Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement
Encyclopedia
The Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement was a Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 revolutionary group active in Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 from the early 1980s to 1997 and one of the main actors in the internal conflict in Peru
Internal conflict in Peru
It has been estimated that nearly 70,000 people died in the internal conflict in Peru that started in 1980 and, although still ongoing, had greatly wound down by 2000. The principal actors in the war were the Shining Path , the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and the government of Peru.A great...

. It was led by Víctor Polay Campos (comrade "Rolando") until his incarceration and by Néstor Cerpa Cartolini
Néstor Cerpa Cartolini
Néstor Cerpa Cartolini — sometimes known by the nom de guerre "Evaristo" — was a member, then leader of the Peruvian Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement guerrilla movement....

 (comrade "Evaristo") until his death in 1997.

The MRTA took its name in homage to Túpac Amaru II
Túpac Amaru II
Túpac Amaru II was a leader of an indigenous uprising in 1780 against the Spanish in Peru...

, an 18th-century rebel leader who was himself named after his ancestor Túpac Amaru
Túpac Amaru
Túpac Amaru, also called Thupa Amaro , was the last indigenous leader of the Inca state in Peru.-Accession:...

, the last indigenous leader of the Inca
Inca Empire
The Inca Empire, or Inka Empire , was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century...

 people. MRTA was considered a terrorist
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

 organization by the Peruvian government, the US Department of State and the European Parliament but was later removed from the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations
U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations
"Foreign Terrorist Organization" is a designation of non-United States-based organizations declared terrorist by the United States Secretary of State in accordance with section 219 of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act...

 on October 5, 2001.

At the height of its strength, it had several hundred active members. Its stated goals were to establish a socialist state
Socialist state
A socialist state generally refers to any state constitutionally dedicated to the construction of a socialist society. It is closely related to the political strategy of "state socialism", a set of ideologies and policies that believe a socialist economy can be established through government...

 and rid the country of all imperialist elements.

Origins

The MRTA originated in 1980 from the merging of the Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary Socialist Party
Revolutionary Socialist Party (marxist-leninist)
Revolutionary Socialist Party was a political party in Peru founded in 1978 through a split in the Revolutionary Socialist Party. Its leaders included Antonio Aragón, Carlos Urrutia and Andrés Avelino Mar...

 and the militant faction of the Revolutionary Left Movement
Revolutionary Left Movement (Peru)
Revolutionary Left Movement , was a Marxist group founded in Peru in 1962 by Luis de la Puente Uceda and his group APRA Rebelde, a splinter-group from the APRA which had rallied the government in the 1950s and 1960s...

, MIR El Militante (MIR-EM). The former gathered several ex-members of the Peruvian armed forces that participated in the leftist dictatorial government of Juan Velasco Alvarado
Juan Velasco Alvarado
Juan Francisco Velasco Alvarado was a left-leaning Peruvian General who ruled Peru from 1968 to 1975 under the title of "President of the Revolutionary Government."- Early life :...

 (1968-1975), and the latter represented a subdvision of the Revolutionary Left Movement, a Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

ist guerrilla faction which was defeated in 1965.
The MRTA attempted to ally with other leftist organizations following the first democratic elections in Peru after a military government period (1968–1980).

Operations

The first action by the MRTA occurred on 31 May 1982, when five of its members, including Victor Polay Campos
Víctor Polay
Víctor Polay Campos is one of the founders of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, a Peruvian guerrilla organization that fought in the internal conflict in Peru...

 and Jorge Talledo Feria (members of the Central Committee) robbed a bank in La Victoria, Lima. During the hold up, Talledo was killed by friendly fire and became the first loss of the movement.

Peru's counterterrorist program diminished the group's ability to carry out terrorist attacks, and the MRTA suffered from infighting as well as violent clashes with Maoist rival Shining Path
Shining Path
Shining Path is a Maoist guerrilla terrorist organization in Peru. The group never refers to itself as "Shining Path", and as several other Peruvian groups, prefers to be called the "Communist Party of Peru" or "PCP-SL" in short...

, the imprisonment or deaths of senior leaders, and loss of leftist support. ln 2001, several MRTA members remained imprisoned in Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

.

On 6 July 1992, MRTA fighters staged a raid on the town of Jaen, Peru, a jungle town located in the northern department of Cajamarca. One policeman, Eladio Garcia Tello, responded to the calls for help. After an intense shootout, the guerrillas were driven out of the town. Eladio Garcia perished in the firefight. 6 July is now memorialized as the "Day of Heroes" (Dia de los Heroes) in Jaen, in honor of Garcia.

Its last major action resulted in the 1997 Japanese embassy hostage crisis
Japanese embassy hostage crisis
The Japanese embassy hostage crisis began on 17 December 1996 in Lima, Peru, when 14 members of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement took hostage hundreds of high-level diplomats, government and military officials and business executives who were attending a party at the official residence of...

. In December 1996, fourteen MRTA members occupied the Japanese Ambassador's residence in Lima, holding 72 hostages for more than four months. Under orders from then-President Alberto Fujimori
Alberto Fujimori
Alberto Fujimori Fujimori served as President of Peru from 28 July 1990 to 17 November 2000. A controversial figure, Fujimori has been credited with the creation of Fujimorism, uprooting terrorism in Peru and restoring its macroeconomic stability, though his methods have drawn charges of...

, armed forces stormed the residence in April 1997, rescuing all but one of the remaining hostages and killing all fourteen MRTA militants. Fujimori was publicly acclaimed for the decisive action, but the affair was later tainted by subsequent revelations that at least three, and perhaps as many as eight, of the MRTistas were summarily executed after surrendering.

Trials and convictions

In a case that attracted international attention, Lori Berenson
Lori Berenson
Lori Helene Berenson is an American convicted in Peru of unlawful collaboration with the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement , which the Peruvian government regarded as a terrorist organization, and which had committed numerous attacks in attempting to overthrow the government...

, a former MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 student and U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

 activist living in Lima, was arrested on 30 November 1995, by the police and accused of collaborating with the MRTA. She was subsequently sentenced by a military court to life imprisonment (later reduced to twenty years by a civilian court).

In September 2003, four Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

an defendants were retried and convicted of membership in the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and participation in an attack on the Peru–North American Cultural Institute and a kidnapping-cum-murder in 1993.

On 22 March 2006 Víctor Polay
Víctor Polay
Víctor Polay Campos is one of the founders of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, a Peruvian guerrilla organization that fought in the internal conflict in Peru...

, the guerrilla leader of the MRTA, was found guilty by a Peruvian court on nearly 30 crimes committed during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Peru)
The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in 2001 after the fall of president Alberto Fujimori, to examine abuses committed during the 1980s and 1990s, when Peru was plagued by the worst political violence in the history of the republic...

 determined that the group was responsible for 1.5% of the deaths investigated. In its final findings published in 2003, the Commission observed:
Unlike Shining Path
Shining Path
Shining Path is a Maoist guerrilla terrorist organization in Peru. The group never refers to itself as "Shining Path", and as several other Peruvian groups, prefers to be called the "Communist Party of Peru" or "PCP-SL" in short...

, and like other armed Latin American organizations with which it maintained ties, the MRTA claimed responsibility for its actions, its members used uniforms or other identifiers to differentiate themselves from the civilian population, it abstained from attacking the unarmed population and at some points showed signs of being open to peace negotiations. Nevertheless, MRTA also engaged in criminal acts; it resorted to assassinations, such as in the case of General Enrique López Albújar, the taking of hostages and the systematic practice of kidnapping, all crimes that violate not only personal liberty but the international humanitarian law that the MRTA claimed to respect. It is important to highlight that MRTA also assassinated dissidents within its own ranks.

External links

El Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru. Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación
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