and using prisoners of war was also used in the elimination of the armed struggle in South Africa against the apartheid regime. In this case, an ANC member (Thabo Mbeki) who was abroad was deliberately corrupted, even holding a secret meeting with representatives of the South African bureaucratic capital in 1985. It is also worth remembering that the ANC leader – Nelson Mandela – was in the hands of the government in Robben Island prison at the time of the negotiation of the peace agreement.

lxiAlso known as “Remigio” or Nicolas”.

lxiiThe name “Canto Grande” actually corresponds to the place where the prison is located, but is now commonly used in ICM; the former Peruvian state’s official name for the prison was “Castro Castro”.

lxiiiPeruvian National Police.

lxivSantiago Martín Rivas was the leader of the “Colina Group”.

lxvThe official figure for extrajudicial executions today is 42, but the real number is around 120.

lxvi“Escrito de solicitudes, argumentos y pruebas de la interviniente comun por las víctimas ante la corte interamericana de derechos humanos de conformidad al articulo 36 del reglamento de la corte, en el caso Deodato Hugo Juárez Cruzatt y Otros (‘Centro Penal Miguel Castro Castro’) Caso 11.015 Contra la República del Perú”, December 2005; our translation.

lxvii The reason given by the genocidal leader in his statement is probably based on his own reactionary logic and not on an understanding of the two-line struggle in the party.

lxviii See taz, “The society must be created anew by the people”, 5 June 1990; in this interview with Victor Polay (former MRTA leader), taz also interestingly gives information on how Morote was housed in Canto Grande.

lxixSee The New York Times, “Peru Convicts Maoist Rebel Leader and Sentences Him to Life”, 8 October 1992.

lxx See apnews.com, “Shining Path Leader Moved from Island Prison to Navy Base”, 04 April 1993; this move to Callao was crucial to the logistics of the machinations of the CIA, Peruvian reaction and the ROL. This facilitated the entry of people into the prison, the meeting of different ROL representatives, the entry and exit of intelligence agents, which would have been much more difficult to do in the island prison, especially in order to go unnoticed.

lxxiLet us remember what he said in this speech – among other things: “We must continue the tasks that were set at the 3rd Plenum of the CC – a glorious plenum! You should know that these decisions are already being applied and that this will continue. We will continue to apply the Fourth Strategic Development Plan of the People’s War for the Conquest of Power. We will continue the development of the Sixth Military Plan for building the conquest of power. It is an obligation! We must do it because of who we are; because of our obligations to the proletariat and the people!“; not a word of surrender and peace, in this last opportunity to address the public.

lxxii Movimiento Popular Perú

lxxiii MPP (CR), “Viva el XXIV Aniversario del Discurso del Presidente Gonzalo!”, September 2016.

lxxiv Army Intelligence Service.

lxxv Better known by her cover name “Meche”, after her arrest in 1984 there was a widespread campaign for her release.

lxxvi Her cover name was “Rosa” and she was a member of the “Association of Democratic Lawyers”. She was arrested in 1992. Before her trial, she had been tortured so severely that she could not even speak at the trial, which was even recognised by the International Red Cross. In 2017, she was released after 25 years of imprisonment.

lxxviiKnown mainly as “Miriam”.

lxxviii “After being captured a year ago, Abimael Guzmán made a fiery proclamation to all his followers to continue relentlessly the war against the Peruvian state and its society. Today, in a U-turn, he appeals to his interlocutor, the President of Peru, to retract his previous atrocious objectives. This essentially demonstrates that he has inevitably assumed the total defeat of his totalitarian project. In fact, I recently received a revealing communication from the leader of Sendero Luminoso, Abimael Guzmán, who is in prison, in which he called for a peace agreement’. I repeat, Abimael Guzmán Reynoso has asked the President of Peru to talk about a “peace agreement”; See “Proceedings of the 12th Plenary Session of the United Nations General Assembly”.

lxxix See El Diario Internacional, “Operación Capitulación”, November 1994; it should be noted that the editor of the newspaper and author of the article is Luis Arce Borja, who, while still in Peru, participated in the drafting of the interview with Chairman Gonzalo and in the newspaper “El Diario”, and later served for a time in the fight against the lies of the ROL, but then went on to attack and denounce the party’s foreign work. However, in the article quoted here, there is important information to dismantle the lies of the peace agreement.

lxxx As a result, the MPP split in November 1993. Since then, it has been in a process of reorganisation and reconstruction, during which the ROL was decisively defeated abroad.

lxxxi Birthday of Chairman Gonzalo and founding day of the People’s Liberation Army (before its name change: People’s Guerrilla Army).

lxxxii As the PCP Central Committee reaffirms in a document, it is a recognised principle in the ICM that one cannot lead from prison, regardless of one’s responsibilities in the party hierarchy.

lxxxiii The lie of the peace letters also had its effect on the ICM and especially on the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), which was drafting its statement for Chairman Mao’s centenary this year. Fujimori and the CIA, i.e. US imperialism, directly intervened in the two-line struggle in the ICM and RIM and also tried to create confusion in the PCP. The alliance between imperialism, Peruvian reaction and the ROL is shown once again.

lxxxiv See Víctor Peralta Ruizprensa, “Prensa, opinión pública y terrorismo en Perú (1980-1994)”, June 1996, p. 350.

lxxxv PCP Central Committee, “Declaration”, 07/10/1993.

lxxxvi One of these texts, entitled “Outline for a Basic Document”, was published in Canto Grande in the last half of 1993 and was to be distributed among party members and sympathisers together with “Take Up and Fight for the New Decision and the New Definition!”. This text contains 11 points which in their essence are a programme of surrender. In short: Peace agreement, ending the People’s War, disbanding and disarming the People’s Guerrilla Army, disbanding the People’s Committees and the bases of operations, in return the prisoners of war should be released and reintegrated. Truly a plate of lentils – Lenin spoke of – for which the people’s war is sold.

lxxxvii Mao Tse-tung, “On Chungching Negotiations”, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Foreign Language Editions, PEKING: 1976.

lxxxviii CC of the PCP, “Reaffirm Our Party Basis of Unity and Build the Seizure of Power!”, February 1994.

lxxxix See El Diario Internacional, “Operación Capitulación”, November 1994.

xc See “Sesión No. 90 del proceso judicial por los casos la Cantuta y Barrios Altos (Nonagésima Sesión)”.

xci Caretas, “El Testimonio del Agente 002”, 9 May 2002.

xcii El Comercio, “La carta de Abimael Guzmán”, 2 October 1993.

xciii Civilian name: Margie Clavo Peralta.

xciv Civilian name: Jorge Olivares.

xcv It was founded in 1839 and is Peru’s largest daily newspaper, with a circulation of up to 185,000 copies. The publishing group owns almost 78% of the newspaper sales market in Peru.

xcviOne day after the anniversary of Chairman Gonzalo’s speech.

xcvii See “Transcripcion del audio N.°C-72 ‘Suecia’ del 25 setiembre de 1995”.

xcviii César Augusto Hildebrandt Pérez-Treviño (born 1948); Peruvian reactionary journalist.

xcix According to Muñoz in the same interview, the notary Luis Vargas acted as a censor at Canal 2. According to his account, he made it clear to her that the conversation with Montesinos was to be kept strictly secret.

cSee Caretas, “El Disco Duro de Abimael”, Issue No. 1408.

ci See Inter Press Service, “Shining Path Reemerges on 16th Anniversary of Armed Struggle”, 16 May 1996.

cii There were two Ad Hoc Commissions. After the genocide in the prisons of Lurigancho, El Frontón and El Callao on 18 and 19 June 1986, the Peruvian Congress had to create an ad hoc commission to investigate responsibilities. It was set up in August 1986 and took two years to produce a report. The commission was made up of two factions. The “majority” faction did not hold President García and the Council of Ministers responsible for the crime. The government accepted the report. To date, the acknowledged investigation has not been published. There was also an ad hoc commission formed by several non-governmental organisations, including Amnesty International. In the late 1990s, as part of the “peace process”, it campaigned for the pardon of people who had been imprisoned without evidence for terrorism or treason.

ciii Hubert Lanssiers (1929 – 2006); Belgian priest; was a CIA agent in the country after the surrender of Japan. Also served in Algeria as a member of the French Foreign Legion. Then, among others, in Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu, Cambodia and South Africa. In Peru, he taught at a Catholic university. From 1974, he worked in the Peruvian prisons of Canto Grande, El Frontón and Chorrillos, among others, and from 1996, he was a member of the Ad Hoc Commission. He had close links with Osman Morote and his family.

civ An important element in US imperialism’s “low intensity warfare”, as quoted in the field manual, “is also the national programmes to bring insurgents to the side of the government”. This programme found its concrete form in the “Repentance Act”. The first version of this law was promulgated by order of Fujimori on 12 May 1992. On 13 August 1993, the “Congress” created by Fujimori also passed a new version. This includes “persons involved, prosecuted or sentenced for the crimes of terrorism or treason, with the exception of those who belong to a leadership group of a terrorist organisation, whether as a leader, ringleader, chief or other equivalent”. Those who address themselves here can “apply the benefit of sentence reduction up to half the legal minimum” but only to those who voluntarily provide timely and truthful information that allows to know aspects of terrorist groups or organisations and their functioning, the identification of the chiefs, ringleaders, leaders or their main members, or that makes their capture possible; as well as when they communicate future actions if with such information they prevent, neutralise or reduce the damage that could have been produced.” Those who cooperated with the reaction were called “repentants”. Figures on the number of people who took advantage of the law vary widely. Above all, they are shaped by the “low-intensity warfare”, because the figures were often greatly exaggerated or artificially inflated, for example, by declaring uninvolved peasants arrested in a military operation, who then allegedly accepted the law of repentance, to be party members. The inflated figures on surrenders and “repenters” are intended to further demoralise the party ranks. A method that is also used today, for example, against the People’s War in India, where false accusations are also repeatedly uncovered.

cv A World to Win 1999/25, “Interview with Comrade Inéz: a light in the darkness of Peru’s prisons”.

cviOn the occasion of this prison riot, the obscure role of the ROL was once again revealed. In 2001, a telephone conversation between Osman Morote and María Pantoja on the one hand, and Montesinos on the other, dated 7 February 2000, came to light. In this phone call, Montesinos instructs the two rats to put an end to the uprising as soon as possible and to make sure that the prisoners hand over their weapons. They also discuss how to proceed with “Feliciano”, who had been captured the previous year. For more information, see “Transcript of audio no. c-72, “Morote”. No. c-72, “Morote – DR – Yanamayo Mutiny – Puno”, 7 February 2000″.

cvii Civilian name: Jorge Quispe Palomino; his death was announced on 30 March 2021.

cviii A very important document, which all comrades should have studied, on this subject is “For the general reorganisation of the Communist Party of Peru as part of the development of the People’s War for the conquest of power throughout the country!” by the New Democracy Association, October 2011.

cix Published in 2002.

cx “Feliciano” gave himself up completely in prison and in 2003 he took a stand in favour of “democracy as the superior system” in a video of the so-called “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”. He thus became an absolute renegade from Marxism.

cxiPCP Central Committee, “Political Report”, May 1996; from the non-public part of the document, emphasis added.

cxii This area, where he is now active, is mainly known as VRAEM (Valle de los Ríos Apurímac, Ene y Mantaro; in English: Valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro Rivers), where he maintains his reign with his gang, which he calls the “Partido Comunista Militarizado del Perú” (MPCP). The last time they attracted attention was in May 2021, when they attacked a brothel just before the elections, killing 16 people, including underage prostitutes.

cxiii One day before the anniversary of his arrest in 1992.

cxiv Until the “end”, the reaction continues to apply its method of taking advantage of important dates of the party, such as the speech of President Gonzalo.

cxv A short story by Miriam entitled “The Journey to the Sea” was published, dated February 1995. In this short story she refers to some of the machinations of the ROL and denounces those perpetuating the People’s War at the time.

cxvi The defeatist poem “Comrades” was published by the ROL as part of the alleged cultural contributions of the Luminous Trenches of Struggle (undated).

cxvii Víctor Peralta Ruizprensa, “Prensa, opinión pública y terrorismo en Perú (1980-1994)”, June 1996.

cxviii Movimiento por la Amnistía y Derechos Fundamentales was founded on 20 November 2009 by ROL lawyer Alfredo Crespo.

cxix The Chinese Communist Party has also known the role of the traitors of the revolution and has presented its experiences in a popular form in the book “The Red Rock” [Roter Fels]. In this book, the authors already describe exactly the same or similar methods of reaction to fight against the Party and the revolution. See also the review of the book in Klassenstandpunkt #19.