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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

Disputed: recent edits read like an apologia

Recent edits by User:In the Stacks read like an apologia—or a propaganda piece—for the Sendero. They are also occasionally sloppy ("Alberto Fujimor"? "Affirmiiva"? "neutal"?) and utterly uncited.

"…violence deployed against peasants…" was recently edited to "…violence deployed against peasants organized into counter-insurgency ronda…". Several separate problems with this:

  • The link ronda leads to the city of that name in Spain (lovely place, but quite off-topic). I'm guessing that rondas was intended, in the sense of the counter-insurgency groups that were formed. This reads like a claim that the Sendero attacked only peasants who were organized into counter-insurgency groups: I don't believe it for a moment, and it is certainly in need of citation. Later in the article, the same editor claims that because the government eventually backed the rondas "This confirmed the PCP/SL's claim that they were not organic to the communities, but were in fact classic government counter-insurgency of the same type responsible for genocide in Guatemala." By the same logic, all of the Allies in WWII must have had the same politics: no possibility of differences among Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt.

Similarly "…trade union organizers who Shining Path alleged were informants collaborating with the army…" Also uncited; no doubt they made this allegation, but did anyone at all outside of the organization and a few sympathizers in the [[Revolutionary Communist Party, USA|RCP) ever believe them? It is irresponsible to include such an allegation without refuting it. By almost all reports I read at the time, and I read quite a bit (mostly in English, but ranging across the political spectrum), they were killing people who they saw as rivals in leading peasant- and worker-based opposition to the government.

Referring to "several extensive studies conducted by the RAND corporation" without citing any of them doesn't establish anything.

As the editor who wrote this recent addition admits in a backhanded way, even the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) are critical of the Sendero's tactics.

I could go on and make similar remarks about almost every change he/she made. There may be a few stray good edits in with this, but mostly it is uncited POV, not even cited from the newspapers of their active sympathizers; I would find such attribution of these claims much less offensive than making them in Wikipedia's narrative voice.

Also, I thought we had agreed on "Shining Path", the most common English-language designation as how to refer to the group; this editor changed most references to "PCP/SL". I have no problem with that equally unambiguous designation, if others will agree to it.

I'd be inclined to revert this wholesale and then look to see if any of it is appropriate to add back piecemeal.

Again: I am not opposed to the article mentioning the views of the senderistas or their supporters, if properly attributed and identified as such. Much of what was added, if cited and attributed might belong in this article. But as it stands, presented as the voice of the article itself? No way. - Jmabel | Talk 05:59, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the editing heads-up. I am relatively new to contributing on Wikipedia. I have a history of working in collaborative media, but clearly the wide range of contributors to Wikipedia is something else entirely. This entire entry is heavy with all the weight that civil wars produce. All the more so since, in this case, much of the nominal left in Peru sided with the government. Many of the "left" parties the PCP/SL is accused of attacking worked actively with the Peruvian state. That is not "POV" but a plain old fact. The most notable incidents, such as conflicts with the MAS do not mention that despite MAS's socialist name, they held cabinet-level positions in Fujimori's government. This is all compounded by the fact that PCP/SL was dogmatic, and did have a militarist political practice. However, government claims of massacres and so on do not have justification. There were no incidents of random massacre on the part of the rebels. None. There is certainly links to such CLAIMS, but again -- this was a vicous civil war, with the full intellignence and military might of the USA behind the Peruvian state.
From the refusal of this entry to have their actual name: Partido Communista del Peru (called Sendero Luminoso) to the whole "terrorist" discussion... it's HEAVY POV, and not just in terms of apologia. So how is this hammered out in a non-antagonistic way? In the Stacks
From my experience: several of us will work seriously on hammering it out in a non-antagonistic way, but, unfortunately, several others will be in here making it all rather difficult (take a look at the history of the article).
Of course, another way to view "much of the nominal left in Peru sided with the government" would be to say "the Peruvian government was sufficiently open to the left that few except the Senderistas and MRTA felt that the situation called for armed rebellion rather than working within the system."
In any event, though, I'm sure you are aware that the view you are putting forward is not widely accepted. That's not to say it doesn't belong in the article, but for the same reasons that I have repeatedly objected to calling the PCP/SL "terrorist" in the narrative voice of the article, most of this does not belong in the narrative voice either.
I would suggest that the best way to proceed, if you are willing to work on this, is to revert for now, and to try to find verifiable, reliable sources, through which you can probably bring back a lot of this with attribution. "Reliable" doesn't have to mean mainstream: for example, official PCP/SL communiques are reliable sources for what the organization itself claimed to be doing, and something like Revolutionary Worker could be a decent proxy for that if we can't get something more official, just like the New York Times can often be a decent proxy for U.S. State Department opinion. But in this matter, these are sufficiently partisan sources that their statements really belong as their expressed views, not as facts narrated in the body of the article.
Similarly, I suspect that there are Peruvian government views currently in the article that ought to be similarly sourced: it's just that the arrival of all this material at once really stood out like a sore thumb. For that reason, I'd also suggest that, after reverting, you should pick out, say, the four or five statements in the article as it stood before that you found most egregious, and place the {{citation needed}} tag after those, or even {{dubious}} if you think the statement is outright false rather than merely containing an admixture of opinion. If you use {{dubious}}, do clarify your issues here on the talk page.
This is what builds stronger articles.
By the way, I agree that PCP/SL might be a more appropriate, and more neutral, way to refer to them throughout the bulk of the article, once the naming controversy is explained. Does anyone have a strong objection and a rationale to the contrary? - Jmabel | Talk 01:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I guess it depends on what you mean by "random." I'll agree that Sendero didn't kill people just for the hell of it, so I guess that means that I agree that the violence wasn't "random." When they killed people, they did so for the express purpose of terrorizing the peasantry into submission. Sendero openly admitted this: "There were more than 80 [peasants in Lucanamarca] annihilated, this is the reality, and we say it, here there was excess... our problem was to give a bruising blow to restrain them, to make them understand that the thing was not so easy... I reiterate, the principle thing was to make them understand that we were a hard bone to chew, and that we were ready to do anything, anything." Sendero also specifically murdered unpopular people in order to ingratiate themselves with commoners; cattle thieves and alcoholics were the targets of particually brutal attacks. Sendero was also pretty racist in that it had total disdain for the culture of the Quechua-speaking people. Sendero, like the conquistadors before them, saw them as completely backwards and savage. I think that this is a particularly important point to make, because Sendero went so far in its attacks on the Quechua-speakers, even going as far as to outlaw their religion and enslave them, that they totally lost their base of support in a matter of years if not months, and completely fell apart. It may not mesh very well with the ideolouges in the RCP-USA, but the truth is that Sendero utterly failed because they pissed people off so much. I've been to Peru many times, I have fujimorista, aprista, leftist, and right-wing friends there, and I can tell you that every single person that I have ever met has absolutely despised Sendero. I obviously can't speak for all Peruvians, seeing as I'm not one myself, but I'd imagine that significantly less that 1/100 of 1% of Peruvians are Sendero sympathizers. --Descendall 01:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
OK, Descendall, but do you have any objection to my suggestion as to how to proceed? - Jmabel | Talk 05:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
No. I'm not sure that "PCP/SL" is the way to go, though. I'm somewhat on the middle ground about what to call them. The couple of Fujimoristas who regularly edit Peru-related articles all streniously object to using "PCP" because SL was not connected to the "official" Communist Party. I could never figure out what the "official" party was or what was so "official" about it to begin with, however. So, if we're going to enter the whole name game again, allow me to be the first to say that I think it's POV to call only those parties recognized by the USSR "the Communist Party." That being said, the group is usually refered to as the Shining Path or simply Sendero, and I believe that we're supposed to call them what they are most often referred to in English. I think that it is absolutely nessessary to mention at least once that they only refer to themselves as the PCP. I don't know about calling them that throughout the whole article, however. --Descendall 13:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Let's split this out to two topics: naming and how to proceed. - Jmabel | Talk 16:42, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Naming

I think it is clear that the article title should remain Shining Path (with all appropriate redirects also available) because that is the most common name in English. It is presumably also clear that we need to at least mention the controversy over naming in the article (although the comprehensive discussion of that belongs in Communism in Peru, not in the articles on each individual claimant to the "PCP" name.

That said, "PCP/SL" is unambiguous, and unlike just "Sendero Luminoso" or "Shining Path" inoffensive to the organizations partisans. I'm pretty sure there are no historical objections to it from the Peruvian gov't side, or that of other communist parties, but correct me if I'm wrong. - Jmabel | Talk 16:42, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about the other Communist parties in Peru. I found at least one instance of the Peruvian Communist Party (the one that's not Patria Roja) refering to "Senderismo," as if it was distinct from Communism. In any event I'd imagine that the other Communist parties want to call Sendero something as dissimilar to their own name as possible. I've never seen PCP/SL before, but PCP-SL is used faily often, including by the truth commission. --Descendall 19:23, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
The naming issue is not that complicated. Their name, as a political party with a program, institutions, and army was the "Partido Communista del Peru (PCP)." This is complicated, of course, because Peru like many countries has numerous communist parties. To distinguish them, they are often called by the name of their publications or specific ideological markers such as ML, MLM, M, etc. In Peru, they became known colloquially as Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) because of a line under the banner of a newspaper they ran decades ago. This colloquial designation is not the same as their name. See "Viet Cong" as a stand-in for the National Liberation Front of Vietnam. PCP/SL is a compromise name because they do, in fact have a name, and they are, in fact, called by Sendero/Shining Path. To refuse them the name they are constituted by is bizarre and intrinsically POV. In the Stacks
The problem is that it is wikipedia policy to call it what it is most often called in English, which is undoubtably Shining Path. The naming issue here is complicated, because Sendero militants despise being called Sendero Luminoso, although that is what almost everyone in Peru calls them. It's further complicated by the fact that Shining Path is such a poor translation: Brilloso is the Spanish word for "Shining." In fact, the New York Times used to call them "The Lighted Path" and "The Luminous Path." --Descendall 00:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

How to proceed

To summarize the bones of what I proposed above:

  • Revert In the Stacks' changes (other than the PCP/SL thing), but welcome him to come forward with citable, attributable forms of basically the same material.
  • Also welcome In the Stacks to identify what he sees as biased statements from the other side that are currently in the narrative voice of the article (or qualified only by weasel words) but should be cited and attributed. Label them appropriately with {{citation needed}}, {{dubious}}, {{citequote}}, etc.
    • I recommend that we start with four of five of these, but that is not to say that there may not be dozens. It's just that it is usually easiest to go for these a few at a time, starting with the highest priority. In the Stacks, you are perfectly entitled to do lots of these, but in my experience it is usually more effective to go after a few at a time.
    • Similarly, if In the Stacks wishes, he is perfectly entitled to slap an {{NPOV}} tag on the article. I think his alternatives make a pretty good case that, at the very least, there is an important point of view that is not adequately represented.

-- Jmabel | Talk 16:42, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Agree --Descendall 23:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for talking me through some of the basics. I'm really just getting the hang of this. I checked through much of the discussion on the talk page here, and it's clear this is highly charged stuff. Part of the problem with citations for organizations such as the PCP/SL is that they were an illegal organization. For example, there was a daily paper in Peru, El Diario, that became increasingly sympathetic to the Maoists in the civil war. They were illegalized, many of their editors were tortured and killed, with the rest driven into exile. So this major source of information was broken. At the same time, the US declared them "terrorists" while training and arming the government that was supressing them with what amounted to unfathomable levels of brutality. The PCP was a rough outfit, no debate on that -- but their violence was certainly in context, and the divide between the Lima, mestizo-based "left," which certainly cooperated with Fujimori until he turned on them as well, is also easy enough to verify. I will work on this entry slowly, and with documentation. It seems that unless there is a link, we cannot make claims. The first thing I think is that this piece is clearly POV. The only way I can think to rectify that while playing nice is to include "both sides" even when there are three or four. In the Stacks
There doesn't really have to be a link. Books are obviously good as well. I recommend "Shining and Other Paths" and "The Shining Path: A History of the Millenarian War in Peru." Both of them are excellent. I also think it's probably incorrect to say that El Diario was a newspaper that was sympathetic to Sendero. El Dario was essentially the organ of the party. I don't think that they ever said anything even remotely critical of Sendero, and they carried their communiques. All of the old El Diarios used to be available online, but I don't know if they are anymore. --Descendall 00:15, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
But the editors of El Diario were not party members, and it had a long history before it became sympathetic to PCP/SL. And herein lies the issue: shades of degree get lost and all history must be tailored to fit a master narrative. The weaker narrative, as usual, is the insurgent -- while the offical story, as well promoted in North America and South becomes "what everybody knows." Alas. Any edits I make will be slow going.In the Stacks
If you know a lot about El Diario, put it in, or create an article about it. I admit that I don't know much about it. I know that it existed pre-Sendero, and I believe it was even formally owned by non-Maoists, but it was, of course, eventually dominated by Maoists. I'm also pretty sure that it was a clandestine publication for quite some time. Some of the unsigned comuniques that I've read were clearly writen by Guzman. I don't know if the editors were "party members" or not -- it's not as if the Shining Path handed out membership cards and uniforms or something. I'm not challanging your right to put things in this article about El Diario, I'm simply saying that El Diario was as much the mouthpeice of Sendero as El Comercio was of the army in the 1970s. --Descendall 01:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

So… I've got a lot of articles I'm working on. I check in on this one periodically, but usually not daily. I just want to make sure we have more or less agreement on how to proceed, so I can get back to approaching this one only intermittently. - Jmabel | Talk 02:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Name and proposal for intro

1. Why is it so difficult to distinguish between two separate names, 'Partido Comunista del Perú' and 'Partido Comunista Peruano'? 2. Note that PCP-SL is the name used for example in Amnesty reports etc. Just my 2 cents. --Soman 07:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Below is my suggestion of how to word the intro of the article. The name of an organization is the name chosen by that organization. There is no by nature given dynamic that Fox News has the monopoly of deciding names of individuals or political groups. The fact that the organization is more widely known by a different name, is then another issue, and requires explanation of its context.--Soman 11:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

"Communist Party of Peru (in Spanish: Partido Comunista del Perú), more commonly known as the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) is a Maoist guerrilla organization in Peru. The more familiar name originates from a maxim of José Carlos Mariátegui, founder of the original Peruvian Communist Party, "El Marxismo-Leninismo abrirá el sendero luminoso hacia la revolución" (“Marxism-Leninism will open the shining path to revolution”).[1] Sendero Luminoso was, at one point, featured in the masthead of the group's newspaper, and the denomination is used to distinguish the group from various other Peruvian communist factions with similar names.[2] The followers of the group are generally known as senderistas."

Yes, because only Fox News refers to the group as Sendero Luminoso. Death to the old, fascist, bourgeois, imperialist, reactionary, rotten, semi-feudalist running dogs of imperialism! Long live the Communist Party of Peru, making People’s War to serve the Global Proletarian Revolution, which is profoundly liberating by creating the New Society! --Descendall 13:38, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
We keep coming back to the same problem. Is using PCP as the name for the organization an explicit or implicit support to the senderistas? approx. 99.99% of all articles on organizations or associations on wikipedia refer to an organization by the name the organization has chosen to refer itself as (possibly with a translation of the name into English). In cases were multiple organization hold identical names, there are various measures of disambiguation (like Communist Party of Sweden (1995), Communist Party of Sweden (1924), Communist Party of Sweden (1967), etc.). There are, notably, exceptions to this rule. I do for example support keeping Khmer Rouge at Khmer Rouge (Mainly because I don't really know under which of the various names it used it should be placed otherwise).
In a case were an organization is overwhelmingly known by a different denomination than its formal name (which is rather common. For example the Provisional Irish Republican Army is far more known internationally as just 'IRA'), there is no automatic logic that all reason needs thrown out the window. Different namings can be throughly explained and given context. The current wording in the article is just confusing. --Soman 14:36, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
87.527% of people hate it when you make up random statistics. --Descendall 22:11, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Shining Path is the name how MOST OF THE WORLD knows this terrorist group. There is an EXTENSIVE discussion about the name, a long time ago. Pleas read it. Also...why use "Communist Party of Peru" when there is ALREADY AN ARTICLE about SEVERAL communist groups trying to use that name? For disambiguation, go to that article. This article SHOULD REMAIN as "Shining Path".--AAAAA 13:38, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
There has been a lot of discussion, which never really ended in any conclusive consensus. Perhaps AAAAA should read the wordings in the edit of descendall, and see that it actually is an attempt for compromise. Note the following:
  • The article stays at 'Shining Path' (noone is suggesting a move at this point)
  • The intro clearly explains 1) that PCdelP is the name used by the organization, 2) that SL is the frequently used name and 3) that PCdelP is not the same as the original PCP. Note also that currently there are no other organizations active that use the name PCdelP (without a suffix). Thus the issue could be settled. --Soman 13:44, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
It's true that almost no one in Peru calls the Shining Path "The Communist Party of Peru." It's also true that almost no one in the United States ever refers to the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 Wikipedia has all sorts of articles that first mention the full, proper name of the organization, and then use the most commonly used name. --Descendall 15:44, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
The intro is fine as it was. It explains that while the group calls itself the PCP, eveyone else just calls it "Shining Path". --Cúchullain t/c 04:09, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I think of scores of things that are not known by their actual proper given names. The articles on all of these things first put the proper name in bold, and then use the most used name throughout the article. If the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 isn't good enough for you, see Thomas Woodrow Wilson, who is almost universally known by his two family names rather than his given name, or Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, which is always called Virginia Tech. You wouldn't delete the full names on those articles, so don't do it here.
  • If tomorrow Mr. Soman decides to call himself "Napoleon Bonaparte", it does not make him "Napoleon Bonaparte". There are many groups that have called themselves "The Communist Party of Peru". Just see the article Communism in Peru. The vast majority of the World, including the Vast Majority of Peruvians, know this TERRORIST group as the "Shining Path". I think it is UNJUST for the non-violent communists to define "Shinning Path" as the owners of the Communism in Peru. And...please see the extensive talk in this regard A LONG TIME AGO.--AAAAA 11:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
A better analogy would be if his legal name was Napoleon Bonaparte. Out of sheer curiosity, would you advocte changing the articles on The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 and Thomas Woodrow Wilson for the reasons outlined above? How about the Provisional Irish Republican Army? You're screed sounds a lot like Patria Roja apologia -- that only they can be refered to as the PCP, and everyone else is a phony. --Descendall 16:59, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Now that I think about it, a better example would be a guy named Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov who decides to call himself Vladimir Lenin. --Descendall 23:24, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Everyone else is a phony? So now Descendall is the "God" that decides that this terrorist group Shining Path is the owner of the name that is claimed by many other Peruvian political non-terrorist groups?--AAAAA 02:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
No, Descendall is not "a god". If I understand him correctly, he is expressing a broad consensus, from which you are one of the few dissenters. Keep the article at Shining Path, but be very clear what the group call themselves. - Jmabel | Talk 04:51, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
But perhaps I do not understand him correctly. Below, he makes the opposite case vis a vis Guzmán. If I give him credit for not violating WP:POINT, then perhaps I have misunderstood him. - Jmabel | Talk 04:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I think you both may have misunderstood me to some extent. What I meant to say is that AAAAA's argument seems to boil down to an argument that the Communist Party of Peru - Red Fatherland is the "true" Communist Party of Peru, and that SL is just some sort of phony PCP who stole Patria Roja’s name. This is inherently a POV violation. Wikipedia is not a forum to try to figure out who is the real inheritor of Mariátegui or Marx. If it was, we'd have a flock of SL symapthizers renaming PCP-PR's page "Patria Roja." We can't have that, so we just just acknowledge that both parties consider themselves to be the "Communist Party of Peru," both parties consider their ideology to be pure, and Wikipedia will make a judgment call about neither party. I agree that this should be at Shining Path, but I think that the full name of the group should be used in bold. --Descendall 23:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes. Exactly. - Jmabel | Talk 04:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Once again, I think AAAAA's insistance that the Shining Path is not the genuine Communist Party of Peru is POV, and oddly a pro-Patria Roja POV. Ironically, I think that a committed anti-Communist would say that Shining Path is the genuine Communist Party of Peru, and that they've simply taken Marx's barbaric teaching to their logical conclusion. But that's neither here nor there. I wish AAAAA would discuss this issue here. --Descendall 19:56, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Pro-PCP graffiti in Sweden?

How do we know that's Pro-shining path graffiti. It could be: 

   * Partido Comunista del Peru, also known as Shining Path (as in this article)
   * Partido Comunista Paraguayo, Paraguayan Communist Party
   * Partido Comunista Peruano, Peruvian Communist Party
   * Partido Comunista Português, Portuguese Communist Party
   * Partido Comunista Puertorriqueño, Puerto Rican Communist Party
   * Partit Català Proletari, Proletarian Catalan Party

Or just some street art by a communist in Sweden who likes Angel Dust. There is no way to confirm that picture has anything to do at all with the Shining Path. Furthermore, as it is in Stockholm, it has little to do with Peru. I think it should be removed. Arthurian Legend 22:26, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

When is the last time you saw someone who liked angel dust paint a hammer and sickle next to a poster of Abimael Guzman? --Descendall 00:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
PCP+hammer and sickle means sendero in Stockholm. There is a small, but very active group of senderistas in Sweden. --Soman 05:56, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Surely Soman knows all of them...--AAAAA 13:59, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Speaking of people deciding they are the "gods": no doubt you have looked deep into his soul and decided that he is not writing in good faith? - Jmabel | Talk 04:55, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Abimael Guzmán

Can I assume that we should change the Abimael Guzmán article by dropping his full name, Manuel Rubén Abimael Guzmán Reynoso? After all, "The vast majority of the World, including the Vast Majority of Peruvians, know this TERRORIST" as simply Abimael Guzmán, wikipedia guidelines on names be damned. --Descendall 17:03, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Still waiting for an answer on this one. --Descendall 19:34, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Is this WP:POINT or are you seriously suggesting that we should not give full names at the start of articles? That is our normal practice, per the MoS. - Jmabel | Talk 04:56, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
It would be WP:POINT if I actually did it. I'm not about to, and I'd revert if AAAAA did. --Descendall 23:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Intro

I think the intro from a couple of weeks back was better. It started out saying who they were, then said they never used "Shining Path" themselves, prefering to be called "PCP", and then explained why everyone calls them Shining Path. If there's no objection, I'll change it back.--Cúchullain t/c 19:44, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

There is an objection. Articles start with the proper name of the subject. They are located at the most common form of their name in English. --Descendall 21:25, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Is this a style guideline? I don't think I've seen that before. At any rate, I think it's probably best to get mediation.--Cúchullain t/c 12:45, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

The idea that we can't call el Partido Comunista del Peru by its own name simply because Patria Roja uses a similar name sometimes is absurd. Does AAAAA really need me to point out instances in which people have similar names? Communist parties are notorious for using similar names, see Communist Party of Nepal (Masal), Communist Party of Nepal (Mashal), Communist Party of Nepal, Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist), Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre-Masal), Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre), Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist),Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist), Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), Communist Party of Nepal (Rayamjhi), Communist Party of Nepal (Pushpa Lal), Communist Party of Nepal (Fourth Convention), and Communist Party of Nepal (Democratic) --Descendall 01:25, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't get it. Not only have I not edited any of those articles, but even if I did it would only demonstrate that I have an interest in extremist politics. Care to explain some more? --Descendall 19:39, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Mista-X's additions

Mista-X added a {{fact}} tag to virtually every sentence in the entire article. I'm somewhat loath to take that tag off of something that is indeed unsourced, so I wonder what everyone else thinks. Also, if someone reverts, please revert to the version right before his. I don't want the citations that I entered into the article to be lost in an edit war. Thanks. --Descendall 19:27, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I reverted back to your last version. I don't like to blind revert like that, but his edits seemed quite unhelpful.--Cúchullain t/c 22:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
The thing is, the article actually would be better with more citations. Most of the uncited thing would be easily cited with Gorriti's The Shining Path or Stern's Shining and Other Paths. Some of the citations he was looking for would be utterly impossible, however -- how are we supposed to give a citation for the fact that the Shining Path hasn't launched any new offensive operations recently? I guess you could say "Read the past year's worth of El Comercio and La Republica and you won't find much mention of the Shining Path" or something. It's pretty hard to prove a negative. --Descendall 23:14, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
What an absolute joke. Isn't wikipedia supposed to be none-point of view? But 80% of the article is anti-"Shining Path", and using words like "terrorist" and "dogma(tic)". As for "Shining Path's" alleged inactivity, the article says this then goes on to cite several recent incidents. So, instead of trying to back up the b.s., you simply revert. Very helpful for the reader, isn't it? I think my edits are very helpful in allerting people to the fact that most of these allegations are not backed up or documented. Next time I edited the article, maybe I should simply remove the unsourced materials? --Mista-X 01:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree the article needs better sources. I reverted your edit as unhelpful, because, well, it was. You act as if you were simply requesting cites, but you put a "fact" tag after virtually every statement in the article, especially if you didn't agree with them, and you changed the wording to water down the Senderistas' actions. I'm glad Descendall has taken the time to address your concerns; because you did make some good points, but you should know blitzkreiging an article because its conclusions differ from your opinions is bad form. We have a policy of maintaining a neutral point of view; that doesn't mean we don't call a spade a spade because it offends some editors' sensibilities.--Cúchullain t/c 07:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I've added a bunch of sources. By my count, there are thirty {{fact}} tags left. To be honest, I'm getting a little sick of adding sources to this thing. If anyone could look some of this stuff up, that'd be great. Mista-X, if you really want to be "helpful," as you say, you could add some citations also. --Descendall 04:56, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I've reduced it to a dozen. I think I'm pretty much done. I'm tired of adding citations to this. I repeat my call for anyone else to work on this. --Descendall 01:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
It's pretty obvious that no one else is working on this, and I've pretty much given up. I guess the question now is when the uncited material should be deleted. --Descendall 19:10, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe some of it, but other things just look like they're awaiting to be verified. It would have been nice if Mista-X had decided to stick around and be "helpful".--Cúchullain t/c 22:44, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
The thing is, you're not supposed to leave unverified information in an article indefinately. I'm not going to verify these things, and I don't think anyone else is, either. --Descendall 22:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, Descendall, that is a misunderstanding of policy. While anyone may remove unverified information, it is perfectly OK for it to sit there unless someone has a good faith doubt about it. Unless you think there is a relevant WP:BLP issue here, which arguably there could be. - Jmabel | Talk 05:51, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Not verified tag

Though I didn't put the {{verify}} tag on this article, I wholly support it. A number of things strike me as incorrect:

1. The article asserts that the Shining Path is considered a terrorist orgnization by the Canadian government. According to the sources I can dig up using google, the eight groups that Canada considers to be terrorist are the Armed Islamic Group, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Vanguards of Conquest, al-Qaeda, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, al-Ittihad al-Islam, and the Liberation Tigers.

2. The article asserts that Guzmán's popularity grew as time went on. This strikes me as nearly absurd; Guzman is certainly among the least popular people in Peru, and as more and more car bombs and massacres attributed to the Shining Path occured, his popularity would have certainly soured.

3. The article asserts that there was never any evidence that the Shining Path was connected to drug trafficking. While drug trafficking certainly wasn't the primary motivation of the Shining Path, there is all sorts of evidence that played a part. Shining Path openly operated in the Upper Huallaga Valley at a time when it was the most productive coca cultivating area in the entire world. The reason that they were supported there is because they protected coca crops by fighting against the government. The Shining Path liked it because they were then able to collect a "tax" on coca by charging protection. All this was going on a time when Guzman was saying that sending drugs to the "yankee imperialists" was a worthwhile project. To be honest, the very fact that these guys are fighting to drive government-sponsored eradication efforts out of the Tingo Maria area is evidence in and of itself that SL is connected to drug trafficking. They'd have to be stupid not to go into coca. Who else in Peru is going to support the Shining Path with guns and money? Potato farmers? --Descendall 01:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

On #1, you may be correct. I believe Canada's list more or less mirror's the US one with a few exceptions, but I could be wrong. I know for sure that the FARC-EP is on the list, as we have had comrades here threatened and interigated for selling their publication. (edit: Government Canada website has the list, with "Sendero Luminso" on it here.

As for #2, that may be correct but it is very difficult to measure someone's support, unless you have some sort of polls, or other scientific (or at least reliable) way of showing this.

For #3, you provide some coincidental evidence and personal opinion, but no hard evidence. Whether or not the PCP does have something to do with cocain, doesn't really matter to me, but it is to what end and in what capacity that I care about, and that things are made clear. It seems to me that the general impression that is attempted is to compare them with drug barons. I watched a BBC documentary, and a US military general inteviewed made this clame. The BBC narrator made the point that no evidence has yet been brought forward to support this. If it's true, certainly there would be more evidence than just a coincidence. --Mista-X 02:33, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

"As for #2, that may be correct but it is very difficult to measure someone's support, unless you have some sort of polls, or other scientific (or at least reliable) way of showing this." -- which is exactly why it is completely unverifiable. --Descendall 05:59, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Then it really shouldn't be included as fact, should it? --Mista-X 06:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
No, it shouldn't. --Descendall 06:15, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
By the way, why would you insert something into the article that you think doesn't belong there? I hope it wouldn't be to disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. --Descendall 06:17, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Scare Quotes

The Communist Party of Peru, should be referred to as such, as that is their actual name. "Sendero Luminoso" AKA "Shining Path" is a nickname, and this should be emphasizaed in the article, or the proper name should be used. Consensus is not an issue here. This reminds me of when Stockwell Day said Canadians should be allowed referendums on everything and what the majority decides should go. It was then suggested there should be a referendum to change Day's first name to "Doris".[1] Get my point? --Mista-X 06:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy. It is built on Consensus. If you really believe that "consensus is not an issue here," what are you doing editing Wikipedia? --Descendall 06:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Mista-X

I have to say that I'm a little concerned with the manner in which Mista-X is contributing to this article.

I'm not a stickler for the rules, but we should at least make an attempt to conform to them. This article is controversial to begin with, so we should all put it extra effort to edit this in a manner consistant with wikipedia guidelines. --Descendall 18:01, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Translation help requested

I translated the following:

  • Partimos de que no nos adscribimos a la Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos, tampoco a la de Costa Rica; pero sí utilizamos sus dispositivos legales para desenmascarar y denunciar al Viejo Estado peruano.... Para nosotros, los derechos humanos son contradictorios con los derechos del pueblo porque nos basamos en el hombre como producto social, no en el hombre abstracto con derechos innatos. Los "derechos humanos" no son sino los derechos del hombre de la burguesía, posición que fue revolucionaria frente a la feudalidad; así, la libertad, la igualdad y la fraternidad fueron avanzados criterios burgueses en el pasado. Pero hoy día, desde la aparición del proletariado y más como clase organizada en Partido Comunista, con experiencias de revoluciones triunfantes, de construcción del socialismo, nueva democracia y dictadura del proletariado, se ha probado históricamente que los derechos humanos sirven a las clases opresoras y explotadoras que dirigen los Estados imperialistas y terrateniente-burocráticos. Estados burgueses en general....nuestra posición es bien clara, rechazamos y condenamos los derechos humanos porque son derechos burgueses, reaccionarios, contrarrevolucionarios; son hoy arma de revisionistas e imperialistas, principalmente del imperialismo yanqui.

As the following:

  • We start by not ascribing to either Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the Costa Rica [Declaration of Human Rights], but we have used their legal devices to unmask and denounce the old Peruvian state.... For us, human rights are contradictory to the rights of the people, because we base rights in man as a social product, not man as an abstract with innate rights. "Human rights" don't exist except for the bourgeoisie man, a position that was at the forefront of feudalism, like liberty, equality, and fraternity were advanced for the bourgeoisie of the past. But today, since the appearance of the proletariat as an organized class in the Communist Party, with the experience of triumphant revolutions, with the construction of socialism, new democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat, it has been proven that human rights serve the oppressor class and the exploiters who run the imperialist and landowner-bureaucratic states. Bourgeois states in general...Our position is very clear. We reject and condemn human rights because they are bourgeois, reactionary, counterrevolutionary rights, and are today weapon of revisionists and imperialists, principally Yankee imperialists."

Since Spanish is not my native language, could someone make sure that I translated it correctly? Thanks. --Descendall 01:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

By the way, if anyone thinks that this doesn't belong in the article, I'm open to that. It is a long quote. I just thought that Sendero's ideology wasn't really well represented, and that their ideas on human rights go a long way to explain the brutality of the war. Regardless of what you think of it, if there's one thing you can't accuse Sendero of, it's straying from their ideology. They were truely hardliners. --Descendall 23:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd still like it if someone checked this. --Descendall 02:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Archive needed?

This talk page is huge; 136KB. Perhaps it's time to archive some of the older stuff. I've never actually archived anything, so I don't know how to do it. --Descendall 05:06, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I archived everything before the August naming debates.--Cúchullain t/c 22:47, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Cool, thanks. --Descendall 23:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

This sentence no verb

"In that community, Shining Path 47 peasants, including 14 children aged between four and fifteen." I'd guess that the missing word is "killed", but I hesitate to make the edit. - Jmabel | Talk 03:09, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

It was. --Descendall 03:48, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

AAAAA's edits

Can AAAAA give any explination whatsoever on why he insists[2][3] on deleting references to the fact that Canada and the EU consider Shining Path to be terrorists? --Descendall 18:15, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

He's just blind reverting and being annoying. What's going on with the mediation?--Cúchullain t/c 21:59, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Although we're number 24 in line for mediation, by my count there are 13 mediation cases ahead of ours in which at least one of the participants either refused mediation or did not agree to it. Since those cases are automatically rejected, we're probably closer to being 11th in line. I have no idea how long it normally takes, however. I really think that in the mean time we should try to work something out. I would obviously hope that AAAAA would participate in building consensus rather than simply delete non-controversial material. I think that it's standard pratice to use the official, full name of the subject of the article in bold. The examples I gave above, such as the article for the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001," which is nearly universally known as the "Patriot Act," are sound ones. Does anyone actually object to the idea that we should use the full official name of the group in question at the beginning of the article? If not, at least we can then move on to figuring out what the full official name of Sendero actually is. Like I said before, I genuinely am interested in reaching some sort of conclusion here. --Descendall 22:13, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Also, now that I think about it, the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001" is a better example than I first realized. Like "The Communist Party of Peru," you could argue that using the full name is actually POV. For example, many people (myself included) think that the act does not "provide appropriate tools required to intercept and obstruct terrorism." As a matter of fact, these people think that it provides highly inappropriate tools which are not "required" to fight terrorism. That does not change the fact that the law is named that, and we have to use the actual name of the law. Likewise, even if you think that "The Communist Party of Peru" is some sort of POV violation because it makes the assumption that the group is A: Communist, B: A party, and C: Peruvian, we still have to use that name, because that's the name of the group. I didn't do a very good job explaining this, so let me know if it's unclear what I mean. --Descendall 22:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Is there a style guideline for this? I personally preferred it the old way, because it said the group themselves avoid the name (or do sometimes, anyway), and prefer to be called CCP. That way avoids confusion about whether or not they are the "real" Communist Pary of Peru, whatever that means. But if there's a guideline, I'll happily agree to convention.--Cúchullain t/c 22:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Hard to tell, at least for me. JMabel mentioned above that keeping full names in bold is part of the manual of style, but I don't see it in there. I do notice that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) gives a number of example articles in which the article name is not the full official name of the subject. They are as follows:
Note that with the single exception of Dog, all of these articles use the more "official" name in the first sentence. The editors of Guinea pig seem to have struck some sort of compromise. Maybe that's the way to go for this article, but I'm not sure. Does anyone think that "Communist Party of Peru" should appear absolutely nowhere in this article? I think AAAAA might, and I want his input, as well as anyone elses. --Descendall 23:04, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
He's made it pretty clear he doesn't, with his reversions. It's gotta go somewhere, though, as it's the name they call themselves.--Cúchullain t/c 06:11, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
The thing is that in several of his edits he seems to allow the name to be in the first sentence of the article, just not bold. I can't really figure out what his main problem is, I wish he would discuss it. --Descendall 04:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't notice before that Descendall couldn't find this in the MOS. It can be found at Wikipedia:Manual of style#Article titles:

[Begin copied text]
Use boldface in the first sentence for synonyms of the article title (including acronyms); for example, Río de la Plata:

The Río de la Plata (from Spanish: “River of Silver”), also known by the English name River Plate, as in the Battle of the River Plate, or sometimes (La) Plata River.

Avoid other uses of boldface in the first sentence.
[End copied text]

Jmabel | Talk 03:06, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Mediation

I've noticed that so many cases have been rejected by the mediation committee that we have now been bumped up to fifth in line. Furthermore, the case was officially accepted. Hopefully things will pick up and we can really start working on this soon. Remember to put the mediation case on your watchlist. --Descendall 04:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

possible citation

I'm not sure how to add a citation, and I'm afraid I'm too busy to figure it out. But under the heading "Guerilla War" it says that Shining Path killed three priests, and later blew up their bodies with dynamite. The dynamite claim is marked as "citation needed."

This article (see link below) supports the idea that the group did at least engage in the practice of dynamiting bodies (although it doesn't mention any priests), so I'd say it should be used as a source for that claim:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15256128/

Then again, it's an article on a news site, so the URL might not be good for more than a few weeks...

I don't think that we can use it unless it specifically says that they blew up the priests bodies. --Descendall 01:41, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
  1. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online, "Shining Path."Available online, accessed 1 February 2006.
  2. ^ Other communist groups are often distinguished by the names of their publications, like Peruvian Communist Party (Red Flag).
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