The jailed founder of Peru's fanatical Shining Path insurgency is publishing a book that includes manuscripts about his defense strategy during his terrorism retrial, correspondence with his longtime lover and details of his childhood, his lawyer said Friday.
The manuscripts in the 408-page book were written in prison by Abimael Guzman as he prepared a legal defense for himself and 12 other Shining Path leaders in their 2006 retrial, lawyer Alfredo Crespo said.
Guzman, 74, was sentenced to life in prison for terrorism by a secret military tribunal after his capture in 1992, but Peru's top court ruled in 2003 that the original sentencing was unconstitutional and ordered a new trial. He also received a life sentence in the second trial.
The book discusses his legal defense strategy and contains correspondence between Guzman and his longtime lover and second-in-command Elena Iparraguirre. Iparraguirre was sentenced to life in 2006.
The book also reveals aspects of his childhood like his love for soccer and desire to join the military.
Titled "In My Own Hand," Guzman's book is to be published on Sept. 12, the 17th anniversary of the rebel leader's capture, Crespo said.
Guzman — a former philosophy professor known to his followers as President Gonzalo — considered himself the "Fourth Sword of Marxism" after Karl Marx, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Mao Zedong and preached a messianic vision of a classless utopia based on pure communism.
By the time of his capture, Guzman commanded a guerrilla army of at least 10,000 armed fighters. A government-appointed truth commission found the Shining Path responsible for more than half of the nearly 70,000 people killed between 1980 and 2000 in Peru's brutal war between rebels and security forces.
The Shining Path was severely weakened following Guzman's capture and his later calls for peace talks. But bands of rebels have remained active in remote valleys where they produce cocaine and protect drug runners.
A band of 400 rebels headed by Victor Quispe Palomino has killed 39 soldiers since Peru's military launched an offensive into a remote rebel stronghold last year. The rebel death toll is unknown.
Quispe Palomino has openly split with Guzman, and his band distributes pamphlets calling Guzman a "traitor." Last week, Iparraguirre issued a letter from prison that calls the active rebels "mercenaries."
