The Capture of Feliciano: In Three Acts and Various Comments

There are many differences between the capture of Abimael Guzmán and that of Oscar Ramírez Durand, comrade Feliciano. The first was the supreme leader. The second, one of his lieutenants. When Guzmán fell, many believed that Sendero could still win. When Ramírez was caught, almost everyone believed that Sendero had nothing left to give. Guzmán — a typical Stalinist leader of the 1950s, of a bureaucratic style however radical he may have been — was seized in a Lima hideout, pallid, overweight and surrounded by a small court of Senderista functionaries who were doing their best to make clandestine life more comfortable for him. Ramírez — a typical Maoist of the 1970s, embodiment of the voluntarism of the wandering rebel — was arrested in a small town in the central Andes, dirty, thin and sunburned, alongside his two companions in arms. There are many other differences and similarities. Peru is not the same in 1992 and 1999, although some things remain unchanged. There is more order. But for many, violence has only changed form. Social inequality has not only not diminished but would be even greater. Many of the country's wounds are still there. (Excerpt from the preface).