The Myth of Guzman

THE FIRST PICTURES OF THE CAPTIVE ABIMAEL GUZMAN WERE startling: an obese, bespectacled man obeying police orders to put on his shirt. Could this dumpy, bewildered fellow, last seen publicly in 1979, really be Shining Path's shining light? Here was the mysterious man who billed himself as the "Fourth Sword" of communism -- the successor to Marx, Lenin and Mao. Under the guerrilla alias "Presidente Gonzalo," Guzman fashioned himself into the demigod of a cultlike political movement. As far as his supporters were concerned, Guzman's mythic aura of brilliance, charisma and invincibility shielded him from comparisons with other mortals. Latin Americans may regard Che Guevara as the model guerrilla, but Guzman dismissed him as an exhibitionist; besides, Che lacked Guzman's tolerance for slaughtering innocent women and children.

While the Peruvian's ruthlessness is beyond question, his inflated legend may say more about the dreams of the impoverished people who revere him than about the man himself. He is hailed as a philosopher-warrio r, yet much of his best writing is shamelessly cribbed from Mao. As for being a warrior, while Guzman seems to have no compunction about ordering up the most foul atrocities, no one knows if he has ever killed anyone himself.

Young Abimael was born out of wedlock in the provincial capital of Arequipa. He was rejected by both his mother's family and his middle-class merchant father; acquaintances remember a boy who poured his energies into books. At age 10 he was beaten by police breaking up a strike, and as a university student he came under the influence of a Communist philosopher and a painter who regarded Stalin as insufficiently revolutionary. In 1962 Guzman was given a philosophy post at Huamanga University in Ayacucho, where he used his teaching pulpit to indoctrinate students. He was profoundly influenced by Mao's Cultural Revolution, which he witnessed firsthand. "At some point," says journalist Gustavo Gorriti, "he persuaded himself that he was not only a qualified leader but had both a national and a world responsibility." Scholars differ about Guzman's intellectual gifts, but they agree that he was an outstanding organizer who was capable of great charm and attentiveness.

Until his capture, Guzman shrewdly manufactured and manipulated propaganda to give the impression that Shining Path was everywhere. Uncertainty about whether he was dead or alive enhanced his mystique. Now that it is known that he is very much alive, authorities want to keep him that way. The last thing they want is a dead -- and martyred -- Guzman.