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Peru:
Another Revenge Trial for Chairman Gonzalo
Do the people
of Peru have to accept the way the US and the country's ruling classes
want them to live, or do they have the right to rebel? That, in
essence, is what is at stake in the trial for Chairman Gonzalo (Abimael
Guzman) and other accused leaders of the Communist Party of Peru,
set for February 2005 as we go to press. These men and women are
being persecuted for waging a people's war, regardless of the present
attitude of any of the defendants, and that must be opposed.
In 1980, the
PCP began an armed uprising in Peru's countryside that won the support
of millions and grew into a revolutionary civil war. They fought
what Mao called a people's war because its aim is to bring the masses
to power and make them the masters of their own destiny, and therefore
its strategy and tactics are based on relying on the people.
Most have been
jailed for more than a dozen years already, and some of them for
as long as 16. Under international pressure and a ruling from the
Inter-American Human Rights Court, two years ago the Peruvian Supreme
Court overturned their original convictions on vague charges of
"terrorism" by military tribunals run by hooded officers. Instead
of releasing these defendants, the government held them with no
legal justification until new laws could be passed and new accusations
formulated. Many underwent second trials before a new special "anti-terrorist"
court, this time with civilian judges. The state failed to obtain
all the convictions it wanted - in the case of Chairman Gonzalo
and 17 others, the second trial in November 2004 was aborted. Now,
in a new attempt to justify the continuing incarceration of these
prisoners, they are being tried for "terrorism" a third time.
The head of
the Anti-Terrorism Court, Pablo Talavera, boasted he would quickly
settle the fate of all approximately 1,500 revolutionaries facing
new trials, and that this trial of the Party leadership would be
their last. Unlike previous courtroom appearances, it will combine
the outstanding charges against all those accused of being Party
leaders in one single "megatrial" which, he said, would be as brief
as possible. The proceedings are to be held in the military prison
at the Callao naval base near Lima where Chairman Gonzalo has long
been held in an underground cell. It will be open to the public,
Talavera said, but with "the restrictions allowed by law". In Chairman
Gonzalo's last trial, this meant that attendance was limited to
family members and the press. After the first day, cameras and sound
recording were forbidden, contrary to usual practice.
That trial
ended in chaos. Some 250 Peruvian and international journalists
crowded into the press section behind a glass partition in the back
of the courtroom. As the defendants, sitting together, talked among
themselves and went before the judge one at a time to discuss who
would represent them, reporters tapped on the glass and asked Chairman
Gonzalo to turn and face the cameras. He did so repeatedly, raising
his fist. Amid a rising hubbub, the chief judge made an effort to
re-establish his control and told the press to leave. They ignored
him. The judge ordered the police to clear the court, but at first
they failed to respond. Chairman Gonzalo and most of the other defendants
stood up, turned their backs to the judge, raised their fists and
chanted, "Long live the Communist Party of Peru! Glory to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
Glory to the Peruvian People! Long live the People's Heroes of the
People's War!" This could be plainly seen and heard on television
coverage shown in Peru and around the world. The presiding judge
himself was drowned out by the chanting. The three-magistrate panel
left the courtroom hanging their heads, while the defendants marched
out smiling, their heads high.
A furious Peruvian
President Alejandro Toledo went on television the following evening
to assail the presiding judge. He threatened "summary trials", raising
the spectre of the 1992 secret, snap tribunals. The presiding judge
refused to heed calls to withdraw so that the case could continue
without him. When the trial was reconvened five days later, it was
the other two judges who resigned, unexpectedly, each bitterly denouncing
the others. By law the trial had to be called off.
The minor nature
of the charges against Chairman Gonzalo and the others (using a
Lima private school for logistical and financial support of Party
activities) contrasted with the decades-long sentences they carried
that would have kept the 70-year-old Gonzalo and other defendants
in jail for their lifetimes. The evidence is not very solid, according
to some sources. It seems plausible that infighting within Peru's
ruling classes about whether or not to hold this particular trial
played a role in its collapse. Toledo supporters and opposition
politicians descended into an orgy of vicious mutual attacks over
whom to blame for what they considered a humiliating outcome. Disciplinary
proceedings were undertaken against all three judges. Talavera announced
that he would take over personally, with a new plan.
The authorities
began further punishment of the accused without waiting for a conviction.
Manuel Fajardo, Chairman Gonzalo's lawyer, said in a newspaper interview
that after three years of weekly meetings with his client he was
no longer allowed direct contact. In violation of previous court
orders, Fajardo was forbidden to speak with his client except through
a glass separation in a special booth, making confidential trial
preparations impossible. He said Chairman Gonzalo is not allowed
a radio, television or newspapers. Elena Iparraguirre (known as
Comrade Miriam), Chairman Gonzalo's wife who had been in an adjacent
cell, was transferred to the Chorrillos women's prison. There she
is also kept isolated from other inmates. Family visits have been
halted. Specifically, this means Iparraguirre's mother, who visited
the two of them.
The fear of
a resurgence of revolutionary war is a major factor in the vengeful
attitude of the Peruvian people's enemies. Even the form of the
proceedings, what Fajardo called an illegal "court of exception"
instead of the regular judicial system, bears this out. This is
not just an attempt to impose a historical verdict on the People's
War. Its very timely purpose is to foster demoralisation among revolutionary-minded
people in Peru and elsewhere. While the ruling classes used to blame
the disruption of the People's War for the people's disastrous conditions,
extreme poverty has reached record levels in the absence of much
fighting in the last several years. Toledo, whose election was supposed
to bring about dramatic change after the discredited, more openly
dictatorial Fujimori, is now the most unpopular government head
in Latin America. Infighting within the ruling classes is rocking
the whole political set-up. To a large extent because of the experience
of the People's War, the regime and the US are determined that this
political instability not find a revolutionary outlet and spread.
Most of the
defendants who took part in the November 2004 courtroom action led
by Chairman Gonzalo have been publicly associated with a line arising
from within the Party which concluded that because of his capture
it was impossible to continue the revolutionary war. The people's
war had to be put off to the hazy and indefinite future and instead,
this line argued, the PCP should disband the army under its leadership
and the People's Committees where the peasants held political power
in much of the countryside, and enter peace negotiations with the
government to obtain freedom for prisoners of war, amnesty and "national
reconciliation".
The only one
who did not join in chanting the slogans was Oscar Ramirez, known
as Comrade Feliciano. Ramirez took up leadership of the Central
Committee following Chairman Gonzalo's arrest until his own imprisonment
in 1999. Now very different but concurring sources report that he
has turned against revolution completely. He has been quoted attacking
the Party, the People's War from the day it began, and the communist
project in general.
Background
to This Trial
A year after
Chairman Gonzalo was arrested in 1992, the government released a
video assertedly showing him and Iparraguirre signing a letter calling
for negotiations to end the people's war. Documents attributed to
him arguing for this position began circulating. The Party's Central
Committee denounced it as a right opportunist line and pledged to
carry forward the war. They also denounced the Peruvian regime for
fabricating what they called a "hoax".
The Committee
of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, which had mobilised
a world campaign to "Move Heaven and Earth to Defend the Life of
Chairman Gonzalo" after the capture, called for a careful examination
of the two lines - the PCP's line historically and the proposed
new line - in light of historical experience of revolutionary wars
and negotiations, and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. All revolutions involve
temporary retreats and compromises and several have entered into
negotiations with positive results, the Committee pointed out. The
question here was not whether revolutionaries should ever make compromises,
but what kinds of compromises were being offered, for what aim and
under what circumstances. "Do the proposed negotiations serve the
task of seizing political power through revolutionary warfare, regardless
of what stages or turns this warfare may go through", the Committee
asked, "or are they aimed at returning to the pre-war situation
of 1980?"
CoRIM commissioned
the Leading Committee of the Union of Communists of Iran - the
predecessor of the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)
- to write a thorough assessment of Asumir, the main document putting
forward the right opportunist line. The polemic looked at the experience
of the communist movement internationally to dispute the claim that
the People's War in Peru could not solve the problem of leadership
without Chairman Gonzalo. It also analysed how setbacks can be overcome
through the course of persisting in people's war, and warned that
a revolutionary war is different than reactionary wars. Although
a revolutionary war might go through ups and downs and even temporary
ceasefires, fundamentally it cannot be turned on and off like a
faucet because "once the war is launched, either you destroy [the
enemy and his state] or get destroyed... Anything contrary to this
is a dangerous illusion." Attempting to halt the war would "turn
a military defeat" (Chairman Gonzalo's capture) "into a political
defeat".
On the basis
of examining the two positions, CoRIM came to the conclusion, "Objectively
and irrespective of the intentions of those who are arguing for
it, the call for negotiations to reach a peace accord and the arguments,
or rationalisations put forward in defence and elaboration of this
call, do not represent a necessary and justified compromise but
rather a compromise of the fundamental interests of the people and
an abandonment of the People's War and the revolutionary road."
The RIM Committee
called upon Maoists throughout the world to "Rally to the Defence
of Our Red Flag Flying in Peru" by defending the People's War and
the PCP Central Committee and fully engaging in the two-line struggle,
both as a key part of supporting those in the party who resolved
to persevere in the war and because of the serious implications
for the world movement. "Let this furnace of two-line struggle also
serve as a great school of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, revealing the
difference between real and sham Marxism, and helping revolutionaries
around the world to understand the necessities of the hour and to
fulfil them," it concluded. The RIM parties later voted to endorse
the Committee's call.
However, some
people with varying degrees of connection to PCP opposed this approach
and criticised the Committee for not endorsing the "hoax" idea instead.
One of the most vociferous was Luís Arce Borja, a long-time PCP
ally now in exile, who labelled the right opportunist line nothing
but a "police plot" ("a montage set up by the Peruvian regime and
American imperialism"). Further, he said, "To hold that the peace
agreement' is part of a process of internal conflict within the
PCP portrays it as an organisation corroded by a scandalous division,
an organisation divided and undermined and on the very verge of
destruction. This point of view is similar to that of the die-hard
enemies of the revolution."
A reply to
Arce Borja in A World to Win magazine, "On the Maoist Conception
of Two-Line Struggle", explained that every party exists in class
society (even after socialism, until communism when the need for
a party itself will disappear). Contending ideas inevitably reflect
the outlooks of the contending classes, not necessarily in an immediate
way but ultimately. Although there are "high tides and low tides,"
there is always a two-line struggle between ideas representing the
proletariat's mission of moving toward ending the division of humanity
into classes and other ideas that represent stopping short of that.
Without a clash of ideas in its midst a communist party cannot hope
to lead revolution, let alone transform the old society. Contrary
to the way people like Arce see it, this kind of struggle in the
party can't be prevented. Especially when events bring life-and-death
issues to the fore, major questions of programme and ideology on
which the success of the revolution depends come into sharp focus
and have to be fought out by leading debate, polemics and other
forms. Further, and also contrary to Arce-type views, this is not
necessarily a sign of weakness at all, or even simply a way to rid
the party of wrong ideas, but a process that can bring leaps in
the party's understanding. In that sense, it is a source of greater
strength and the motor driving forward the party's development -
its outlook and line, and the understanding and ability of its members
as well as of the people.
When people
in a communist party put forward ideas, policies and strategic directions
that objectively represent the outlook and interests of the exploiting
classes, they seldom openly attack Marxism or even cease using Maoist
rhetoric. The documents of the right opportunist line contain the
slogan "Glory to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism" but represent a fundamental
change of direction for the Party. That's why "revealing the difference
between real and sham Marxism" requires paying attention to key
issues and basic principles, and why two-line struggle is the only
solution to the problem of revisionism in the party on every level.
The Peruvian
ruling classes rejected the 1993 call for a peaceful settlement
of the war. At the end of the 1990s the right opportunist line began
to treat the call for negotiations as a dead issue, blaming the
PCP Central Committee for continuing a war they saw as hopeless
instead of negotiating a settlement at the height of its strength.
But the most important reason for the sharp fall-off in fighting
has not been the enemy's military success or even the arrests of
Party leaders and cadre, as painful as these have been. Rather it
is because of the widespread demobilisation of many Party members,
fighters and supporters among the masses due to the desertion of
many party leaders and cadres to the right opportunist line.
The Peruvian
revolution has provided the international proletariat tremendous
experience during both its peaks and difficult moments. In opposing
today's reactionary revenge trials and supporting the past, present
and future of the People's War in Peru and everywhere, revolutionaries
will need to take up all the issues that experience posed, including
the two-line struggle. When looked at and synthesised from a dialectical
materialist point of view, the basis exists for overcoming the defeats
and making even greater advances in Peru and around the world.
(Documents
by the RIM Committee, the PCP Central Committee, the Iranian polemic
and the basic documents of the right opportunist line were printed
in A World to Win 1995/21. "On the Maoist Conception of Two-Line
Struggle" and the document by Arce Borja came out in A World to
Win 1996/22. They are available online at www.awtw.org).
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