Shining Path's Comrade Artemio is captured by the Peruvian state

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17005739


Peru Shining Path leader Comrade Artemio captured

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/58462000/jpg/_58462532_031.jpg Last year Artemio admitted the Shining Path had been defeated
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The leader of Peru's Shining Path rebel group has been captured, government officials have announced.
The guerrilla leader known as "Comrade Artemio" was found badly wounded after a clash with troops in a remote jungle region, the defence minister said.
The Maoist Shining Path movement posed a major challenge to the Peruvian state in the 1980s and 90s.
But it is now reduced to a small remnant that is heavily involved in the cocaine trade.
"Peru has won," declared President Ollanta Humala before travelling to the area where the rebel leader was captured.
Officials said Artemio - whose real name is Florindo Eleuterio Flores - was captured near Tocache in the Alto Huallaga region, which is a centre of illegal cocaine production.
Initial reports said the rebel leader was dead, but Defence Minister Alberto Otarola said he was found alive but badly wounded.
"He has practically lost his right arm and he is being given medical attention," Mr Otarola said.
Last December Artemio admitted to reporters that the Shining Path had been defeated, and said the remaining rebels were ready to negotiate with the government.
'People's War' An estimated 70,000 Peruvians died in the conflict between the Shining Path and government forces, which peaked in the 1980s and early 90s.
Inspired by Maoism, the rebels tried to lead a "People's War" to overthrow what they called "bourgeois democracy" and establish a Communist state.
But the movement lost force after the capture of its founder and leader Abimael Guzman in 1992.
The remnants of the Shining Path have fought on in the Alto Huallaga and Ene-Apurimac valleys - two remote jungle regions dominated by the cocaine trade.
The capture of Artemio is the first major blow to the rebels since President Humala took office last July.
Mr Humala fought against the guerrillas as an army officer in the 1990s.


So goes the "people's war" ... is this really a surprising outcome? They racked up enough atrocities to have lost the faith of most Peruvians long ago, I wonder if Maoists will learn the right lesson from this though.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Is this a member of the actual Shining Path or the splinter group that is basically a gang?

[Marquess]

Is this a member of the actual Shining Path or the splinter group that is basically a gang?

The real deal apparently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comrade_Artemio

[Ocean Seal]

So goes the "people's war" ... is this really a surprising outcome? They racked up enough atrocities to have lost the faith of most Peruvians long ago, I wonder if Maoists will learn the right lesson from this though.
I would argue that though they did commit their fair share of atrocities at the core of their defeat was their failure to integrate the proletariat into the movement. It started and ended as a failed movement of the peasantry.


Is this a member of the actual Shining Path or the splinter group that is basically a gang?
It ceased to be a capable organization in 1993 really.

[Agathor]

Good good.
Gangsters and thugs.

[Ilyich]

Good good.
Gangsters and thugs.

Unless you are being sarcastic, you are actually celebrating the capture of a fellow communist by the Peruvian state. Why is this?

[RevSpetsnaz]

Unless you are being sarcastic, you are actually celebrating the capture of a fellow communist by the Peruvian state. Why is this?

He ceased to be a "fellow Communist" when he began manufacturing narcotics that without a doubt destroyed the lives of countless Peruvians. The whole organisation ceased to be Communist when they began slaughtering the very people they swore to be fighting for.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Ni el estado peruano, ni el sendero luminoso.

[Ilyich]

He ceased to be a "fellow Communist" when he began manufacturing narcotics that without a doubt destroyed the lives of countless Peruvians. The whole organisation ceased to be Communist when they began slaughtering the very people they swore to be fighting for.

I heard from bourgeois sources that the FARC-EP also finances itself by dealing drugs. What is the difference?

[RevSpetsnaz]

I heard from bourgeois sources that the FARC-EP also finances itself by dealing drugs. What is the difference?

I dont think too highly of FARC either.

[Ilyich]

I dont think too highly of FARC either.

Okay, that is fair enough. I do not fully agree with the tactics (or the Marxist-Leninist politics) of these groups either. Any attempt to wage a revolutionary war against the bourgeois state without a firm base in the proletariat is doomed to failure. Still, I do not see why any leftist should be happy about this leader's capture unless of course the fall of the Shining Path would mean a niche opening which a truly revolutionary organization could fill.

[RevSpetsnaz]

Okay, that is fair enough. I do not fully agree with the tactics (or the Marxist-Leninist politics) of these groups either. Any attempt to wage a revolutionary war against the bourgeois state without a firm base in the proletariat is doomed to failure. Still, I do not see why any leftist should be happy about this leader's capture unless of course the fall of the Shining Path would mean a niche opening which a truly revolutionary organization could fill.

Im not happy, just indifferent.

[sithsaber]

Besides the Zapatistas, are there any guerrilla movements left in Latin America that deserve our respect?

[Prometeo liberado]

It is very simplistic and irresponsible to dismiss the latin american guerillas as "drug dealers" beacuse of the fact that they are not in the immediate business of acting as a "drug czar". The history of these crops runs deep in the this part of the world and means much more than most northerners care to understand. If you want to let the capitalists press draw conclusions and analysis for you go right ahead. I for one would rather give the FARC-EP, SENDERO LUMINOSO and others some level of respect for doing and enduring what many here can not begin to fathom. Look long and hard enough and you will eventually find something that you don't like in anything.

[GoddessCleoLover]

The Zapatistas have maintained an organic link with the communities that shelter them, while the Senderistas apparently did not. Even Comrade Artemio admitted that the war was lost, and my surmise is that it was lost largely due to Senderista oppression of the rural population.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The drug trade is irrelevant. If FARC and the SL want to use it to make money, I have no problem with that. On the other hand, using tactics which endanger the lives of workers, peasants and indigenous people, which both have done, is something worth criticizing.

The EZLN has managed to avoid that problem to a much greater degree, and has been more democratic. The EZLN strategy works better in the post-Cold War world, where people are no longer willing to entrust their future in an unaccountable "vanguard party" in which they have minimal participation. That said, I wouldn't say Mexico has fared a whole lot better as a whole than Colombia or Peru, which speaks of the failure of the EZLN to have much impact outside of their autonomous communities.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I think that the EZLN and Shining Path have very different goals. The EZLN is basically a populist movement that posits itself as an indigenous resistance to neo-liberalism, NOT a movement who's ultimate aim is the otherthrow of the Mexican government. SL on the other hand started out as a group with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the Peruvian government. It's easier to gain some goals related to limited sovereignty than it is to overthrow a government.

Also, the EZLN started out as a primarily indigenous movement w/ some non-indigenous sympathizers/participants. SL started out as a non-indigenous movement which claimed to speak for Peru's indigenous population. The EZLN claimed that their resistance another link in a long chain stretching from the Magon brothers to Zapata to Mayan resistance going back centuries. The SL couched their revolutionary language in Marxist-Leninist terminology, with Guzman being the "fourth sword of Marxism" (the other three swords being Marx, Lenin and Mao). The intricacies of local indigenous culture weren't of particular interest to them, and it could be argued that this (as well as some of the brutal violence metted out by them against native populations and what eventually became stout opposition from the Peruvian government) led to the collapse of whatever support they may have had.

[Prometeo liberado]

From everything that I have read on the EZLN nowhere does it state they wished to replace or overthrow the state. In fact in his selected works OUR WORD IS OUR WEAPONS, Marcos states that the EZLN merely seek to construct the conditions for a national debate of the issues. If in fact they were to take on the greater issue of a long term protracted guerrilla war outside of its enclave then I'm sure that the romantic image that the left so love would change. They are different than the FARC-EP or Sendero, but for vastly different reasons.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Real communists dont sell or make drugs, because only capitalist scum can do shit like that. I dont care if you cant make enough money for your revolutionary movement, just dont get in the capitalist drug trade. Maybe if the Shining Path did not do peoples war against the people themselves, they would still have enough popular support to be successful. I know this because I have a family friend that was a peasant in Ayacucho who orginally supported the "Sendero Luminoso", until they started killing a lot of the peasants who were honest communists and supporters. I know Lenin said there are no laws in revolution, but let me just say that you shouldnt kill your supporters. Not cool or smart.