Peruvian peasant movement needs
HUGO BLANCO, the Peruvian revolutionary leader, has been touring Western Europe since speaking at the rally to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Fourth
International in Copenhagen on May 14.
Long the best known leader of Peruvian Fourth
Internationalists, he joined the Partido Unificado
Mariateguista (PUM) in 1986, along with the rest of the
Peruvian section of the Fourth International. Since then, he has been a leading member of the PUM. He is also organizational secretary of the Confederación Campesina de
PERU tance is reaching a high level and that this could lead to a clash in which the military might very well try to carry out a coup. • How is the resistance organized?
In the Peruvian left, as elsewhere in the
Perú (CCP, Peasant Confederation of Peru) and head of its Human Rights Commission.
The following interview was published in the June 17 issue of Die Linke, the magazine of the Austrian section of the Fourth International.
W HAT IS the main purpose of
your trip? In 1987, peasants in the Puno area occupied 146,000 hectares of land. But this land occupation was not recognized by the government, and there were clashes with the police. The peasants were able to defend their land. In order to legalize the occupation, Juan Rojas Vargas, as the chair of the CCP [the country's major peasant union] called a national peasants' strike. It was successful. Now the government is trying to intimidate the entire CCP, and wants to prosecute Juan Rojas Vargas. Recently, murders of peasant leaders have also increased. Shortly before the PUM congress, two of our comrades were murdered. They were also members
We are calling on President Alan Garcia to bestir himself finally to do something about the murders and to stop the prosecution of Vargas. I hope to get international solidarity for that. • How do you explain the rise of Sendero Luminoso, after eight years of terrorism and losses of more than 10,000 dead and 15,000 injured? Is it the case that half of their cadres are women? Why are so many doctors, lawyers, professors and students in this movement? Does this lead back to the question of armed struggle, and how is this question seen today by the Izquierda Unida and the PUM?
In fact, Sendero Luminoso is not so widely accepted. It gets more attention in the European press. However, it does get a certain acceptance because of the poverty in the country. The PUM views these isolated acts of violence as rather negative, because the population is not prepared for armed struggle on any large scale, and the present isolated actions serve rather as a pretext for repression.
If you look, for at example, at Ayacucho, where Sendero Luminoso is strong, and San Martín, where the Tupac Amaru group is strong, you see a completely intimidated and unorganized population. On the other hand, in Puno, there is a high level of organization, and there these two organizations have no influence. In the past, Sendero Luminoso had more influence, but since then, the peasant union has reduced it. In this conflict, some people were killed by Sendero Luminoso. Despite the murders, they lost support. They isolated themselves.
As regards women cadres in Sendero Luminoso, it has to be recognized that women and youth are very much integrated in it. • President Garcia's economic policy has failed. Will the weakness of the re gime and the increased resistance lead to the threat of a coup?
I don't see why the military would want to carry out a coup when there is nothing in Alan Garcia's policy that contradicts their interests. It is true of course that the resisworld, there are various tendencies. There is a reformist one, a revolutionary one and an ultra-leftist one. On the reformist side, there is the "Revolutionary" Communist Party and the "Revolutionary" Socialist Party. They promote the hope that the "left" can achieve power through elections and change the situation in that way.
We in the PUM represent the revolutionary position. That is, we think that things can only be achieved through armed resistance. That does not mean that we are against democracy. But armed resistance is the only guarantee of democracy. In Peru, the peasants, workers, govemment workers, marginal groups and street peddlers are organized. Therefore, we believe that the structure of of National People's Assembly can offer an alternative to the present form of government. We think that it would be more democratic than electing those who have the most money or make election promises that they don't keep. It is much more democratic for each group to elect its own recallable representatives.
The left and the PUM are calling for refusing to pay the interest on the foreign debt. Alan Garcia has promised not to pay more than 10 per cent of export income on the debt. In fact, the payments amount to more than 30 per cent of that.
We are calling for nationalization of foreign enterprises. Because the right has organized such a strong campaign against the nationalizations in banking, the government has made one retreat after the other, and now nothing is left.
It would also be far more democratic if the population had the arms and not just some of the military and privileged individuals. It would be much more democratic if everyone could think and decide and not just those people with money. That is the sort of democracy for which we are fighting. We also believe hat it is the workers 1 7 who must liberate themselves. *
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solidarity