His Turn to Lose

By Jill Smolowe

Abimael Guzman was a successful revolutionary because he never flinched: he was willing to destroy Peru and as many innocent Peruvians as necessary to gain power. His Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, movement, perhaps the most radical leftist insurgency still in operation anywhere in the world, sowed terror throughout the country during a 12-year campaign that took 25,000 lives, damaged $22 billion worth of property and left some Peruvians fearing that his "forces of history" might achieve victory. That is, until last week -- when Guzman was captured by government forces in a bloodless raid on a modest house in one of Lima's middle-class neighborhoods.

Even with Guzman behind bars, the war for control of the country is not over. But Peruvians savored the sudden feeling of relief -- none more so than the autocratic Alberto Fujimori, who has turned his presidency into a virtual dictatorship, partly to quell the revolution. "Our fear was broken from one day to another," was how Isabel Coral, who works with victims of Shining Path violence, greeted the arrest. In their recent year long assault on Lima, the guerrillas had come close to terrorizing the populace into capitulation. Guzman's arrest not only halted that momentum but, more important, it gave the government's anti-guerrilla campaign a welcome boost. "In a struggle like this one, morale and will decide who wins," said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Bernard Aronson. "Perhaps this capture provides what Peru needs most: hope and confidence that it can prevail."

Although the immediate credit goes to the painstaking work of DINCOTE, Peru's anti-terrorism squad, Fujimori will reap the biggest reward. He had promised to pacify the country by the time his term ends in 1995. But he lost international support in April, when he unilaterally dissolved Peru's Congress, shut down the courts and suspended the constitution -- largely in the name of thwarting Shining Path. Frustrated Peruvians approved, but the U.S. was so angry that it suspended aid. Now, in the congressional elections that Fujimori has called for Nov. 22, candidates who back him are expected to | win big, and they could help him enshrine strong presidential powers in a new constitution. The capture may also ensure his re-election. Warns Gustavo Gorriti, a Peruvian journalist and expert on Sendero who lives in the U.S. but was briefly detained in Peru after the Fujimori coup: "The fall of Guzman, the main enemy of democracy, is paradoxically going to do a lot of harm to democracy in the short term by strengthening Fujimori."

A happy outcome for the President, however, depends in large measure on how much permanent damage has been inflicted on Shining Path. The loss of Guzman, worshiped with cultlike ardor by his followers, has certainly dealt the movement a psychological blow. "This has to hurt an organization that exists on the myth of its leader," said Enrique Obando, a specialist in security issues at the Peruvian Center for International Studies in Lima. There is a strong chance that Shining Path will try to spring its leader from jail to restore his and the insurgency's tarnished aura of invincibility. "They are going to move heaven and earth to get him out," predicts David Scott Palmer, director of the Latin American Studies program at Boston University, who has written extensively about Shining Path, "whether it's by trickery, massive force or intimidation -- like killing the entire family of the key guard who oversees daily routine."

At the same time, the government will have to take care not to kill Guzman by accident or intent. In the past, security forces have used tactics nearly as rough as Sendero's -- torture, indiscriminate arrests, shootings and disappearances -- in their efforts to stop the guerrillas. Over the past five months, Fujimori has suspended civil liberties, loosened restraints on the police and revamped the judicial system so that convictions are easier. To make a martyr out of Guzman would cost the government its new psychological edge. In the long run, says Aronson, "the government must fight Sendero with democratic legitimacy."

Shining Path also lost considerable logistical strength when officials arrested five top lieutenants who were with Guzman. "It is a uniquely top- down authoritarian organization in its decision making and structure," says Aronson. "When you capture its senior leadership, that has to make a difference." Some experts expect a brutal battle within the movement to name a successor: there is no obvious candidate. The movement may also have been weakened by the defection of a faction that felt Guzman had abandoned true Maoism and put too much emphasis on terror rather than political action designed to win hearts and minds.

To say Sendero has been broken, however, would be premature. Radical revolutionary movements in the Philippines, India, Iran and Colombia have collapsed after losing their leaders, but Shining Path seems too well entrenched for that, and its fighters are highly disciplined, dogged and patient. "I disagree with the conventional wisdom that if you lop off the head, the body will die," says Gordon McCormick, a national security analyst at the Rand Corp. who has written on Shining Path. "Sendero has been highly institutionalized and has the capacity for self-renewal."

Support systems that operate legally -- such as lawyers' and citizens-aid groups and regional committees with their well-disciplined cadres -- are still intact. "I don't see them disappearing," says Gorriti. "They're too close to victory for that." Other analysts warn that the October offensive Guzman was plotting at the time of his capture may still take place; Shining Path operations are usually planned out in minute detail months in advance. "Don't think this is the end of the party," Alfredo Crespo, Guzman's lawyer and a leader of the Democratic Lawyers Association, allegedly a Sendero front group, told TIME. "The revolution will continue -- and probably get stronger."

But whether Shining Path withers or grows strong again depends on how well the government performs. The conditions that gave rise to the insurgency back in the 1970s -- poverty, injustice, deep resentment over racial and class distinctions -- still prevail. Until Fujimori finds a more stable, equitable, democratic course, there will be impoverished Peruvians willing to subscribe to an alternative vision, no matter how ruthless or violent.

With reporting by Laura Lopez and Sharon Stevenson/Lima and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington