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Abimael GusmanPeruvian revolutionary, leader of the Maoist rebel movement Sendero Luminoso.
Date of Birth: 03.12.1934
Country:  Peru |
Content:
Biography of Abimael Guzman
Abimael Guzman, born in Mollendo, a port town in the Islay province in southern Peru, was a Peruvian revolutionary and leader of the Maoist insurgent movement "Sendero Luminoso" (Shining Path). He was the illegitimate son of a prosperous trader who won the national lottery and had six sons from three different women. Guzman's mother, Berenice Reynoso, died when he was only five years old. From 1939 to 1946, Guzman was raised by his late mother's family. In 1947, he moved to Arequipa to live with his father and stepmother and attended a private Catholic high school.
Education and Ideological Influences
In 1953, Guzman became a student at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the National University of Saint Augustine in Arequipa. His university comrades described him as modest, shy, disciplined, and ascetic. After defending dissertations on "Kantian Theory of Space" and "Bourgeois-Democratic State," Guzman obtained a bachelor's degree in philosophy and jurisprudence. He was deeply interested in Marxist ideas and heavily influenced by the founder of the Communist Party of Peru, Jose Carlos Mariategui, as outlined in his book "Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality." Under the influence of the university rector Efrain Morote Best, Guzman became a convinced anti-revisionist and Maoist, subsequently joining the activities of the "Sendero Luminoso" movement.
Leadership of Sendero Luminoso
Under Guzman's leadership, "Sendero Luminoso" became one of the largest insurgent movements in Latin America. The Guzman-led movement frequently resorted to terrorist methods against peasants and union leaders who did not join their cause (although similar measures were actively used by the Peruvian government). In the United States, Europe, and Peru, "Sendero Luminoso" is considered a terrorist organization. On September 12, 1992, during an "anti-terrorist operation" ordered by the neoliberal Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, Guzman was arrested by a group of elite troops. He soon stood trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment. In exchange for a promise to spare his life, Guzman called on the fighters of his group to lay down their weapons. Currently, he is serving his sentence at a military naval base on San Lorenzo Island near Lima. Ironically, in addition to Guzman's cell, there are two more cells adjacent to his - one for the leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, Victor Polay, and the other for Vladimir Montesinos, Alberto Fujimori's right-hand man and former president.
