In Peru, Specter of Left-Wing Terror Is Campaign Issue

LIMA, Peru (July 30) -- As this nation's ruling party gears up for municipal elections in the fall and general elections next year, it seems to be pulling out all the stops to quell a left-wing insurgency, even though some say no credible threat exists.

There has been an unexpected resurgence of news recently from the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), two of the communist movements that terrorized the country in the 1980s and 1990s. Peruvian-born journalist Vicky Pelaez, one of 10 people convicted last month of spying for Russia, was briefly held as a captive of the MRTA in 1984. And one of its most famous collaborators, native New Yorker Lori Berenson, was released in May after serving almost 15 years in prison.

Berenson is just one of hundreds of MRTA and Shining Path prisoners leaving Peruvian jails after completing sentences passed in the movements' heyday more than a decade ago. Some of them are seeking teaching jobs or political office, causing President Alan Garcia's administration to pursue measures aimed at stopping the movement from regaining a foothold. But some critics of the government say the threat of a left-wing resurgence is being deliberately overblown.

Peru's congress has passed legislation barring ex-cons from teaching in schools and is considering prohibiting them from running for public office. Prime Minister Javier Velazquez called for a partial withdrawal from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights after it ordered Peru to pay reparations to families of prisoners held on terrorism charges who died or were tortured during government prison raids in the 1990s. And there are calls to reverse Berenson's release and put her back in prison.

Although the fighting ended a decade ago, Peruvians are still reeling from a 20-year civil conflict that cost 69,000 lives. The Maoist Shining Path launched a ferocious war against the state in 1980, in which it attacked government workers and even peasants and gained control over large swaths of the countryside. Tens of thousands were imprisoned on terrorism-related charges.

The group was vanquished in the 1990s under the presidency of Alberto Fujimori, who is now in prison for human rights crimes. But remnants of the group have reappeared in Peru's largest coca-growing regions, acting as security for cocaine traffickers. Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department offered a $5 million bounty for two Shining Path leaders suspected of involvement in Peru's burgeoning cocaine trade.

Garcia -- who also served as president from 1985 to 1990 and cannot run again in the next election-- has sought to prevent former members of the Shining Path from forming a political party and fielding candidates in municipal elections in October and general elections next April. His party is putting up Fujimori's daughter, Keiko, as its presidential candidate, and she has vowed to pardon her father and renew some of his controversial policies. In the 1990s, ex-President Fujimori suspended civil liberties and gave judges the power to impose life sentences on suspected terrorists based on secret evidence given in closed tribunals.

Since Shining Path fliers began to appear on the campus of Lima's University of San Marcos, Peru's education ministry has encouraged parents to anonymously denounce teachers using the classroom to "ideologically influence" students. The ministry has said that teachers charged with terrorism in the past will be taken out of classrooms and reassigned to other jobs within schools. A group of students at University of San Marcos demonstrated in June for amnesty for jailed Shining Path leader Abimael Guzman, who was captured in 1992 and sentenced to life imprisonment.

All this activity has left many citizens spooked. Police responded July 20 to a complaint in a well-heeled section of Lima over a banner hanging from an apartment patio depicting Tupac Amaru, leader of an indigenous uprising against Spanish rule in the 18th century and a celebrated national hero.

Neighbors feared it was MRTA propaganda. The artist, who had previously displayed that work and others in the halls of Peru's ministry of foreign affairs, faces civil charges for misuse of a patriotic symbol.

"The government is drumming up fear in order to get support for Fujimorism, the idea that autocratic rule is necessary," said Francisco Soberon, director of Lima-based humans rights group Aprodeh. "Yes, there's a left-wing presence in Peru, but it is widely dispersed and not represented by a national party. This is simply a way to justify taking more severe measures against the opposition."

In May, Berenson was greeted by dozens of citizens protesting outside her Lima home, demanding her immediate expulsion. Public controversy further flared when daily newspaper Expreso reported in July that the parents of Berenson, who attended the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, were paid $30,000 by Peru's government on orders of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Garcia has said an order to pay $14 million in reparations to the victims of a government prison raid in the 1990s will not be heeded. In November 1992, hundreds of troops and police stormed the Miguel Castro Castro prison, where jailed Shining Path members had taken control. About 40 inmates died in the violence, and more than 100 who survived alleged they were tortured.

"Not a cent will be given to terrorists," Garcia said during a public address on July 28, Peru's independence day.