Word: guzman
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...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...
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...
...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...
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...
...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...