JOE NANGLE'S SLANDER of our committee ("Shining Path: Exposing Ideological Blinders," January 1993), in which he calls us a "terrorist front," is an example of how to help the U.S. government suppress people in Latin America and do it with a humanitarian face. Our committee's work has two clear purposes: build political solidarity with the revolution in Peru and organize opposition to U.S. intervention and other crimes against the people there.
The "terrorist" label is falsely being applied to revolutionaries in Peru by U.S. officials precisely to justify all manner of crimes against the people there and especially sending military assistance, including Green Beret advisers. To call our political solidarity committee, which is trying to break through a very powerful media campaign against the revolution in Peru, a "terrorist front" helps suppress opposition to U.S. policy in Peru and amounts to ugly McCarthyism.
Moreover, Nangle quickly passes over the actual content of the letter in The Nation that he is criticizing people for signing. The letter condemned the cold-blooded murder of more than 40 political prisoners in Peru last May, the murder of 300 political prisoners in June of 1986, and opposes escalating U.S. military intervention there. Why shouldn't people of conscience sign that, or protest against the many other abuses perpetrated by the government? The letter was initiated jointly by our committee and others who, as the letter says, "have different views about the revolution in Peru," but refuse to remain silent about the crimes being committed by this U.S.-sponsored regime.
People who signed this letter had the courage to stand up to intimidating slanders like the one that Nangle is targeting our committee with, and I'm sure they will continue to think independently and question the U.S. government's "official story" that Nangle is so happy to regurgitate.
Heriberto Ocasio
Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru
San Francisco, California
Through its ad in The Nation and by other means, the Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru (CSRP) seeks to cloak the atrocities of Shining Path by citing those of Peru's military. Two wrongs do not make a right. While we condemn the violence and repression exercised by the Peruvian government and military -- and especially that supported by the U.S. government -- that in no way gives carte blanche for Shining Path guerrillas to engage in terror of their own.
CSRP insists that the human rights of incarcerated "revolutionaries" in Peru be respected, which of course is due all prisoners. But has the Committee likewise spoken out on behalf of the human rights of the 18 political candidates murdered by Shining Path in the recent local elections? (One candidate, Alejandro Pantagoso, and his wife were killed in front of their 11 children.) Or on behalf of Maria Elena Moyano, a community activist executed last year by a member of Shining Path? Or on behalf of the thousands of other impoverished campesinos slain by these revolutionaries in the past decade?
We will continue to condemn such violence, regardless of the ideology of its perpetrators, and resist U.S. military interventionism. For his part, author Joe Nangle speaks from 15 years of living and working among the people of Peru and Bolivia. -- The Editors
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