Shining Path leader stirs Peru with jailhouse book
16 Sep 2009 19:14:00 GMT Source: Reuters
* Sets off free speech debate in Peru * Lawyers want Guzman freed from life in prison * Guzman calls for amnesty for rebels and army By Terry Wade and Patricia Velez LIMA, Sept 16 (Reuters) - With publication of a book smuggled out of his prison cell, the jailed leader of Peru's Shining Path rebels, Abimael Guzman, has reopened wounds of a war in which 69,000 people were killed and embarrassed the government of President Alan Garcia. In the book, titled De Puno y Letra, or Handwritten, Guzman, 74, defends his decision to lead Maoist rebels to launch a bloody war against the state from 1980 until his capture in 1992. He has also called for amnesty for rebels and soldiers alike and urged followers to participate in elections. His lawyers, directly under the noses of prison guards, carried the incendiary manuscripts out of the prison where he has been held and turned them over to a left-wing publishing house. Garcia -- already facing pressure to stamp out a remnant band of Communist guerrillas that traffic cocaine -- has moved to ban sales of the book since it was launched over the weekend and prosecute Guzman's legal team for encouraging terrorism. "The book is an exaltation of the terrorist movement" that "supports violent genocide," Justice Minister Aurelio Pastor told lawmakers on Tuesday. Guzman wants the government to adopt an "amnesty" program that would excuse atrocities committed during the conflict by Peru's army and the rebels. His lawyers, who insist the Shining Path was fighting a just war, say that Guzman should be freed from life in prison because many former military officers who massacred suspected leftists were never put on trial. "I want him freed and demand he be freed. He has paid and cannot be condemned to die in prison," said Alfredo Crespo, Guzman's lead attorney. The government says it cannot grant amnesty to a terrorist organization that sought to impose change by starting a war instead of participating in democratic elections. Though public opinion is overwhelmingly against the Shining Path, Guzman now believes his followers, many of whom were once jailed, should participate in local or general elections as voters or candidates, Crespo said. Peru will held presidential election in 2011, when Garcia cannot run. Candidates from the left and right are already starting to jockey for position in the race. Polls show the frontrunner is Keiko Fujimori, a right-wing lawmaker whose father, former President Alberto Fujimori, is in jail for human rights crimes committed when he was battling the Shining Path. CRITICS BLAST BOOK Crespo said the government's reaction to the book has been "excessive" and amounts to censuring free speech, while critics have blasted it. "One thing is freedom of expression and another is to tolerate terrorism being condoned by the bloodiest criminal in the history of Peru," wrote Aldo Mariategui, columnist for the conservative newspaper Correo. Guzman, a former philosophy professor, has equated himself in writings to Lenin, Marx, and Mao and claimed he was at the forefront of a global revolutionary movement. His followers revered him and committed hundreds of bombings and beheadings to try to create a Communist state and eradicate social inequalities in Peru. The Shining Path largely disbanded after Guzman was captured but two bands are still active in coca growing regions of Peru. One of the groups, which operates in the Ene and Apurimac valleys and has had an ideological falling out with Guzman, has killed 40 soldiers in the past year as it tries to defend its foothold in the cocaine trade in Peru, the world's top producer after Colombia. (Reporting by Terry Wade and Patricia Velez; Editing by Jackie Frank)
Water runs in one of the springs in Silala, about 800 km (497 miles) south of La Paz, September 2, 2009. Chile and neighboring Bolivia are discussing a deal under which ...
