The following revelation below are excerpts of the Insight – Organized Crime in the Americas published article, Shining Path Warns Gas Company Not to Work with Security Forces:
Indigenous population continuing their struggle for self-determination in Peru.
“On June 6 some 30 armed rebels invaded a Transportadora de Gas del Peru (TGP) encampment, holding 19 workers and a helicopter pilot for over an hour, reported La Republica. The rebels warned the workers that they would be forced out of the zone if they cooperated with the security forces.
“The Shining Path group also painted a company helicopter with revolutionary slogans, and took the workers’ communication equipment saying it was to prevent them from contacting the authorities, according to reports.
[…]
“National newspaper Correo reported that a hand-written letter left by the rebels, addressed to the Camisea consortium, which operates the pipeline, said that the Shining Path respected investment projects, whether foreign or Peruvian. It asked the consortium for respect and “mutual help” to reach agreements, and said that if they “militarized” the pipeline there would be consequences. It also called on the companies to respect agreements with indigenous peoples.
[…]
“The language used in the letter indicates the group’s determination to identify themselves as a political movement, and not a mere drug trafficking organization as the government claims. They call on the gas companies not to stand in the way of the “armed revolution” and refer to themselves as “communist revolutionaries,” calling government forces representatives of a “narco-state.”
“Since the Quispe brothers took command of the Apurimac and Ene River Valley (VRAE) branch of the Shining Path in 1999, they have broken with imprisoned founder Abimal Guzman and tried to create a new image for the group. In interviews given over the last decade they have repeatedly said they are in favor of investment in the region. In a 2009 interview Víctor Quispe Palomino, alias “Comrade Jose,” told reporters that the group no longer attacked public infrastructure or killed civilians, and that his forces had gone from village to village explaining this new policy.
“When they kidnapped the large group of gas workers in April, the Shining Path left a message stating that they respected the work of the companies involved, and cited recent protests by workers as an excuse for launching the attack. […]
“… IDL-Reporteros noted that Techint, a company working in the area which suffered a mass kidnapping in 2003, likely made a “coexistence agreement” with the rebels afterwards, keeping its workers safe. It is possible that the rebels are trying to pressure TGP into adhering to the same type of agreement. If the Shining Path are able to pull off these kinds of deals, giving them both income and stronger territorial control, their power in the VRAE could be very hard to break.”
Reading Between the Lines 
I have (or would like to still have) high hopes for the PCP-MLM, as I think they make interesting criticisms of Gonzalo and his clique, and they do so from the left and not the right (like the recently capitulated Comrade Artemio). However, reports like this have given me pause recently.
Yes the report does say they have called on companies to respect agreements with Indian peoples etc, but I am also in particular troubled by lines like this one:
“When they kidnapped the large group of gas workers in April, the Shining Path left a message stating that they respected the work of the companies involved, and cited recent protests by workers as an excuse for launching the attack.”
What the hell does it mean for group of ostensibly communist rebels to “respect the work of companies” and also cite protests BY the workers as an excuse for launching the attack (in which they took workers hostage)? To me that is somewhat troubling.
When this attack and hostage crisis first happened it was misattributed by some to Artemio’s group, as a last gasp of somesort, and so it seemed to me to fit with their right-ward movement after the end of the main period of the PW. However, now that it seems that it was the PCP-MLM that carried it out, so again I find myself given cause to pause for a moment.
I am also worried by statements like the one mentioned where the PCP-MLM has said that they respect “investment projects, whether foreign or Peruvian” (emphasis on foreign). In a neocolonial country like Peru we all know just what foreign investment entails, and generally by whom.
We’ve seen this before and quite recently in fact. In Sierra Leone the Uhuru Movement recently expelled on Chernoh Alpha M. Bah, the erstwhile leader of the Africanist Movement and African Socialist International forces in that country, and current leader of the so-called African Socialist Movement. Chernoh, a supposed revolutionary socialist, also respects investment, including foreign, in his country and even wants it protected. But we all know what foreign investment in Sierra Leone has brought.
I’m not jumping ship yet away from the PCP-MLM. but I felt the need to voice some of my concerns over reports like this.