Subject: An Other View of "The Flaming Path"
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 12:02:29 +1200


From: Luis Quispe <lquispe-AT-blythe.org>
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 01:10:30 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Village Voice & Campbell's Soup.

                CAMPBELL'S SOUP AND THE VILLAGE VOICE

Richard Gehr, in his article "The Flaming Path" of Aug. 27, is long on 
insinuation but short of some crucial facts.  He was naively seeking 
to suggest that a flame war on the Internet led to the arrest of Julian Calero.
Allegation, that we believe, his attorneys, relatives, Julian Defense 
Committee and Calero himself consider groundless.

The long years of struggle of our people has become insignificant before a 
public spat with a disgruntled Canadian "journalist", Ken Campbell (aka
Ken Howard or Zodiac) Easily verifiable facts are overlooked. 
First of all, the names of the editors of the New Flag, Luis Quispe and
Marcelina Ccoriyama, are misrepresented as a couple.  A few sentences 
later, a completely fabricated "threat" from us is quoted.  The source?  
The same "pseudo journalist" who freely admits to making up stuff to spice
up his dead-end career.

Gehr dismisses our notion that Ken Campbell is some sort of agent or 
act like one.  It should be recalled that journalists have often been
CIA "assets", both directly and indirectly, and that libelous articles
have always been a tool used to discredit and attack Communists.  Despite a 
long public history of COINTELPRO and the FBI's effort to derail the
Central American solidarity movement with provocateurs, our exposure of
a questionable "journalist" is trivialized by Gehr.

Campbell approached us, oozing with insincere desire to help our cause,
he claimed to be a "supporter," but it wasn't long before we became 
suspicious of him, after he requested confidential information on the 
Peruvian revolution, we labelled him a possible agent, something which
many others in the Marxist list and specially a labor activist in Toronto 
named Luftmensch bolstered with a subsequent post. We haven't invented this,
it is a matter of public record (see the Marxist list archives.)

It was not Campbell's messages we uploaded to the lists that triguered
the flame war with him. This was his disguise. After all, being a publication
we consider all messages delivered and received by e-mail as public. 

The real reason of Campbell's wrath was our exposure of his internet heroe
Olaechea that he was trying to promote in the Internet. However, it is not 
true that we had a longstanting feud with Olaechea before we met Campbell,
quite the contrary, we had relatively good political relations with Olaechea in 
the past.

Our first clash with Olaechea occurred in the Marxist list due to his 
initiative of introducing a split organization named WMC into our 
movement, and this has nothing to do with the attention Campbell gave to 
Olaechea. As a matter of fact it was Olaechea who introduced us to Campbell.
Our discrepances with Olaechea are political. 

Campbell's response to us was a long fabrication of our correspondence 
which included threats, pornography and credit card fraud which Campbell 
later admitted it was a "joke".  Apparently for him, trying to discredit
activists become into a peculiar form of humor once his scheme is exposed.
Then he began a campaign to undermine us, trying to expose the names of 
supporters of the New Flag (who had little or no relation to this 
publication) like an amateur Dick Tracy.  Campbell fabricated names and
addresses. The names of 2 Republican senior citizens were listed as 
"posibble" New Flag leaders, one of our readers, an advocate for human 
rights for U.S. political prisoners in CT became the "money bag,"
Luis (of campesino background) became "a white man" in his fifties who 
grew up in Harlem. All garbage. Our only
concern with Campbell's non-sense articles was the danger he was posing to 
innocent people he mentioned in his posts and the possibility of search
and seize operations by the pigs against these innocent people.

In the era of Clinton's anti-terrorism laws, this kind of behavior goes
far beyond yellow journalism into the realm of policeman's best friend.
Campbell's name is now listed in revolutionary organizations in the 
world as one of "possible" operatives disguised as a journalist.

A closer look at Campbell's articles reveals that his main "source" of 
information is one Jay Miles, referred to in Gehr's piece as "director" 
of the Peru Support Committee, a group which only appears to exist only 
in his electronic mailbox.  This "Jay Miles" approached us at a Mumia 
rally, eager to join in the work of the New Flag. He was a street distributor
for the New Flag in Detroit. His seeming friendliness turned to hostility 
when we had public disagreements over political questions, and soon he 
was spreading gossip all over the Internet to anyone who would listen.  
Yet this same "Jay Miles" was forced to publicly admit that even his name 
was made up, soon we found out that his real name was James Jaszewski (he 
said that he didn't like to be a Polish but an Irish) which hardly 
inspires confidence in him as a source of information.  Anyone who has 
read his posts on the internet would be less than impressed by someone 
who changes tunes so quickly, or who brags that he can "name names," try 
to photograph political activists for the "album of his mother" in the 
spirit of solidarity!

It is sadly typical of the left/liberal press that they don't consider 
Peru's civil war particularly newsworthy unless an American is involved 
or they can cash in on the internet craze and write a lurid story about 
flame wars leading to arrests, a ludicrous idea that anyone familiar 
with Julian Calero's case would be quick to dismiss.  Many 
Peruvians in exile have been subjected to the extradition 
process, and Internet had nothing to do with it. The U.S. government as a
matter of policy (international treaties with Peru) release the name
to the Peruvian government of those seeking asylum for human rights 
violations by the U.S. supported military and security services in Peru.
The U.S. funds the judiciary and the "faceless" judges in Peru, including
human rights" training to military officers.
 
Julian's story is part of the criminal farce of U.S. immigration policy and
political asylum cases.  His case merits serious coverage in a "progressive"
paper like the Voice, but to date more important issues like "A World Without 
Wigstock" are quick to fill up column space.

In our long struggle, we know from experience that we can rely on no one 
but ourselves to set the record straight about Peruvian reality. 
We have obscured fake supporters and weak critics such as NACLA as the
source of information on Peru. We use what little resources we have to 
get the message out through our printed materials and our precious PCP Web 
Page. Thank you very much for listing it in your article.
  
The fact that many dislike what we say only reinforces our commitment to 
say it. It is good that the enemy attack us, it means that we are doing
a good job. 


The New Flag Editorial Board.
===========================E-Mail: lquispe-AT-nyxfer.blythe.org
PCP WEB PAGE:
http://www.blythe.org/peru-pcp.


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