Rev Int Movement (fwd)

Bruce,

thanks for the info. i was not aware of the actions of the Communist Party
of Peru. I have to double check to confirm this information though. i
personally do not consider any commmunist party as a terroristic
organization. communist parties have a legitimate right to exist even
though they use violence. their violence is against capitalism, which is
okey for me. i believe that there is a legitimate right to use violence
on the part of the oppressed against the oppressers. history is struggle
of the oppressed against the oppressors otherwise we would not have
progressed at all. so, i do not concieve their existence as a major
threath to our lives, nor to leftist movement in general. whether or not
the Communist party of Peru is violent should also be understood in the
context of Peru where the government is _largely_ responsible for killing
leftist activists. these countries have suffered from military
dictatorhips sytematically eliminating opposition. whatever the Communist
party of Peru has done is nothing compared to STATE TERROR in Peru. even
here, the sympethizers of the Nazi party is killing people, terrorizing
minorities, and the government does *not* attempt at closing it in the
name liberties, whereas the communist party was once outlawed in the
laws of the united states. and the justification was "communist party aims
to overthrow the government. violence violates our individual rights, no
way", yet the nazi party is just a party of few trouble makers!  

basically, i agree with your views that leftists should not kill each
other because of their ideological divisions. however, in those
countries like Peru, governments kill leftist activists and put the
repsonsibility on other leftist parties to divide the leftist movement, or
to co-apt the pro-systemic lefties that they think are more willing to
negotiate. again, i am just assuming by looking at the experience of
the leftist movement in my home country; In Turkey we had experiences like
secular (social democrat) intellectuals getting killed and
then the government putting the blame on Kurds (or other lefties)
rather then on islamic fundementalists. of course, these are always
hearsay and supposition, since we have no other choice but forced to rely
on government information and mainstream press, which is in every part of
the world 90% biased against communists. governments are also very
successfull at pitting one leftist group against another and creating
deep hostilities. they even conspire when necessary. the relations between
governments and leftists groups are very complex to pin down in countries
whose political histories are largely charecterized by strong political
turmoils within and among the different parties of the political
specturum.

what i assume about Peru may be right or may be wrong. i am just trying to
make sense of the situation here. thanks for your info. you are
enlightening me. where did you get the info from, btw?

ps: essentially, i support RIP. whatever the Communist Party of Peru has
done does not make invalid the existence and goals of RIP. it is always
nice to see lefties to form a united from. 

Mine


>I would like to make this respectful
>response to the posting about the Revolutionary Internationalist
>Movement:

>I do not know a lot about other groups that the RIM supports,
>but I do know that this organization has in the past (and apparently
>continues to) supported the Communist Party of Peru (also known
>as the Shining Path).  Readers of WSN may already know that
>the Shining Path has distinguished itself as a particularly violent,
>sectarian party.  The Shining Path, in fact, systematically
>killed leftist organizers (such as Maria Elena Moyano) who were
>courageously struggling to better the conditions of life for
>impoverished peoples in Peru.  The Peruvian government, of course,
>also killed many peasants and leftist activists.  But this, in my mind,
>does not excuse the actions of the Shining Path -- which ended
>up setting back by decades the political agenda of the left in
>Peru (both by killing many key progressive leaders, and by
>causing wide portions of the Peruvian population to reject
>leftist projects).

>Again, I do not know what other RIM-associated parties are
>engaged in.  I simply wanted to express my concern about
>one of its affiliates, which has engaged in particularly brutal
>practices.  Those who wish to bring about progressive change
>in the world (even those who believe in the occasional need
>for violent revolution) should nevertheless strongly condemn
>movements of the left which utilize violence in an indiscriminate
>manner.

>Respectfully,

>Bruce Podobnik
>podobnik@lclark.edu