Double Standard in Peru
Abimael Guzman, leader of the Shining Path guerrilla movement in Peru, and his partner Elena Iparraguirre, were found this week to be guilty of terrorism and have been given life imprisonment. The objective of the Shining Path, inspired by Chairman Mao, is to overthrow the Peruvian state. An estimated total of 70,000 people died in the terrorism and counter-terrorism campaigns that it is responsible for initiating. Its most brutal acts involved killings conducted in rural villages to make the severity of its cause known to the government.
In June ex-army officer Ollanta Humala very nearly became the president of Peru but lost to career politician Alan Garcia. Controversy surrounds his involvement in the counter-terrorism campaign against the Shining Path; he is accused of forced disappearance, torture and murder based on testimonies from families of the victims. He was expelled from the army in 2000 after his revolt against President Fujimori failed and rallied Peru’s poor for his support for the 2006 elections.
In terms of the quantity of human rights abuses committed by these two men, Abimael Guzman is clearly in a different league than Ollanta Humala. Guzman embodies the cause of acute suffering for tens of thousands of people. But from a governmental perspective, the gravest damages he inflicted were upon the legitimacy of the state. One of the defining characteristics of a state is that it has a monopoly on coercive power. In order to maintain its sovereignty the state cannot allow any faction within it to claim that its own use of violence is legitimate. These two cases, though very different in the scale of crimes committed, serve to illustrate how human rights abuses that occur during an operation in defense of the state, even though those who commit them represent law and order, can more easily be swept under the rug than human rights abuses committed in a civilian project to undermine the state.
Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6048144.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4800691.stm
tag: last301
In June ex-army officer Ollanta Humala very nearly became the president of Peru but lost to career politician Alan Garcia. Controversy surrounds his involvement in the counter-terrorism campaign against the Shining Path; he is accused of forced disappearance, torture and murder based on testimonies from families of the victims. He was expelled from the army in 2000 after his revolt against President Fujimori failed and rallied Peru’s poor for his support for the 2006 elections.
In terms of the quantity of human rights abuses committed by these two men, Abimael Guzman is clearly in a different league than Ollanta Humala. Guzman embodies the cause of acute suffering for tens of thousands of people. But from a governmental perspective, the gravest damages he inflicted were upon the legitimacy of the state. One of the defining characteristics of a state is that it has a monopoly on coercive power. In order to maintain its sovereignty the state cannot allow any faction within it to claim that its own use of violence is legitimate. These two cases, though very different in the scale of crimes committed, serve to illustrate how human rights abuses that occur during an operation in defense of the state, even though those who commit them represent law and order, can more easily be swept under the rug than human rights abuses committed in a civilian project to undermine the state.
Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6048144.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4800691.stm
tag: last301
posted by Serena at 12:25 AM
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