Himal carried the article "The Paradoxical Support of Nepal's Left for Comrade Gonzalo" by Stephen L. Mikesell in its March/April 1993 issue. In late November, the international press reported that Abimael Guzman (Comrade Gonzolo) had exchanged his bushy beard for a trim moustache, and had apparently shed his ideology as well. While the rebels accuse the government of torturing and drugging Guzman, other Peruvians think that the spirit of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) Maoist guerrilla movements leader has been truly broken. Given the relevance of Guzman for many in Nepal's Left, Himal asked research scholar Mikesell to provide a follow-up commentary.
THE New York Times reports that, from jail, Comrade Gonzalo is calling for the Shining Path "guerrillas to suspend the war, and to the government to start peace talks". Elements of the US Left in New York City say that these were the words of a man desperate to get out. Committee members of the Shining Path say it is "a dirty trick by the government". The Peruvian authorities admit to having isolated Gonzalo and of providing him only with selected information that showed that the Shining Path was being destroyed. hi return for each of his conciliatory statements, the Government is gradually improving his prison conditions.
The Shining Path movement has big problems: mass desertion by cadres, loss of its means and resources, and, with eighty percent of its leaders dead or jailed, a leadership crisis which threatens to divide the party. As for Peruvian society, the Times reports that "…the fear has been lifted from this country, which has endured 27,000 deaths and U$ 24 billion in damage from the revolution.., peasants are cautiously returning to abandoned villages. In the rich farming region north of Lima, farmers and ranchers are restoring estates long considered lost in 'red zones'. And a new generation of young middle class Limenos is discovering the sidewalk cafe".
The newspaper fails to mention that the great bulk of the deaths were of peasants and Indians indiscriminately killed at the hands of the Government in a continuing war of genocide against them. While peasants may be returning to villages, it is because they had fled after being caught in the middle of a war that made a bad situation intolerable. The war against the Shining Path was being used by the government to destroy all popular alternatives, not only to the government's programme (which is basically collaboration with and capitulation to international financial interests), but to the Shining Path's revolutionary programme. Any popular initiative and any peasant village not organised into guerrilla columns was left exposed to the full force not only of the government, but of the Shining Path's zealous retribution for "collaboration".