Peru: Abimael Guzmán’s body took to the political stage | Shining Path leader’s family want his body handed over for burial, but state and politicians oppose it

From Lima

Dying, already old and defeated, Abimael Guzmán, the leader of the Maoist armed group Sendero Luminoso expired over two decades ago, it came back to life as a dangerous ghost by politicians, media and analysts. The corpse of Guzmán, who since 1992 had been a prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment and died on Saturday at the age of 86 of pneumonia, has taken center stage in the political scene. Treated as if it were a danger to national security, the fate that should be given to the body of the late founder of Sendero is debated. The family and the authorities are challenging the body. Family want body handed over for burial, but state and politicians want They oppose each other.

Guzmán’s wife Elena Iparraguirre also in prison with a life sentence For her participation in Sendero, a group in which she was second in command, she claimed from her cell, with a power of attorney granted to Iris Quiñonez, who was also in prison for her activism in Sendero, the corpse of the late Senderista. leader. But the judicial authorities denied it, despite the fact that the law gives this right to the closest member of the family. At the time of sending this note, a final decision by the prosecution on the fate of the body of the Shining Path leader was pending. His body was still in the morgue.

Government officials, opposition congressmen and ruling party allies, as well as the media, said Guzmán’s body was cremated and the ashes disappeared into the sea. They picked up on the idea of ​​what happened with Osama bin Laden. Although the law does not allow it and determines that the body should be returned to the family, they support the request, saying it is an “extraordinary case” and “a matter of national security”. Those who want to wipe out Guzmán’s remains say his tomb could become a place of pilgrimage for his followers, who venerated him as an almost religious figure.

Posthumous final conviction

The disappearance of Guzman’s body also appears to be a final punitive act, a posthumous final conviction this is to be imposed on the man who began in 1980, in a context of poverty and deep inequalities, an armed struggle that lasted until the 1990s, killing nearly 70,000 people, among those caused by the trekking and by security forces. The media and a good part of the political class want to take advantage of Guzmán’s death to reinforce an official account of the story -that for years he wants to impose- who intends to blame the violence solely on Sendero and hide or condone the multiple human rights violations committed by the state.

They want to make Guzmán’s corpse disappear, but the right wants to keep his ghost alive to scare him and use it against the left, against those who propose changes to a model that maintains deep inequalities and exclusions, and against those who demand justice and punishment for those repressors, accusing them of an alleged proximity to Sendero in an attempt to discredit them. From the opposition to President Pedro Castillo, in which predominates an extreme right which conspires to overthrow the leftist regime, the same accusation is repeated against the government to seek to destabilize it. The ruling party denies this proximity; after Guzmán’s death, his main spokespersons, including the president, strongly condemned Sendero and his late leader. Corn the right insists on linking the government to the political heirs of the divagation, who no longer call for armed struggle, but for political action, the main objective of which was to seek amnesty for Guzmán.

Fascism

On Sunday, the day after Guzmán’s death, the right called for a demonstration presented as a mobilization “against terrorism”, but which was in fact a demonstration against the government. Members of Congress from Fujimori and other far-right groups, failed old politicians, retired military personnel, marched with coup speeches. “Abimael Guzmán is dead, now we have to put an end to Pedro Castillo who is his heir”, “Sendero is in the Government Palace, we have to fight until we take him out”, “death to the Communists”, were some phrases that were heard in a protest that didn’t get much appeal. It was a fascist outcry and coup that raised the ghost of Guzmán to justify his authoritarian speech.

The right-wing hysteria, and its desperation to attack the government, has reached the absurd extreme of doubting Guzmán’s death, accusing the government of pretending to scare him away. A crazy conspiracy theory that reveals the levels of irrationality of a sector of the opposition.