Bolivia: Sendero Luminoso Groupies In El Alto, and Quispe Admits 'Guerrillas'?

Bolivia has a long history of militant college students. The Universidad Publica De El Alto (UPEA), has become the focus of current militance, its student groups have become some of the most radical and unyielding supporters of the current revolt. Student groups, ogether with the neighborhood councils and local labor were the instigators behind the current "Popular Assembly" that has declared itself an independent body.

Well, these kids have been keeping up with their Marxist-Leninism, and there is a very active Maoist group with pro-Sendero Luminoso leanings, as this piece in La Prensa shows.

Its called FRP-MLM (Frente Revolucionario del Pueblo Marxista Leninista Maoísta), and it has adopted Sendero's own motto as its own: "Die Standing, Never on Your Knees" o “morir de pie, nunca de rodillas”, You can buy Senderista literature on campus, including CD-ROM's. I remember Maoists -all four of them - infiltrating all sorts of student groups in college, where they often provided comic relief, lambasting garden variety campus radicals. The Bolivian version isn't quite as funny, especially with a message already tailored to an Andean public, and a rudderless populist movement.

QUISPE ADMITS ....In the same article he criticizes some of the campus activists for being all revolutionary first and then 'selling out' when they graduate.....

“No sigo a los estudiantes de la UPEA sino que preparo mi ejército guerrillero en el campo. Los universitarios son súper revolucionarios e indigenistas en un comienzo, pero al egresar y al usar corbatas se olvidan de la guerra. Eso pasó con el Partido Obrero Revolucionario de Guillermo Lora, donde los trotskistas ahora son de derecha. Por eso trabajo en los institutos normales superiores y en los ayllus”, aclara el “Mallku”.

He says
"I don't follow the students of UPEA, instead I prepare my guerilla army in the country."

Hmmmmm. That is interesting...