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155169, 2010
Family was central to the political life of Augusta La Torre (or Comrade Norah), the second-in-command of the Peruvian Communist PartyShining Path (PCP-SL). La Torre was the daughter of a Communist Party militant and the granddaughter of a prominent provincial political gure. She was also the wife of Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman. La Torres familial history demonstrates the importance of parental and grandparental contributions to Senderistas political formation, and suggests that parents and children were sometimes united in their support for the Shining Path. La Torres family ties, however, have also led numerous observers to question her revolutionary credentials. Keywords: Augusta La Torre, Comrade Norah, family, marriage, Shining Path.
Shrouded by her partys ag, Augusta La Torre lay dead while her comrades drank, sang and danced in mourning. The only relative attending La Torres wake was her husband; her parents, siblings, aunts and uncles were all absent (Caretas, 1992: 26). That absence was in many ways deceptive, for family was central to La Torres political life. Known by the nom de guerre of Comrade Norah within the ranks of the Peruvian Communist Party-Shining Path (PCP-SL), Augusta La Torre served as second-in-command of that organisation from 1980 until her 1988 death. As a leading PCP-SL militant, La Torre helped wage a war notorious for its extreme uses of violence. From the May 1980 start of the Shining Paths Peoples War until the 1992 capture of party founder Abimael Guzman, Maoist PCP-SL rebels (or Senderistas), state forces and civilians fought bloody battles that left some 69,000 Peruvians dead. Scholars have looked in many different directions to explain why so many young men and women joined the Shining Path and its armed struggle (Degregori, 1989; Palmer, 1992; Kirk, 1997; Gorriti, 1999). This article furthers the debate, using the case of Augusta La Torre to highlight the signicance of familial inuence upon Senderistas political trajectories. Several authors have noted the importance of family to the Shining Path. Journalist Gustavo Gorriti has demonstrated the prominence of intermarriage between early Shining Path members, many of whom were actually siblings. Such kin ties indeed led these founding militants to label themselves the sacred family (Gorriti, 1990: 20). Historian Ponciano del Pino has likewise considered issues of family. Del Pino (1998)
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the emergence of the Shining Path. Scholars such as Carlos Ivan Degregori (1998) and Miguel La Serna (2008) have demonstrated how tensions between rural youth and older community members factored into the rise of the PCP-SL in the countryside. These arguments about generational conict are insightful, but there is another story to be told about relations between parents and children with regard to the Shining Path: one of generational concurrence. The case of Augusta La Torre demonstrates that, on occasion, parents and children could be united in their support for the PCP-SL and its violent struggle. While Augusta La Torre was herself exceptional, her situation was not unique. In the Huanta, Ayacucho district of Luricocha, for example, peasants testied that the entire Yauri* family walked with Sendero Luminoso while another witness asserted that Eduardo Guti rrez,* his wife, and their two daughters were all involved e with the PCP-SL (Interview 200649, 2002; Interview 200615, 2002).1 The relevance of familial political inuence also stretches back in time and across to other Peruvian political organisations. In my closing reections, I use the lines of family to draw connections between the PCP-SL and the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA). Lastly, this article argues for a cautionary approach to matters of the family, showing that too heavy a focus on familial relations can overshadow the political ideas, efforts and legacy of a given militant. La Torres marriage to Abimael Guzman has led numerous observers to call her revolutionary credentials into question. Because the denials of La Torres political capacity and relevance have been so frequent and so vehement, this article begins with an extended discussion of Augusta La Torres political work.
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2 A guide to this microlm collection is available on the internet; see Guide to the Microlm Edition of Documenting thePeruvian Insurrection (n.d.).
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to unite the people against the regime (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005a: 12). Having proven herself a dedicated and militant activist, La Torre won a key position inside the PCP-SL: in 1980, PCP-SL militants voted her into the Shining Paths Permanent Central Committee, allotting her the second highest position of leadership in the party (Iparraguirre, 2003: 11, 14). That same year, La Torre assumed leadership of the PCP-SLs Andahuaylas-Cangallo Zonal Committee. This committee was at that time the most important of all the PCP-SLs regional committees, as it was the zone where the PCP-SL initiated its war and where it won signicant popular support (Iparraguirre, 2003: 15; Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005b). La Torre also led the PCPSLs rst major guerrilla action. While the Peoples War had its ofcial start with the 17 May 1980 burning of ballot boxes in Chuschi, the rst bloodletting did not occur until the 24 December 1980 attack on the Hacienda San Agustn de Ayzarca in Pujas. It was Augusta La Torre who led this attack. As Elena Iparraguirre explained it, this is extremely important, because under her direction, the rst guerrilla action came to be carried out (Iparraguirre, 2003: 14). Augusta La Torre retreated from the countryside in 1982 to focus on strategising, planning the PCP-SLs actions with Abimael Guzman and Elena Iparraguirre, the two other members of the three-person Central Committee. La Torres work in the PCP-SLs Central Committee continued up until her November 1988 death from still-unknown causes (Roncagliolio, 2007: 131132). Discussion of the nal years of La Torres life cannot go beyond the stuff of rumour. From her 1979 entrance into profound clandestinity alongside Guzman until her 1988 death, La Torre lived in hiding and the details of her political actions and everyday life are known only to those PCP-SL militants who lived alongside her.
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tie, and my hair was neatly combed (Medina, 2003). It seems the only effort La Torre Cardenas made to defend Iribambas workers came in 1955, when he pursued criminal charges against an Iribamba peon for rape of an hacienda employee (ARA, 1955 SCJ Huanta, le 1705, book 119: 1). Yet Carlos La Torre Cardenas was a committed Communist Party member all the same. Franco Silva worked through the seeming contradiction between La Torre Cardenass political sympathies and his economic position by pointing to the La Torre familys economic troubles in the late 1950s (Silva, 2005). The Iribamba hacienda fell into debt, and Carlos La Torre Cardenas and his wife were forced to sell off their urban Ayacucho properties (ARA, 1957: 634635; ARA, 1957b: 935). Worse still, La Torre Cardenas had to take a job as a public employee in the city of Ayacucho, a far-from-prestigious post for the son of a prominent hacendado (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005b). As Franco Silva phrased it, assuming that post was a humiliation, an embarrassment and heightened La Torre Cardenass sympathies for the PCP (2005). Like her father and grandfather before her, Augusta La Torre Carrasco was drawn to politics. Born in 1945, Augusta La Torre Carrasco joined the Communist Party at the age of seventeen (Iparraguirre, 2003: 8). Here again, family inuence was paramount. Franco Silva attributed Augusta La Torres politics to her father, explaining that because Carlos La Torre Cardenas belonged to the PCP, his daughter Augusta already had a certain orientation, a certain disposition, before meeting Guzman (Silva, 2005). The most obvious role Augusta La Torres parents played in her political life was that of ideological and personal matchmakers: Carlos La Torre Cardenas and Delia Carrasco introduced their daughter to Abimael Guzman. The relationship between Guzman and the La Torre family began in 1962, after Guzman accepted a teaching position at the UNSCH (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005a; Silva, 2005). Guzman sought out Carlos La Torre Cardenas because of their shared membership in the PCP. Within two years of their rst meeting, Carlos La Torre Cardenas and Guzman were cooperating in their political work. In February 1964, the pair organised a demonstration among UNSCH students. That same month, they travelled to a nearby haciendaa trip authorities insisted was intended to subvert the peons of this hacienda (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005b: 1). The ties between Carlos La Torre Cardenas and Guzman, however, were more than just political. They were also personal. La Torre Cardenas and his wife Delia Carrasco held Guzman in high esteem from the outset of their friendship. Delia Carrasco later reected that Guzman was another son and, of course, the whole family loved him very much. Weve always respected him (Everest, 1993: 9). Carlos La Torre Cardenas and Delia Carrasco regularly invited Guzman into their home. It was there that Guzman met the couples young daughter, Augusta, and the pair soon became romantically involved, marrying in 1964. Without question, the marriage enjoyed the blessings of the brides family. At the ceremony, it was Augustas relatives, rather than the couples friends, colleagues, or comrades, who lled most of the seats. Some even speculate that the marriage happened because Augustas parents pressured her to marry the man they so esteemed (Silva, 2005). It is difcultprobably even impossibleto gauge the impact of political genealogy upon Augusta La Torres life. We cannot say for certain whether La Torre would have taken a different political path had her grandfather, father and great uncle been resolutely apolitical. Nor can we prove that familial inuence had more impact upon La Torre than did any other factor. But even if we cannot make decisive statements
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a great satisfaction to hear himhow he laid out different themes (Everest, 1993: 8). Carlos La Torre, in turn, recalled that because the couple lived with him and his wife, We saw the enthusiasm that they put toward the revolution (Everest, 1993: 9). Carlos La Torre and Delia Carrasco even provided their daughter and son-in-law a locale for revolutionary preparations: their Iribamba hacienda in Huanta, co-owned with Carlos La Torres brother Luis. Abimael and Augusta travelled openly and often to Iribamba during the late 1960s and into 1970, regularly taking fellow militants along with them (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005a; Silva, 2005). The Iribamba arrangement did not last long, however. Because Augusta La Torre and Guzman, along with other members of the nascent PCP-SL, were so vocal in their opposition to the 19681980 military government, their frequent trips to Iribamba raised the suspicions of government ofcials. In June 1970, police raided the Iribamba hacienda and detained Osman Morote and two other PCP-SL militants, arresting them on the grounds of undermining the militarys governments agrarian reform. The authorities deemed Iribamba a training centre for sabotage against the Agrarian Reform, and they arrested Guzman for being the intellectual author of that sabotage (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005a: 1). That arrest led to a four-month stay in jail for Guzman, while Augusta was spared punishment. Although the Iribamba arrests were dramatic and the prison stays signicant, those arrests brought only a temporary pause to Augusta and Abimaels political activities on the hacienda. In April 1978, the couple formed a military school on the estate to train PCP-SL militants in guerrilla warfare (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005d). Familial support for the PCP-SL must not, of course, be overstated. Even some members of Augusta La Torres family bitterly opposed Sendero and staunchly refused to assist Augusta and Abimael. The most dramatic example of that opposition came from Augustas aunt and uncle, Adriana Cardenas and Eduardo Spatz. In 1978, Augusta La Torre visited her aunt and uncles hacienda in Huanta, asking to purchase Spatzs large gun collection. When Spatz refused the request, a heated argument ensued. Augusta ended that argument with the pledge that, You will be one of the rst well burn. Making good on La Torres promise, PCP-SL militants attacked the hacienda in November 1982 (Caretas, 1982: 14). Within the limits of Augusta La Torres nuclear family, however, support for the PCP-SL remained strong throughout the 1980s. From late 1982 onward, that support came from abroad, as Carlos La Torre, Delia Carrasco, and three of Augustas siblings ed to Sweden to escape arrest for their involvement with the PCP-SL. The familys international work for Sendero began when Augustas brother-in-law Javier Esparza contacted Abimael Guzman with a proposal to extend the PCP-SLs propaganda war into Europe (Caretas, 1986: 46). And so, in the closing days of 1982, Esparza organised the Ayacucho Studies Circle to advance the PCP-SLs cause. Comprised primarily of Augustas relatives, the group published a newspaper and distributed yers, and it staged a public demonstration on Labour Day 1983. Such activities continued in subsequent years; several Ayacucho Studies Circle members were detained by Swedish authorities in 1986 after distributing Senderista propaganda and painting pro-Sendero grafti on the walls of the Peruvian embassy in Stockholm (Caretas, 1991: 38, 94). What is perhaps most surprising about the La Torre Carrasco familys support for the PCP-SL is that it continued long after Augustas 1988 death. Upon Abimael Guzmans dramatic 1992 arrest, Carlos La Torre and Delia Carrasco rushed to his defence, hiring him a lawyer. As Delia Carrasco told the leftist newspaper Revolutionary Worker, we love him and we feel very strongly for him . . . I feel proud of Abimael Guzman
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solely because Guzman fantasised about being alone, surrounded by women in the Political Bureau (Caycho, 2005: 47). Ramrez similarly asserted that Guzman wanted to establish a clan . . . a efdom and he derided La Torre and Iparraguirre as Guzmans mujercitas (little women), his girlfriend number one and his girlfriend number two, and his two Geishas (Ramrez Durand, 2002a: 24, 28, 34). Ramrez Durand stressed La Torres role as both wife and political inferior to cast her only as an obedient follower, working as Guzmans proverbial yes-woman. La Torre, by Ramrez Durands telling, held power only because she saw Guzman as a genius, he was never wrong and because his inuence over her and Iparraguirre allowed Guzman to concentrate power in his own hands (Ramrez Durand, 2002b: 28). Ramrez Durand also blamed La Torre for initiating the notorious cult of personality surrounding Guzman. Testifying before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Ramrez Durand asserted that, Norah started this in 1982, 1983 . . . It was Norah who initiated these things, I bow my head before the Party and before President Gonzalo (Ramrez Durand, 2002b: 49). Ramrez Durands claims are easy to dismiss, for his anger toward Guzman, La Torre, and Iparraguirre represents a case of political jealousy at its most extreme. Not only did La Torre and Iparraguirre rank directly above Ramrez, keeping him out of Shining Paths Central Committee until La Torres 1988 death, but the PCP-SLs adherence to the principle of democratic centralism meant that Ramrez had to accept the policies that Guzman, La Torre, and Iparraguirre imposed. Remaining free at the moment of Guzman and Iparraguirres 1992 capture, Ramrez adamantly opposed the pairs post-arrest decision to pursue a peace treaty with the Peruvian government. Ramrez thus broke from the PCP-SL, leading a splinter group and continuing to ght the Peoples War until his arrest in 1999 (Caycho, 2005: 45). But even though Ramrezs motives render his assertions suspect, he is hardly the only individual to use the familial ties of marriage to dismiss the political relevance of Augusta La Torre, or of Senderista women in general. A retired female university professor likewise cast the female Senderista spouses of male Sendero militants as uncomplicated political followers. The wives were like that, the ex-professor explained, loyal to their husbands and therefore the Party (Kirk, 1997: 78). In his otherwise tremendously sensitive article on familial relations and the Shining Path, historian Ponciano del Pino similarly wrote of Senderista patriarchs delivering entire families to the party (del Pino 1998: 181182). To explain womens prominence in the PCP-SL primarily through reference to their husbands is to deny womens choices, experiences, and agency, even inside a political party known for its sexism and patriarchal attitudes (Vega-Centeno 1994; Coral Cordero, 1998; Henrquez Ayn, 2006). Elena Iparraguirre herself stressed that she joined the PCP-SL out of frustration at the sexism inside other leftist parties. Speaking to the Truth Commission, she explained her move from the PCP-Patria Roja (Red Fatherland) into Guzmans splinter Red Faction of the PCP-Bandera Roja and his sub-group, the fourteenth of July National Committee. As she phrased it, What did Patria want? For women to go out and get chickens . . . unacceptable. But in the fourteenth of July National Committee we were equal in everything, we did the same things (Iparraguirre, 2003: 7). For the case of Augusta La Torre, there is more than enough evidence to demonstrate that she was much, much more than simply her husbands mujercita. Certainly, the political efforts outlined at the start of this article reect the work of a dedicated political actor. Several observers have also commented on La Torres political radicalism. As Edgar Romero told me, She was more radical than [Guzman] was, and for that
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Conclusions
Behind every great man, there stands a woman. Or so the tired old adage tells us. Augusta La Torres case offers a new spin on that dictum: behind (many) a leader, there stands a family. For Augusta La Torre and her relatives, political ideology and actions were family affairs; La Torres relatives actively participated in politics before, during, and after her short life. Moreover, issues of family have shaped her historical legacy. Without understating all that was unique about Augusta La Torres personal and political life, we can nonetheless say that her political genealogy has many echoes in contemporary Peruvian history. Keiko Fujimori provides one obvious example. The daughter of ex-President Alberto Fujimori, Keiko Fujimori is presently a Congresswoman and there is widespread speculation that she will run for Perus presidency in 2011 should her fathers recent conviction for human rights abuses block his own candidacy. Ms. Fujimori is also joined in the Congress by her uncle, Santiago Fujimori, brother of the former president (El Comercio, 2008: A6). Yet while the Fujimori family dominates todays headlines, it is the family of APRA founder Vctor Raul Haya de la Torre that provides some of the most interesting parallels with Augusta La Torre (no relation). As was true of Augusta La Torre, Haya was nested inside a highly politicised family. Hayas father was a Congressional Deputy for Trujillo, holding that post from 1906 to 1912 (Klar n, 1973: 90). Like e Augusta La Torre, Haya was joined inside his party by several of his relatives. Hayas brother Agustn was an active participant in APRAs early struggles (Klar n, 1973: 127, e 129, 139) and Hayas cousin Marcela Pinillos Ganoza was an Aprista (Daz, 2007: 129132). In addition, Hayas parents provided him with important familial support for his early political efforts. In 1931, Haya and several other Aprista militants utilised his parental home both to formalise their political plans and to hide out from police (Daz, 2007: 50). These parallels give weight to historian Jos Luis R niques recent call e e for a comparative consideration of Haya de la Torre and Abimael Guzman (R nique, e 2003: 148). If we recognise that Guzman shared Augusta La Torres familial political connections and dependencies through his position as her husband then Guzman and Haya exhibit some signicant familial similarities. The issue of familial ties also offers grounds for a broad comparison between the PCP-SL and APRA as parties. APRA was arguably as dependent upon familial participation as was the Shining Path. Within the early APRA, the brothers of Trujillos Spelucn family proved dedicated and militant Apristas, ascending to leadership posts
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inside the nascent party (Klar n, 1973: 147). In addition, historian Lewis Taylor has e demonstrated the prominence of historic Aprista families in Cajamarca, where Aprista sons followed the political trajectory of their Aprista fathers. Taylor also notes the prominence of sibling participation within Cajamarcas APRA (Taylor, 2006: 151). Similar patterns emerged inside the department of Ayacucho. Within the district of Carhuanca, the brothers Vidal and Augusto Cardenas both belonged to APRA in the 1930s, and Vidals son stood as the districts Aprista candidate in the 2003 municipal elections (Heilman, 2006: 189). These connections between APRA and the PCP-SL exist on more than just an academic level. Crucially, many Shining Path militants were the daughters and sons of Apristas. Augusta La Torre was herself the grand-daughter of an Aprista, even if Carlos La Torre Cortezs afliation with APRA was only eeting. Elena Iparraguirre, in turn, was the daughter of an Aprista militant (Iparraguirre, 2003: 5). The familial ties between Senderistas and Apristas also existed at the level of rank-and-le party members. Inside the district of Carhuanca, many of the individuals who joined the PCP-SL were the children of once-prominent local Apristas (Heilman, 2006). These examples are telling. Not only do these cases show the importance of family political inuence, they also suggest that some Senderistas had looked upon their Aprista parents shortcomings and disappointments as revolutionaries and decided that a new, far more violent, political path was necessary. For Augusta La Torre, and for many other Peruvians, politics bound the ties of family.
Acknowledgements
My warm thanks to G. McCormick, I. Rodrguez Silva, and participants in the Dalhousie Stokes Seminar.
References
ARA (1923a) Prefecture, le 12, 21 and 22 January. ARA (1923b) Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ), le 413, book 24, 12 January. ARA (1924) Prefecture, le 13, letter 20, 24 January. ARA (1939) SCJ, le 659, book 5. ARA (1955) SCJ Huanta, le 1705, book 119. ARA, (19411942) Prefecture, le 14, 6 January 1941, 12 January 1942, 17 January 1942. ARA (1957) Notary Francisco Mavila, le 290, volume II. ARA (1957) Notary Francisco Mavila, le 459, volume III. ARA (1972) Private Agrarian Jurisdiction, File 10, Case 704772, 5 September. Caretas (1982) Los sentenciados de El Carmen. 6 December: 1415, 70. Caretas (1986) Sendero en Suecia. 11 November: 4446. Caretas (1991) Sendero. 15 April: 3739, 94. Caretas (1992) Abogada del Diablo. 22 October: 2627. Caycho, P. (2005) Canta Feliciano. Caretas 9 June: 4447. Coral Cordero, I. (1998) Women in War: Impact and Responses, in S. J. Stern (ed.) Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 19801995. Duke University Press: Durham, 345376. Degregori, C. I. (1989) Qu dicil es ser Dios. Ideologa y violencia poltica en Sendero e Luminoso. El Zorro de Abajo: Lima. Degregori, C. I. (1998) Harvesting Storms: Peasant Rondas and the Defeat of Sendero Lumionoso in Ayacucho in S.J. Stern (ed.) Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980-1995. Duke University Press: Durham, 128157.
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Pomper, P. (1979) Sergei Nechaev. Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick. R nique, J. (2003) La voluntad encarcelada: las luminosas trincheras de combate de Sendero e Luminoso del Peru. IEP: Lima. Roncagliolio, S. (2007) La cuarta espada: La historia de Abimael Guzman y Sendero Luminoso. Debate: Barcelona. Sierra (1945) Primera Quincena, March: 4. Sierra (1951) Primera Quincena, July: 8. Starn, O. (1995) Maoism in the Andes: The Communist Party of Peru-Shining Path and the Refusal of History. Journal of Latin American Studies 27(2): 399421. Taylor, L. (2006) Shining Path Guerrilla War in Perus Northern Highlands, 19801997. Liverpool University Press: Liverpool. Vega-Centeno, I. (1994) G nero y poltica: A proposito de la mujer en Sendero Luminoso. e Boletn Americanista 34(44): 207213.
Concejo de la Verdad y Reconciliacion Interviews from the Centro de Informacion para la Memoria Colectivo y Derechos Humanos (Lima)
Interview 200649 (2002) Huanta campesino, March. Interview 200615 (2002) Huanta campesino, March. Interview SCO 309 07 (2002) Anonymous prisoner in Yanamayo prison. Iparraguirre, E. (2003) March. Guzman, A. (2002) May. Ramrez Durand, O. (2002a) April. Ramrez Durand, O. (2002b) September. Ramrez Durand, O. (2002c) October.
Interviews by Author
Carrasco, L. (pseudonym) (2005) Journalist from Huanta, May 2005, Huanta. Medina, S. (pseudonym) (2003) Former worker on Iribamba hacienda, September, Huanta. Silva, F. (pseudonym) (2005) Former Ayacucho activist, May, Ayacucho. Romero, E. (pseudonym) (2005) Former Huanta activist, May, Huanta. Vargas, E. (pseudonym) (2005) Huanta campesino, May, Huanta.
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