the Philippines' military intelligence organization has a new top officer, Victor Corpus, a defector from the New People's Army. After coming over to the government side, he became an invaluable asset to the military for all that he knows, and to the public for all that his defection represents. Now he commands a sizeable structure dealing with guerrilla and terrorist opponents of the republic. Meanwhile, the npa is intact, but largely inactive militarily.
Seems an outrage that there's no Wikipedia entry on Mr. Corpus.
The Japanese Red Army staged a self-indulgent bloodbath in December 1971 called the "Snow Murders." It unfolded in (and under) a safe house in the mountains during a Japanese winter when both human isolation and police pressure were afflicting the group. The members were mostly university students with a penchant for fierce debate and Maoist self-criticism. One session of this became particularly nasty. After confessing, or declining to do so sufficiently, loyal members were beaten to death or left outside, bound, to freeze from exposure. The group's founder, a woman named Fusako Shigenobu, had shown fire and charisma, and certainly the Japanese left was well-stocked with Marxist-Leninists ready to fight capitalist success. But imagine how recruiting efforts might go after this kind of news seeped out. The Japanese Red "Army" remained platoon-sized, and today it does not operate.
Sounds like something Warren Ellis would adopt for an issue of Global Frequency.
