Latinnews Archive

Andean Group - 8 October 1982

PERU: Illuminating a black-out

Contrary to earlier rumours, the army has not yet intervened directly in operations against the guerrillas of Sendero Luminoso. But war minister General Luis Cisneros repeated last week that their plans were 'ready to put into action', should President Fernando Belaunde request army participation. Observers in Lima believe that Belaunde is anxious to avoid all talk of military action in the sierra before he addresses the UN General Assembly next week.

But though the reports of torture practised against terrorist suspects in police custody have increased, the state of emergency declared in Lima at the end of August (WR-82-34) has become almost imperceptible. The wave of arrests in the capital, in which a number of rank and file union leaders were picked up, has subsided.


However, intelligence sources say that the government has become more sensitive since the death of the Sendero leader Edith Lagos. She was allegedly shot in a clash with the Guardia Republicana near Andahuaylas on 3 September. Her funeral in Ayacucho drew a crowd that one estimate put at 10,000. Another report claimed it was larger than that at the Holy Week ceremonies for which the city is famous.

Cisneros and the interior minister, retired General Jose Gagliardi, visited Andahuaylas police station following Lagos's death, according to one report. They were said to have flown up to asess the situation because the local police feared a popular uprising in response to her killing. The war minister's public statements have not betrayed any such concern, though. 'There is no guerrilla war in Peru,' he said recently, denying a suggestion that there were 'liberated zones' in the Ayacucho area.

Cisneros's statement followed reports in the pro-government weekly Caretas that revealed an impressive, if slightly chilling degree of discipline and organisation among the 250 or so Sendero supporters in the island prison of El Fronton. According to Caretas, Sendero claim to have reached the third stage -- 'generalisation of violence and development of guerrilla war' -- in a five-stage programme of armed struggle dictated by their leader, the former university teacher Abimael Guzman (RA82-04). The remaining stages are 'the conquest and expansion of bases of support' and, finally, 'the siege of the cities and the total collapse of the state'. Lima over who was responsible for the black-out, officially attributed to Sendero, which triggered the state of emergency. The action apparently required a high level of coordination among more than 100 people in different parts of the city. Information on which were the key pylons is said to be accessible only to senior officials in Electrolima and naval intelligence -- and, presumably, the firms which designed and built the system.

One school of thought links the blackout to a little-publicised row between Belaunde and General Ludwig Essenwanger, who resigned as director of the national intelligence service shortly afterwards. At the time his resignation was attributed to either his failure to prevent the attack on the pylons, or to his embarrassment at the arrest of his brother. Walter, an ex-guerrilla from 1965, for 'subversive activity'. Walter's son is a Sendero fighter who has been on the run for the past two years.

Neither reason was the true one, however. Essenwanger had confessed to the skeletons in his family cupboard when he was appointed in January 1981. Moreover, his resignation had been handed to Belaunde before the black-out. The real reason was a quarrel about funds. Months previously, Essenwanger had secured approval from finance minister Manuel Ulloa for a US$150,000 project to improve the computerised processing of intelligence data. But despite the backing for the project from the national defence secretariat and the armed forces joint command, Belaunde refused to authorise the expenditure, on the grounds of the need for austerity.

Essenwanger was reportedly furious and asked the President if that was his final decision -- to which Belaunde reportedly replied: 'Are you threatening me, general?' The latter went to Cisneros, who promised to fix things through his cousin, Ulloa. However, Belaunde remained adamant, accepted Essenwanger's resignation and asked him to say it was for health reasons.

An adviser to the war ministry ruled out military participation in the black-out, on the grounds that the only purpose would be to precipitate a military coup and he believed there was no golpista current in the armed forces. 'Most officers below Cisneros are grey figures, and are not anxious to be in the limelight,' he told LARR. His favoured explanation was that Sendero were responsible, 'in co-operation with other left-wing sympathisers who had been trained in explosives during visits to China and North Korea'.

So far, neither left nor right has been able to substantiate its respective claims of military intervention in the terrorist campaign, or foreign influences behind the guerrillas.


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