Analysis of “Militares y Sendero Luminoso Frente al Sistema Democrático Peruano”
Unlike neighboring countries, Peru never started an official campaign of elimination or indigenous segregation. Therefore, in 1930 the indigenous people represented half of the population of the Andes. However, indigenous communities share a history of land expropriation, people exploitation and cultural exclusion from national politics. Throughout that year Peruvian political system and its economic model were restructured occasioning the institutionalization of the domestic model of a neoliberal oligarchy. Peruvian economy was seen regionally weak among South American countries. It depended on agriculture and the export of raw materials. In order to achieve a growth of export rate, the State allowed that the administration of the land continue to be feudal. The industrialization of Peruvian agriculture meant the aggravation of the socioeconomic and political state of a population that historically occupied the margins of society.
After the period of redefinition of the domestic politics which preceded the decade of 1940’s a migratory current began, people from rural areas immigrated to the capital where they experimented social ostracism and racism. In Lima, indigenous immigration was controversial and seen as problematic. Indigenous people who were looking for a better quality of life did not adapt to the static frameworks of class hierarchy. Traditionally, the political and economic power have been centralized in Lima. However, the phenomenon of Sendero Luminoso revealed the dramatic shifts of power from democracies to military regimes during the 20th century weaken the oligarchy limeña and allowed to pursue and gain political power from rural areas. Sendero Luminoso did not relate to any political group not even to The Peruvian Communist Party, Patria Roja. The terrorist group proposes a “hegemonism without limits” advocating its ideology as the only repository of political truth. Its confrontation was frontal they aimed for the total destruction of the system, not “identifying anything as salvageable” in the old system. Sendero had the ability of dichotomize the powers of the State.
On the other side, the government’s response was political-military. Contrariwise, the military forces did not have an strategy to fulfill the task. Sendero Luminoso’s magnitude of power grew while the jurisdiction of the government in rural areas decreased and military forces traditional and repetitive tactics were ineffective but as violent and repressive as Sendero. This permitted the government to incur into “mechanisms of constitutional dictatorship”. The democratic opposition lost its voice during the times of anocrocy and was unable to restrict the institutional excesses. Human rights do not have any authority. The state of emergency interferes with social development, military forces breaking into zones of immigrants encourage the idea of “indigenous equal to terrorist”.
As Marcial Rubio Correa suggest gradually the terror became part of the daily life of every Peruvian. The political moment which gave origin to the emergence of Sendero Luminoso was rooted in decades of history. The political fronts are dichotomized however there are many other important aspects such as the Peruvians denial of their cultural identity and the repercussion of traditional views of domestic politics which open a window to violence and terror.
Bibliography:
Rubio Correa, Marcial, ” Militares y Sendero Luminoso Frente al Sistema Democrático Peruano”, En estudios politicos, Madrid, 1986, N53