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OPINION
Page 4 Thursday, January 30, 1986 The Michigan Daily
I
e tnan t Michigan
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
OFFICIAL SYMPATHY SURVEY
Vol. XCVI, No. 85
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
IN THE CONTINUING BATTLE OVR AIEDI
MLPRACTICE CASTS, WI~OM~ VO YOU FGLso
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
Election watch
N THE FURY and excitement of
a campaign for president such
as the one going on in the
Philippines, it is easy to forget
political and social realities and
become caught up in election
euphoria. Despite the challenge of
Corazon Aquino to Ferdinand Mar-
cos's twenty years of American-
backed dictatorship, there is
already much evidence that points
to the eventuality that little will
change after the February elec-
tions.
USA Today reported that in the
event of fraudulent elections in the
Philippines, the U.S. would
denounce the fraud but continue to
"do business" with Marcos. As the
State Department said, the
miilitary bases will always be the
"bottom line" in the Philippines
for the U.S. Also, as Time
magazine points out, American
private investors are responsible
for 10% of all economic activity in
the Philippines. The United States
has a considerable interest in
"doing business" with the Philip-
pines.
, Elections in the Philippines are
very much contrived to suit the
United States. Marcos announced
them a few days after a pointed
visit by Reagan confidant Senator
Laxalt. Also, whether it be
American reports concerning
Marcos' imminent death,
fraudulent war hero stories, or
property in Manhattan, Aquino has
penefitted.
The U.S. can demand snap elec-
tions and even breathe life into the
opposition, but short of direct
military control the U.S. can not
overcome Marcos' ownership of
five major television stations, his
control of the army or financial
ability to offer millions of dollars to
the public. Parliamentarism is not
embedded in the Philippines.
Already there are reports of six
assassinations of Aquino campaign
workers and foreign observers will
not be allowed within 150 feet of
ballot boxes. Marcos' power to set
the election terms is probably the
deciding factor behind White
House Chief of Staff Donald
Regan's conciliatory recognition of
"doing business" with Marcos.
Perhaps most disheartening of
all is the reality that in any case,
Aquino is cut from the same social
fabric as Marcos. According to
Time magazine. Aquino is the
daughter of a sugar baron; has
friends and relatives who are for-
mer senators and one of her
cousins is Marcos' closest
economic crony - head of the
coconut monopoly. As if to under-
score Aquino's aristocratic
background, the Marcos courts
recently expropriated Aquino's
sugar plantation for redistribution
to peasants. The bottom line for
Aquino is also that the American
bases will stay at least until 1991.
The U.S. government has never
had sufficient moral fiber to stand
up against Marcos and American
economic and military interests.
Rather Marcos is at worst a
"strategic liability." Policy-
makers just do not want to support
a losing dictator. Aquino could be
comparable to Marcos, but if she
wins the election and beats the
guerrilla insurgents, American
policy-makers will toast another
victory for democracy.
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'861. ewrEMS
Peruvians fight
Sexist signs
By Sharon McGee
A revolutionary war of immense impor-
tance is raging today in Peru. Although
largely blacked out by the US media since
the Communist Party of Peru (PCP -
sometimes called "Sandero Luminoso" or
Shining Path in the press) launched the ar-
med struggle in 1980, the Peruvian revolution
has continued to gather momentum and,
lately, to increasingly attract both attention
and attack.
In an editorial of U.S. "hotspots" world-
wide, W. Randolph Hearst, Jr. devoted
several paragraphs to the guerrilla struggle
in Peru, terming it "potentially the most
explosive situation of all in the Western
Hemisphere". Edward A. Lynch of the
Heritage Foundation, now a White House
consultant on Central America, reported
that "if the US waits too long, saving Peru
will require more effort and more money
than preserving Peru.. . Full scale war
would be far worse than the current El
Salvadoran war." Accordingly, last
February, Congress at Pres. Reagan's
request doubled US military aid to Peru,
making it the largest recipient of such aid in
South America. In August, 247 Marines
maneuvered with Peruvian troops in the
northern jungle area. And the Soviet Union,
which has had military "advisors" in Peru
since the late 1960s, joined in with an offer of
$50 million in arms for the regime.
What is it about this guerrilla war which so
alarms both superpowers that they have
backed a wave of repression against it
within Peru, while fostering a cloak of
silence about it abroad? Perhaps, in large
part, because the war is being fought in
direct political and military opposition to
both the US and USSR and their blocs,
making it unique in the world today.
Despite being called "mysterious" and
"enigmatic" in the press, the PCP has been
crystal clear about its short- and long-term
goals. In their manifesto Develop Guerrilla
Warfare they state: "We are firm prac-
titioners of the great principles of reliance
upon our own strength, as we are firm
followers of proletarian internationalism,
unfurling that immortal call of Marx and
Engels, 'Workers of all countries, Unite!'
and as communists we always raise up the
three great banners together of Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism."
The strength which the guerrillas refer to
is the strength, not of one or another coun-
try, but of the Peruvian people themselves,
who have come forward in the thousands to
support and in fact join this revolution.
Among other things, this means that the
guerrilla army's appearance and fighting
style differ quite a bit from that of guerrilla
armies elsewhere. Its ranks consist in large
measure of Indian peasants from the moun-
tainous areas, who comprise the most im-
poverished strata in the country (one-half of
Peru's population is Quechna or other In-
dian groups, and another one-third are
mestizo). Many of these Indians wield
traditional weapons like the "huaraca," or
Inca slingshot. In well-planned raids on
local prisons or police outposts, they will
use these to lob homemade bombs or
dynamite smuggled to them by miners,
blasting open the outer walls to capture ar-
ms or to free captives.
The guerrilla forces also involve an un-
precedented number of women fighters,
some reports indicating that they outnum-
ber the men. It is common for units to be
led by women. To quote the New York
Times, September 7, 1984, "In Peru's
traditional society, many people have been
shocked by the fact that women have not
only joined the guerrillas but at times, have
reportedly led attacks. Holding her baby
born in jail 2 months earlier, Lilian Torres,
23 years old, said she had worked as a maid
and street vendor in Lima since she was 17.
She had been afraid at first 'to join the Par-
ty,' she said but became aware of her
responsibility when she learned about 'the
class struggle,' and the 'offensive of world
revolution' taking place in Peru. 'Now I am
happier,' she said. 'I have stopped being a
vegetable.' "
Because it is composed of such forces and
is fighting to create a whole new society free
from the chains of the past, this army is a
genuine people's army, able to move freely
among supportive masses like fish among
water, and able to give full play to a fighting
style first described by Mao Tsetung:
"courage in battle, no fear of sacrifice, no
fear of fatigue." All recent reports since the
big offensive begun June 1984 point to the
People's Guerrilla Army having grown now
to several thousand fighters, able to strike
simultaneously at points throughout the
country, from the coastal cities to the
remote interior, from the jungles to the high
plains of the Andes. In the first five years of
struggle from 1980 to 1985, it carried out
more than 22,000 actions, the vast majority
of them successful.
But perhaps the most exciting aspect of
the revolution in Peru is what has been
established in the areas that it has liberated
for periods of time. In the dry sierra around
the city of Ayacucho, where the PCP is
building the most durable of its base areas,
about 100,000 people are now governed by
and participate in a new political power in
the form of People's Committees. These are
5-member committees elected covertly by
each village to divide harvests captured
from the landlords, to organize work and
collective planting and, increasingly, to
exercise political power when the landlords
and their henchmen are run out. These are
areas where for centuries the peasantry
were little better than slaves, confined in
some cases to sowing a few rows of grain
with sticks, and where the landlord's word
was law; enforced by the rural police and
troops.
The Peruvian fighters still have a long
way to go before they are able to carry out
their stated intention of "surrounding the
cities from the countryside" in order to
seize power nationwide. But even now it is
clear to their enemies internationally that
such a victory would be far-reaching. Far
from scrambling to accommodate to the
demands of the US or IMF (Peru has one of
the highest foreign debts per capita of any
country in the world, $14 billion with 18
million people), this is a revolution which
would strive to thoroughly remake the
fabric of society, extricate Peru's economy,
from the web of imperialism, and pour its
energy into assisting revolutionary gains
throughout the region and across the globe.
With the material support of the US, the
Peruvian regime has therefore tried to
crush the revolution brutally and without
mercy. The newly elected "democratic"
government of President Alan Garcia has
publicly sanctioned any and all actions
taken by its Armed Forces, including its
massacre last August of an entire village of
55 men, women and children which was
destroyed, the people machine-gunned, then
burned, the women raped and tortured.
More recently it was reported in the world
press that the regime murdered 30
prisoners at the infamous Lurigancho
prison by machine-gun and flame-throwers.
Garcia's response to all this was, "I must
defend the Armed Forces and give to them
my absolute confidence and sympathy."
But what could be expected from the same
man who declared that voluminous charges
published by Amnesty International in 1984
were "not yet proven"?
Those of us who live here in the country
most responsible for the oppression of the
Peruvian people have a special respon-
sibility to learn all that we can about the
People's War there, which the U.S. and its
agents are trying to crush.
This Friday at 7 p.m. in the Kuenzel Room
of the Michigan Union there will be a
slideshow, display of art by peasants,
political prisoners and fighters in the
revolution and a speaker. Sponsored by
supporters of the People's War and some
people who simply want to hear a sym-
pathetic viewpoint of the People's War in
Peru, the speaker is a Peruvian who lives
abroad and has toured several countries as
part of the Worldwide Tour to Support the
People's War in Peru.
IM C H ICHIGAN STUDENT
MWL Assembly President Paul
Josephson should be recognized for
his condemnation of the Sigma
Alpha Epsilon fraternity poster
which displayed Greek letters over
the tight shirted chest of a woman.
It's possible that SAE was
Unaware that its posters were of-
fensive. In fact, the advertisement
vas not unusual. Typically,
:women's bodies are used by men to
promote male-oriented products
nd clubs. The prevalence of sexist
advertising in indicative of the
inisconceptions which underly
them, and certainly is not limited
to University fraternities.
While Josephson's quick respon-
se prompted SAE members to tear
"down their posters, changing at-
litudes requires time and com-
mitment to re-evaluating old ideas.
Fortunately, there are
programs, such as women's study
courses and the rape and preven-
tion workshops, which offer
students the opportunity to discuss
and learn about sex-role
stereotypes that perpetuate
sexism. SAE fraternity members
should make an effort to attend.
Correction:
Wednesday 's editorial "Over-due
education" incorrectly portrayed the
rape education program as an action of
the Michigan Student Assembly 's
women's issues committee. MSA should
not receive credit for the program's
development or implementation, as it is
a result of the work of an independent
group of staff, students, and ad-
ministrators with the help of the Assault
Crisis Center in Ann Arbor.
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McGee is a political activist who lives in
Detroit.
LETTERS:
Space Shuttle must keep
WRITERS
In its ninety
sevent
h year of
the Daily
editorial
freedom
Opinion page seeks enthusiastic,
To The Daily:
We sit in the wake of a tragedy
unheard of in America until
yesterday: the death of
astronauts in flight aboard a
spacecraft. In the twenty-five
year history of the US space
program. no one has ever been
people could not be more wrong.
We, the people of America and
the rest of the world, need the
shuttle projects. We have
already learned so much about
the Earth and the environment
around it from these missions,
with a promise of much more to
rnmPTRt mn£im 1Vtmn tmvi w o
us better understand our own
planet). I talked last week with
Carl Henize, a University of
Michigan graduate who was a
mission specialist last year on
one of the Challenger missions.
He talked about the glory of an
orbital flight, the sheer fun of
li..:g :n frnnf ani tn
going
The Space Shuttle must not be
stopped. The airline industry did
not close up after the first air-
plane crash, and cars each year
kill tens of thousands of people.
Seven good people died yester-
day, heroes, but we must not
forget the name of the vehicle in
...h fh - -rn i --mnc . nnp t
politically
aware writers to join
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