Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 17:20:36 -0800
From: iwp.ilo-AT-ix.netcom.com (CEP )
Subject: Re: re-peru / human rights


You(Luftmensch) wrote: 
>
>Are there universal standards that can be applied to both Algeria and 
Peru? 
>
>luftmensch
>
    Carlos:
    I agreed with your post, and I will try to briefly answer your
    question.

    Yes, there are universal standards that can be applied both in
    Algeria and peru.

    1. Legitimacy of the armed struggle.  The Algerian Islamic
    movement do have that legitimacy.  They are up in arms *after*
    they were denied political power when the *won* the elections.
    Shiny Shit in Peru have not legitimacy aside from the self-
    proclaimed representation that they certainly lack.  They
    never won an election, they never were able to produce any
    substantial mass movement to support them (their so-called
    "armed strikes" are just a military operation in which they
    shot any bus driver who dares to defy their call for an strike
    and then they claim that workers who could not have a ride to
    work are really their supporters)

    2. Armed Struggle have to be a decision of the mass movement.       
    Neither the Algerian armed guerrillas nor Shiny-Shit has ever
    acted with a mandate from the working class and the oppressed.
    Rather, the violence started by a decision from the fundamentalist
    clergy (Algeria) and the Shiny Shit Central Committee (Guzman) in
    Peru.

    3. Any armed struggle have to differentiate itself from pure
    terrorism. Neither Algerian nor Peruvians followers of the          
    guerrillas in compliance with this princippled.  Widespread,
    undiscriminated terrorism only reinforce the bourgeois and
    repressive apparatus by justifying it and force into apathy
    and terror the workers and the oppressed that are caught in
    the cross fire without any saying or power.

    4. When an state of war or military confrontation is present,
    revolutionaries *have* to sacrifice expediency for *legitamacy*.
    If they act in the same way as the enemy (killing political
    civilian opponents or even collaborators *without* proper due
    process -- investigantion, trial, popular support for the
    indictment... then what differiantiates them from the army?)

    5. If under *extreme* circunstances a revolutionary army have to
    execute an enemy *outside* the battleground, then not a shred of
    doubt should subsist as to the reasons why that *extraordinary*
    action have to be taken.  Revolutionaries should subordinate        
    *revenge* to legitimacy in their actions.  As a matter of fact,
    I would opposse executions in most cases if the previously
    mentioned conditions are not fullfilled and if an extraordinary
    strategical goal is not at stake (rarely the conduct of Shiny
    Shit or the bombs of the Islamic fundamentalists).

    6. People should not confuse a)armed insurrection by the mass
    movement or a civil war with b)common, brutal terrorism.

    Comradely,
    Carlos




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