Date: Mon, 6 Jan 1997 21:17:11 GMT
Subject: Re: M-G: The question of the MRTA


>Hello comrade Adolfo,
>
>You wrote, on 06.01, i.a.:
>

>>The views expressed by some people alleging that the action of the MRTA 
>>is a CIA plot, are also not correct. 
>
>Some people including myself have in fact argued, from some 
>different standpoints, that there *are* several reasons for 
>*suspecting* CIA involvement. (So far, none have said they
>*knew* it's there.) Could you, before you have to leave again,
>briefly tell us your reasons for saying that these suspicions
>are *erroneous*? In your posting, there was (almost) nothing 
>about that.
>
>Or was one argument supposed to be inferred (since the Klasberries
>on their part had a theory that *one* motive for the US imperialists'
>having an interest in such a thing could be a desire on their
>part to replace Fujimori "peacefully") from what you then wrote in
>the same paragraph? I.a.:
>
>>The system installed by Fujimori does not brook peaceable political 
>>challenges, even from other sections of the ruling classes...
>
>This still doesn't cover the obvious anti-Japanese-bourgeoisie
>motive which exists, for two separate reasons, for a possible
>such plot by the US imperialists. And how did you reach such a
>definite conclusion as that expressed in your saying "are also
>not correct"?
>
>Greetings,
>
>Rolf M.


Hi there Rolf.  Good to hear from you too in this occassion.

In the last analysis, everything could be possible......... however
unlikely. Nevertheless, I for one believe that some comrades have too much
of the "round up the usual suspects" approach when it comes to explaining
away murky affairs.

My opinion is based on the impression that this action does not fit the
pattern of the "intelligence" and psychological warfare approach to
counter-insurgency which has been specifically and consistently promoted by
the CIA in Peru.  And, more to the point, at present it seems to me that
this affair does not look at all like making the 007 reputation of its
pin-man in Peru, Vladimiro Montesinos, come up smelling of roses whatever
its outcome.  

Moreover, the MRTA, like the Apra party, has rather long standing links with
European social-democracy and also with the Russian and East European
security services.  However, one thing is "suspecting CIA involvement" -
which is always a possibility in various ways when one speaks of murky
affairs - and quite another to speak of a CIA plot, meaning the strategic
planning and execution of a particular action from beginning to end.
  
Involvement could simply mean that funds, weapons, or other means - supplied
by the CIA, the DEA, and/or other agencies of US imperialism - by reasons of
their own convoluted affairs and internal contradictions - or, more likely,
>from sources linked to European social-democracy, or other similar
social-imperialists, or the drug mafias, etc., could have found their way
into helping finance some kind of "MRTA revival".  

That is not something beyond the imagination, specially in Peru where the
revolutionary situation itself and the accompaniying break down of the old
society, can and does give rise to very strange occurrences indeed.   

In Peru many people say that the only thing that has not yet happened is
that the rain starts to fall from the ground upwards, and that they would
not be surprised at all if any good day it actually did so!. Not in vain is
said that the revolution is the "world turned upside down".

Some well known commentators in the international media who cannot be
suspected af any sympathy for the People's War or the PCP, have revealed
that the MRTA would have invested at least 300.000 dollars in this operation.  

Whether such funds are exclusively the product of the MRTA's own line of
"revolutionary" business (extorsion, kidnapping, and drug mafia protection
money), or these have been supplemented out of the deep pockets of
interested parties making "donations" to their favourite "revolutionary
charities" - perhaps even military brass miffed by the arrest of General
Robles or by the hogging of top military appointments by the
Fujimori/Rios/Montesinos clique - cannot yet be known for sure at present.    

However, the theory that the CIA would have - at its policy making level -
planned in such a detailed way how to best shoot itself in the foot to this
particular extent, at least at present, defies my simple sense logic. 

Moreover, the US government remains to this day the main advocate of the use
of force in rescuing the hostages, showing that they feel themselves
bound-up with the Fujimori/Montesinos/Hermoza Rios clique's interests, at
least for the time being.  The extent of Japanese imperialist involvement in
Peru is not really such that the US imperialist would at present - and,
moreover, in the face of the much bigger threat to their position in Latin
America that the People's War is positing - find Japan's "junior"
involvement too uncomfortable, or even less that they would feel the need to
take such immediate and drastic steps in this regard, having many and much
simpler alternative means at their disposal before resorting to such a cork
popper!  

In any case, I like to repeat what I said at the very beginning and at the
very end of my answer to Doug on the question of the MRTA event in Lima:

"As with all such events still unfolding in the present a full analysis is
not immediately possible.  However, I will try to synthesise some of my
views in this regard".

"As I said at the beginning, these are some preliminary thoughts and
conclussions that I have derived and noted from this on-going affair.
Surely, a more detailed article will appear in El Diario Internacional which
will eventually be available in this list".

I think that the principal thing to bear in mind is the fact that the MRTA
event has no anti-imperialist or revolutionary content.  Fundamentally, that
contrary to the New Flag impostors allegations, neither the PCP, nor
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, consider this event as "objectively
anti-imperialist".  
If it had indeed that character, then one would be duty bound to support it,
like genuine revolutionaries always do with every true anti-imperialist
struggle, whether objective or subjective.  That is why, the latest news
>from Peru indicate that the PCP has already launched an armed mass campaign
to expose and denounce the collusion of the MRTA with imperialism and the
ruling classes of the old Peruvian state.   

Finally, I can now confirm that in the next 10 days, El Diario Internacional
will be publishing an extense analysis of this event touching principally
upon the following points:


1.  What are the real aims hiding behind the MRTA's Japanese Embassy operation.
2.  The murky history of the MRTA - The true history of the "MRTA leaders"
Nestor Cerpa Cartolini and Victor Polay.
3.  Chairman Gonzalo's views on the MRTA. 

Many regards

Adolfo 
  



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