“Terrorists! Tonight we will enter
your homes, we’ll eat your guts,
drink your blood, cut off your heads
and gouge out your eyes!”
-Chanted by Sinchis
in the streets of Ayacucho
There is another civil war in La-
tin America–one that has barely
come to the attention of the media.
In the remote hills of Peru’s An-
dean department (state) of Aya-
cucho, the Army and specially
trained counterinsurgency police
known as Sinchis are battling an
enigmatic Maoist guerrilla group,
Sendero Luminoso (SL). Since the
Army took control of seven Andean
provinces (counties), the peasant
population has become polarized.
The battle is for the allegiance of
the Quechua-speaking Indians
who are the target of coercion
and threats from both sides.
When peasants hacked eight
journalists to death in the commu-
nity of Uchuraccay in late January,
the world glimpsed the dimensions
of the Army’s counterinsurgency
plans. The brutal murders point to
the military’s use of peasant com-
munities as active forces in its war
against SL. It has also become
clear that the military has strategi-
cally sealed Ayacucho off from
the press, and thereby the world.
Confused versions of bloody mas-
sacres are reported in military
communiques, yet the press is
not able to enter the zone of con-
Carol Barton visited Peru in March.
She is a former staff-person of Peru Solidarity, now the Ecumenical Com- mittee on the Andes. She lived in Peru from 1976 to 1980.
A village in Ayacucho province.
flict. Because the Uchuraccay vic-
tims were journalists trying to
check out military reports, other
reporters have been effectively
discouraged from continuing their
work. The news from Ayacucho,
in fact, is that there is no news,
and no answers to probing ques-
tions about the incident.
According to Jorge Torres of
Gente magazine, the press is con-
stantly harassed, film is confis-
cated and a number of journalists
have been jailed. One reporter,
Luis Morales of El Diario, a leftist
daily, was jailed for four days after
filing exclusive testimony from
peasants in Uchuraccay. In a re-
cent article, Torres pointed out
the unreliability of military com-
muniqu6s, and mentioned one re-
lease declaring that Sinchis had
killed five Senderistas in an armed
encounter. On inspection journal-
ists documented that innocent
peasants had been murdered.
36
Today, there is no possibility of
corroborating such reports.
The journalists entered the re-
gion to investigate reports that
peasants of Huaychau had killed
seven Senderistas the week be-
fore. Employed by various publica-
tions-pro-government and non-
they were denied the military es-
cort into the area by helicopter that
had been extended to other jour-
nalists. Later, colleagues learned
that Sinchis had regularly visited
the zone, telling horror stories about
SL. One peasant revealed that
Sinchis “told us to kill any stranger
that appeared,” and backed up
the order by threatening that the
uncooperative would be labeled
terrorists.
Opposition press in Lima, left
and center, has pointed a finger
at the military command of Aya-
cucho for direct, if unwitting re-
sponsibility in the murders. In re-
sponse, the Army has unsuccess-
NACLA Reportupdate update update update
May Day: Campesinos rally to protest government policies.
fully called for the closure of cer-
tain dailies. The government has
begun a whitewash of the event
and there is evidence of a cover-
up.
Shaky Interpretation
The decision to appoint world-
renowned novelist Mario Vargas
Llosa, a writer sympathetic to the
governing Popular Action Party,
to lead the investigation team was
largely seen as an effort to bolster
the shaky government interpreta-
tion of events. The 200-page re-
port, which has been called im-
passioned and eloquent, builds
on the testimonies of linguists,
anthropologists and social scien-
tists. Adopting a condescending
“they know not what they do” at-
titude, the document places guilt
with all Peruvians for not having
incorporated Indians into modern
society.
The government accepts no
May/June 1983
special responsibility for the mur-
ders, nor names any wrongdoing
on Sinchis’ part. Further evidence
of the alleged cover-up are the
disappearances of key suspects
and rolls of film. The journalists’
guide has also disappeared, mak-
ing it impossible to determine
whether he died along with his
charges, and, if so, how.
Battle Lines Are Drawn
After two years of guerrilla ac-
tions in Ayacucho and throughout
Peru, which had grown in scale
and audacity, Peruvian President
Fernando Belaunde imposed mar-
tial law in seven provinces around
Ayacucho last December. The
Army entered the central region
of Ayacucho department, an area
controlled by SL. Despite fears of
a blood bath, in villages where SL
is weakest, the Army has focused
on a more subtle psychological
“anti-subversion” war, offering
food, propaganda and protection.
Complementing the Army, the
Sinchi patrols are sent into pro-
SL towns to terrorize the peasants.
They enter after curfew, shooting
automatic rifles in the air, pulling
people out of bed and beating
them. The uncooperative are ar-
rested or summarily shot. They
ransack homes taking valuables
and leaving destruction. The cam-
paign has come to be known as
Belaunde’s “dirty war.” Thousands
of young men have been arrested,
hundreds of civilians have been
killed. According to resentful reg-
ular soldiers, the Sinchi patrols
receive a special combat bonus
to do their dirty work. In many com-
munities, all males between 15
and 45 years of age have disap-
peared. Some leave to avoid be-
coming new victims of one or both
of the warring factions, but others
have taken up arms with SL.
SL has done its share of terror-
37
ru
.E J
=Iupdate update update update
:
Peru-caught between a repressive state and the ominous Sendero Luminoso.
izing as well. According to Rail
GonzAlez of DESCO, a left-liberal
research institute in Lima, in the
early stages of its war SL enjoyed
broad popular sympathy, but there
is evidence that support is waning
in the Ayacucho region, due to the
Army’s presence and to some key
strategic mistakes on the guerril-
las’ part. SL closed down weekly
markets in some communities in
an attempt to impose subsistence
farming and a return to pre-capi-
talist forms of trade. This, and the
vengeful assassinations of mem-
bers of the peasant communities
whom they believed to be “traitors
and informants,” have cost the
guerrillas considerable support.
Observers also note that SL proved
unable to provide arms and pro-
tection to communities who active-
ly backed it.
Nonetheless, some rural observ-
ers warn that it is too early to pre-
dict the demise of SL. While its
Who Is “Sendero Luminoso’?
The Communist Party of Peru
Sendero Luminoso, the self-pro-
claimed “vanguard of the world
revolution,’ is a strange mix of
Gang of Four Maoism and deeply
rooted Incan nationalism. Sender-
istas consider their leader, former
university professor Abimael Guz-
mAn, the fourth in the line of great
revolutionary thinkers, after Marx,
Lenin and Mao.
Splintered from the Moscow-
aligned Peruvian Communist Party
in the 1960s, SL has its roots in the
University of Ayacucho. Over a
decade ago the group sent its
cadres into the peasant communi-
ties of Ayacucho, one of Peru’s
most destitute departments. They
learned the native Quechua lan-
guage and nurtured the messianic
tradition of Incan rebellion against
the conquistadors and landowners.
SL surfaced in 1980 to launch
armed struggle in the Andes, just
as a democratic regime was inau-
gurated in Lima following 12 years
of military rule. They have declared
a classic strategy of “prolonged
popular war encircling the cities
from the countryside,” in a nation
that is no longer predominantly
peasant.
SL’s rigid dogmatism has led it
to attack Peru’s Left as “parlia-
mentary cretins” who would mis-
lead the people. The Left, united in
the “Left Unity” electoral coalition, participated in the 1980 general
elections and holds parliamentary
and municipal posts. For its part,
Left Unity has tried hard to keep its
distance from SL, hoping to avoid
the government’s repressive meas-
ures.
SL began its war by dynamiting
public buildings and electrical tow-
ers. Armed confrontations began
in March 1982 when it freed over
200 prisoners in an attack on the
Ayacucho jail. Raids on police posts
and mines followed. The dynamit-
ing of key power stations left Lima
in darkness in August 1982. Later
that month, the popular trials and
executions began-policemen, lo-
cal landowners and government
officials, loan sharks, merchants
and informants. The viciousness
with which the Senderistas carried
out these acts led some to com-
pare them to Pol Pot SL claimed
responsibility for over 3,000 actions
by the end of 1982
But SL has won considerable
sympathy and support from peas-
ant communities. In September
1982, over 10,000 people crowded
the streets of Ayacucho to mourn
Edith Lagos, a young SL leader
killed by the police. By late 1982,
SL had gained control of some
areas of central Ayacucho, but
its version of government in “lib-
erated zones” was apparently not
to the peasants’ liking and has
cost them support. The arrival of
the Army in December 1982 put
SL on the defensive, yet the true
strength of its support remains un-
clear.
C.B.
NACLA Report 38update update update update
following has visibly lessened in
the areas under military control,
it is apparently expanding grass-
roots work in other parts of Peru
where traditional left parties, pro-
moting electoral politics, have
been unable to offer concrete al-
ternatives. Some reports suggest
that the guerrillas are also mak-
ing inroads into Lima’s destitute
shantytowns.
Army Enlists Peasants
Entire peasant communities in
upper Huanta, the province of
Ayacucho where the Uchuraccay
incident took place, have been
enlisted by Sinchis to hunt Sen-
deristas. It is not always clear who
is targeted. While there are reports
of armed confrontations between
peasants and SL, some Indians
have used the opportunity to en-
gage in bloody battles with tradi-
tional rivals. In recent weeks they
have raided neighboring villages,
beating the inhabitants, stealing
goods, destroying crops and round-
ing up SL suspects.
Apparently, the Sinchi recruits
are guaranteed immunity and are
even offered rewards for their ter-
ror sprees. In one case the Presi-
dent personally praised villagers
responsible for a massacre. In
keeping with the thrust of the Var-
gas Llosa report, the government
reinterprets the Indians’ traditional
system of justice, claiming they
are not responsible for their ac-
tions because of their ignorance.
This becomes a useful source of
immunity. Such legal immunity en-
Washington Internships
The Commission on U.S.-Central
American Relations, in Washington,
D.C., is accepting applications for
summer interns. If interested, send
your resume to the Commission, at
1826 18th Street, N.W., Washing-
ton, D.C. 20009.
May/June 1983
ables the military to use the peas-
ants as pawns in their counterin-
surgency campaign. The justice
system is nonfunctional in Ayacu-
cho, where the military makes all
decisions. While villagers respon-
sible for these massacres have
not been arrested, others accused
of terrorism are illegally held for
weeks, often to be tortured in po-
lice jails.
Nonetheless, the Army’s recruit-
ment of peasants may backfire.
According to some accounts, fol-
lowing the massacre of Uchurac-
cay the peasants openly acknowl-
edged their participation as if wait-
ing for reward. Instead they were
besieged by the critical interroga-
tions of the press, visitors and the
official investigative committee.
After several days they closed up
and refused to talk. If communi-
ties feel they can no longer trust
the military, this could mark a seri-
ous setback for government policy
in the region. Ultimately, what hap-
pens in Ayacucho depends to a
great extent on SL’s real strength
and how long it can put up a fight.
A continued free hand for the mili-
tary to terrorize and incite violence
will depend, in no small part, on
the press’ ability to break the news
blackout and report accurate in-
formation.
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