PERU : Isolation, Defeats Push Rebel Movement Toward Bitter End

They were never as numerous or fearsome as Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). But this nation’s “other guerrillas” were going strong by the late 1980s, harrying the government with daring attacks, competing with the ruthless Sendero for peasant and proletarian support.

That’s over now. The Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement is disintegrating, analysts say. For Peru’s other guerrillas, it seems, the bitter end is near.

President Alberto Fujimori’s goal is to finish off the Tupac Amaru movement, known by its Spanish initials MRTA, by 1993’s end. “No one here in Peru any longer doubts that the MRTA will be defeated this year,” Fujimori boasted to a Chilean newspaper the other day.

Enrique Obando, a military analyst with an independent Peruvian think tank, does not dispute the president’s claim. “Apparently Fujimori is right,” Obando said in an interview. “I believe that the MRTA doesn’t have much time left--unlike Sendero, which can go on for a while.”

Sendero Luminoso, the Shining Path, is also in trouble. Abimael Guzman, its founder and leader, was captured last year along with top lieutenants. Anti-terrorist police have dismantled much of its logistic and administrative structure, while peasant self-defense groups have undermined its rural support structure. But Sendero, sustained by its fierce Maoist zeal, is struggling to survive and recover.

The Tupac Amaru guerrillas, pro-Cuban but less fanatical than the Senderistas, appear to have lost much of their ideological inspiration after the collapse of Soviet communism and the isolation of Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s regime.

Named after an 18th-Century Indian rebel leader, the movement began waging guerrilla war against the government in 1984. It was a relatively tame alternative to the savage Sendero terrorists, who ruthlessly murder uncooperative community leaders and peasants.

Tupac Amaru reached the peak of its power in the late 1980s. Its armed membership, which Obando estimated at 3,000 or more, was organized in combat “fronts” nationwide. Although nearly 90% of all guerrilla attacks were by Sendero, other guerrillas kept a high profile.

They shot bazooka shells at the presidential palace and a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy. They attacked ministries and Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants, took over rural towns, battled with army units, robbed banks and kidnaped business executives.

One of Tupac Amaru’s most spectacular operations occurred in July, 1990, when top leader Victor Polay and nearly 50 other members broke out of a high-security prison.

After President Fujimori took office later that month, the government increased efforts to form self-defense patrols in peasant communities. Today, about 250,000 Peruvians participate in the groups, which have severely restricted guerrilla activity.

The Tupac Amaru has also lost ground in a sometimes bloody contention with Sendero. Sendero, for example, expelled the Tupac Amaru from much of the Upper Huallaga Valley in eastern Peru, where rival rebels reportedly competed for “taxes” from cocaine smugglers.

Government forces have captured most of the Tupac Amaru’s top leaders. Polay was recaptured in a Lima safehouse in June, 1993, and sentenced to life in prison. The No. 2, 3 and 4 Tupac Amaru leaders also are jailed. Only two members of the movement’s Central Committee, Nestor Cerpa and Julio Rincon, remain at large.

Public rejection of the movement has grown with its increased disregard for the lives of innocents caught in its violence, analysts say.

In the end, the image of a defeated movement has further crippled its ability to recruit new members and supporters--or retain old ones. Hundreds of Tupac Amaru guerrillas have turned themselves in to authorities under an amnesty measure decreed by Fujimori in May, 1992.

What is left of the movement, perhaps a few hundred guerrillas spread across Peru, is hardly a movement at all any more, analysts say. “It is disintegrating,” a foreign diplomat said.

But he cautioned that remnants of the movement, even as few as 10 or 12 people, could continue set off bombs or carry out kidnapings. “And they are going to have 10 to 12 people, I’m sure, for years to come.”