Alan Garcia's "dirty war"
International Viewpoint 27 October 1986
PERU practices is to imprison people and then to demand money from them if they do not want to be accused of being Senderistas. Those who have money can save themselves this way, they are set-free.
In addition, the official repressive units act as ruthlessly as the paramilitary groups who blew up the office of the Puno Regional Peasants' Federation, placed a bomb in front of Deputy Cantanilla
ON JUNE 18 and 19 this year, while the Socialist International congress was being held in Lima, the Peruvian armed forces bloodily suppressed a revolt of prisoners belonging mostly to the Sendero
Luminoso group. (1)
This massacre - there were hundreds of victims - revealed in broad daylight what President Alan Garcia had been trying to make people forget: the real fact of the anti-"terrorist" struggle, of the
"dirty war". (2) That is, the massive repression that has developed since the proclamation of the state of emergency in 1982 in some regions where the Sendero guerrillas have been active.
Frank Slegers interviewed Hugo Blanco, secretary of the human rights commission of the Peruvian Peasants' Confederation (CCP).
The interview took place on August 29 in Puno, where Hugo Blanco was attending the congress of the Puno Regional Federation (FDCP)
which is part of the CCP.
Question.
What is the general situation with human rights in Peru?
Peru is a country of
Answer.
contrasts, since it is formally a democbut there is a situation here тасу, comparable, if not worse, to those in
Argentina or Uruguay during dictatorship regarding human rights in those regions where the state of emergency has been imposed, such as
Ayacucho, Huancuauelica,
Pasco and so on. The same sort of deterioration has been noted recently in the Puno region, which was not put under a state of emergency.
In these the military, regions, police or special repressive units — the sow terror. If they arrive sinchis in a community where Sendero has been, or simply if they think that
Sendero has been there or somebody says that they were there, they raze the whole village. In the worst cases it is a general massacre. They separate the men, women and children.
They torture the men, rape women and then murder everyone. Children are burned
Afterwards they throw the alive.
bodies into common graves or simply leave them on the ground.
These the most extreme cases are of repression. Others are more common. They will enter a community, and take some prisoners, who later
"disappear". When we ask for news of them, not a single trace can be found.
They take with them chickens and all the small animals that the peasants raise for food. Those that they cannot carry, they kill. The same goes for the grain. They take as much as they can carry, and mix excrement with the rest. They make earthenware jars unusable by puncturing them. They bur doors and furniture. Anything they cannot take with them that has any value they destroy, they burn.
When they have passed through a community, the inhabitants of the village have to leave because they don't know if the sinchis will return to kill them. It could be the sinchis or the army or the marines, because these three repressive outfits are all on the rampage in these zones.
There are more flagrant cases of violations of human rights, but the "disappearances" of numerous people must also be mentioned. These happen even in Lima, the capital.
In the streets of Lima you can see automatic machine guns, or military lorries from which soldiers aim their guns on the population, on the people.
They carry out raids on the poorest neighbourhoods, making house-tohouse searches, as in Ayacucho. When they find a watch, money or objects of any value, they take them. And when they find left-wing books by Marx, Mariategui, Lenin or Mao, which can be bought in any bookshop, they take away the people accusing them of being Senderistas. It's the same if they find a photo of Fidel Castro, or in fact any other pretext.
That is the situation in Lima. It should not be forgotten that, in the capital, there is a curfew from one o'clock to five o'clock in the morning, during which it is forbidden to move around. One of their most frequent of the house of the United Mariateguist Party (PUM), and another in front of the office of a centre supported by the peasants. These kinds of terrorist acts belong to Aprista paramilitary gangs. (3)
Q What is the role of Alan Garcia's government? Has the situation changed since he was elected president a year ago?
A. At the beginning, he gave the impression that things were going to change. For example, when a communal grave was discovered in Ayacucho, he dismissed the head of the joint command [repressive forces and the head of the Ayacucho military zone, declaring that he would not tolerate human rights violations. But afterwards the massacres and the "disappearances" continued as before. They have maintained the joint command, and no military officer has been punished.
The prison massacres were ordered by Alan Garcia, who knows full well how the armed forces are going to act, simply because the same facts already came to light regarding the revolt in Lurigancho prison in September 1985. In spite of this experience, he gave the order — unconstitutionally — to the armed forces to undertake the suppression of the revolts in the prisons.
What value can be placed on declarations appearing in paid inserts in the European press? Nothing. They are nothing but words. We have had this sort of talk here as well: "Either they leave, or I resign; those who are guilty, who are committing abuses, must go", and so on. And finally, what does this add up to? Some big talk! Nobody has left; Alan Garcia and the military are both still there.
The crimes committed in the prisons stay unpunished. None of
1. Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) - an ultra-left, Maoist guerrilla movement.
2. Alan Garcia, candidate of the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA American Popular Revolutionary Aprince 14, was elected president on April 1985. See *Political recomposition after the seneral elections" by Esteban Marcos
'International Viewpoint' No. 76, May 20, 1985.
"Apristas" - supporters of the ruling APRA party.
13
International Viewpoint 27 October 1986 those responsible have been imprisoned and human rights violations against political prisoners still continue. They are subject to inhuman conditions in the prisons. At the start, they were not even allowed visits. Now, they are, but only from direct relations. Files are kept on visitors, and at any moment they can be put into prison themselves as Senderistas. This fate has befallen many relatives of political prisoners.
What is the response of the The CCP is the organization that is most concerned victims of these abuses. Because most side, we, as a peasant organization, are particularly tion. The organization has a human rights commission that is very active. The similar commissions of other organizations are very weak or nonwork consists of paying lawyers to defend political prisoners, peasants or not. The CCP shelters prisoners who have come out of jail, or their relatives, in local offices. Prisoners who are freed have no papers, because they are taken from them in prison, and they therefore have to go through all the steps to obtain new papers. Otherwise, they
In addition, most of them come from zones subjected to the state of emergency, and if they return home they are killed. Very often they stay in Lima. In the capital, there are many refugees from the state-of-
The CCP helps refugees in Lima trying to find jobs. It is trying to create an agricultural market, a sector of street traders. It is also trying to see to it that the victims go to see the different human rights organizations.
On the other hand, the CCP has some links with Amnesty International, and as soon as there are new developments, new exposures, it makes them known to Amnesty. It helps victims with medical aid. Through its human rights bulletin it denounces the injustices committed.
But this is not the only role of the commission. The human rights commission of the CCP is trying to establish coordination between all the bodies that are active on this theme in the country, which has more or less succeeded.
Our goal is to raise the consciousness of the whole Peruvian people about all the atrocities that are being committed in the zones of repression, these facts are unfolding today in Peru, but not outside. We want to demonstrate to the people that this is a threat against everyone, 14
Hugo Blanco (DR) but also that they can fight against this situation. We try to hold forums on this subject and to send witnesses to the zones concerned from the trade unions and from neighbourhood organizations. We send out video cassettes to raise consciousness about the repression that seriously. affects a section of the Peruvian people and which threatens all of them. This is one of the messages that we want message is that the Peruvian people can halt the repres sion by mobilizing through marches, meetings and strikes. For example, valley of La Convencion, a province of the Cuzco district, they had a strike around human rights. (4) Following this, there was the strike in Puno, no longer simply provincial but on a scale of a whole district. Lastly, there was the strike in Huanta a little while later, also in defence of human rights.
We think that when this consciousness extends to all the Peruvian people, then we will be able to defend human rights.
The armed forces justify their intervention by the presence of Sendero Luminoso. What is the position of the Federation on this?
A. We have a big strategic difference with Sendero Luminoso, in addition to many tactical differences.
is true for Sendero and for all armed groups, we do not think that the mass movement today in Peru is in a state for armed struggle. In Peru, everyone is organized: workers, peasants, employees, street traders, the regions, the distriets....
For example, on September 5 and 6, there is going to be held the second preparatory meeting for the Popular Assembly in January, decide on a new direction for the mass movement, where all the components of what one could call the social movement will be gathered together. We must follow the tempo of this movement.
The peasants' federation congress in Puno will decide on some land occupations, so we must prepare self-defence at a district level. But this is totally different from what Sendero is doing.
What are they doing? They go into a village, attack the police office, and then leave. What did they do in Puno, for example? They divided up some cattle, some provisions and even some of the land of the communities. But afterwards they left - these armed groups do not hang around. And what happened? The armed forces came and razed the community, imprisoned the village heads massacred the people.
It is because of this that we think that these are methods that disorganize the mass movement. This is how the peasant movement in Ayacucho was disorganized. In some places, very combative regions have been totally disorganized by these sort of actions. This is our fundamental difference with Sendero Luminoso. In addition we are against their authoritarianism and therefore the way in which they execute those whom they consider to be exploiters of the people.
Q. But the armed forces justify their intervention because of Sendero Luminoso - is this just a pretext? And when the mass movement is confronted by state violence, what will be the proposals of the peasants' organizations faced with the army's
One example is the decision of the self-defence commission set up by the Puno peasants' reinforce the peasants' guards. guards exist and are working already. The congress itself was protected by peasant guards, which security rounds to watch the offices against any attacks from the repressive
Sendero Luminoso or APRA However, the peasant guards remain weak. They must be strengthened in each community. At the level of the Federation, we have decided to set up a peasants' self-defence school, because we know that we are going to face repression. Even if Sendero Luminoso did not exist there would be repression, as was the case in Convencion. There we have begun, in a very embryonic fashion, admittedly, peasants' self-defence.
It will also be started here in Puno.
But I think it will be on a much larger scale - more systematic, more org anized and more generalized than in Convencion. •
4. The valley of La Convencion, in the Andean district of Cuzco, became the centre of massive demonstrations for land in the years 1961-
63. The peasants, in reply to army's attacks, organized the beginnings of peasants' militias. Hugo Blanco, who was one of the principal leaders of this movement, was sentenced and imprisoned at this time.
International Viewpoint 27 October 1986
INDIA
- created a lot of awareness regarding and women's role in health issues
The the environmental movement.
escalation of communal riots