PERU hunger"
THE REVOLUTIONARY
MARXIST Peruvian peasant leader, Hugo
Blanco, was jailed in
February in Pucallpa, a town in in the eastern central part of the country.
He was attending a rally of striking peasants, along with other leaders of the
Peruvian Peasants'
Confederation (CCP). The police opened fire on the crowd, killing at least 18 people, and arrested
Blanco along with a number of other leaders.1
After a two-week storm of national and international protest, he was released.
Blanco is also a prominent member of the
Partido Unificado
Mariateguista, a far left party, which belongs to the broad left coalition,
Izquierda Unida [IU -
United Left]. In April, he began a tour of Western
Europe. The following interview was given to
Gerry Foley in Paris in late
May.
OW MUCH credibility does the Garcia government have
The economic crisis is tremendous — the worst in the history of Peru.
When the APRA government took office, it put some reins on the IMF, unlike the previous government, which was completely under its thumb. But it finally had to sur-
16 render. It pushed the nationalization of the
International Viewpoint #165 • June 12, 1989
UNIV banks in an attempt to force the Peruvian capitalists to invest in the country, but the right and the ultra-right, as well as the right wing inside APRA itself, blocked this.
In view of this failure, the government had to knuckle under to the dictates of the IMF, and this is leading to economic disaster. This situation is being exploited by the ultra-right to put the blame on APRA for ruining country by carrying out the program of the Izquierda Unida [IU — United Left]. With that line, it is killing two birds with one stone and at the same time appearing to keep its hands clean. • From what point do you date the government's surrender?
From September. To give you an idea, a liter of insecticide that cost a peasant 20 kilos of potatoes in September, cost 200 kilos of potatoes in October. Abroad, a completely false image is being given of this regime. It is presented as if it were simply a social-democratic government under attack from terrorist guerrillas. This is well calculated propaganda by the imperialists and by the Peruvian government. Every person killed is supposed to have died in
INTERVIEW WITH HUGO BLANCO "THIDES the defense of democracy or been killed by Sendero Luminoso.
The day before yesterday, I was reading in Le Monde that as a result of the violence in Peru two deputies were killed, and that it was believed that Sendero Luminoso killed them. In fact, it was a wing of the government that killed these left deputies, the wing represented by the Rodrigo Franco Comandos and led by the present minister of the interior, Agustín Mantilla. This figure has a totally sinister background. He entered the government as a deputy secretary of the interior. Really he was the grey eminence of the Ministry of the Interior.
Mantilla was the one who directed the massacre of political prisoners in El Frontón. He is the organizer of the Comando Rodrigo Franco, a paramilitary organization. Later he was appointed minister for administration in the next to last change in government. As minister of administration, he had under his authority the so-called Development Commissions, which are local bodies that have served as the cover 1. See International Viewpoint 157, February 20, 158, March 6 and 162, May 1, 1989.
June 12, 1989 • #165 International Viewpoint for providing arms and training to the arms for the paramilitaries. And I learned yesterday [May 23] that he had been appointed minister of the interior. • Is APRA dividing in this situation?
No. There are more democratic currents in APRA. But they don't count. What counts is the decision made the regime itself. The premier, Luis Alberto Sánchez, is a conservative, one of the conservative
What is being hidden from the world is the existence in Peru of the best organized independent mass movement in Latin America outside Cuba and Nicaragua. The peasants are organized, the shanty-town the people of the neglected regions that are fighting against centralism, the public employees, the students, even the police. And all these organizations are grouped in the People's Assembly. It is true that the National People's Assembly does not yet have the force that all of us would like it to have. But its existence demonstrates that there is a big development. And all of these are organizations formed for the struggle.
Even the police are not just demanding higher wages but the right to to elect their officers and the right to disobey orders if they violate human rights. Now, precisely because of this high level of consciousness in the police in general, special repressive units are being formed. They are being trained by Israelis, because the Israelis are well-acquainted with desert terrain, and in Peru there are large desert areas. There are also being trained by South Africans, because Peru also has jungles. And they are being trained by Yankees.
These special repressive units train by killing dogs, cutting off the heads of dogs and smearing their faces with the blood of the dogs, putting the intestines of the dogs around their necks. It is such special units that were used in Ayacucho and most recently in Pucallpa. It was they who did the killing in Pucallpa, and after opening fire, when people fell, they finished them off with bayonets, and then in front of the masses they bathed their faces with the • Are these units part of the National Police?
Yes. But they are special units. They are much better paid in general. One of the things hidden from world public opinion, as I said, is the high level of mass organization, militant mass organization, that exists. The masses are organized to fight, they are all fighting. This is seen in the peasant strikes that there have been, the miners' strikes, the public employes' strikes, and then the paralysis of zones of the country led by the Fronts to Defend the Interests of the People.
The other thing that is being hidden from the outside world is that the leading political force in the country is Izquierda Unida. When APRA was elected, IU came in second. But now that APRA has been totally discredited because of the economic policy that it has been following, IU has become the main force in the country.
The popularity of Vargas Llosa [the presidential candidate of the right] is also being exaggerated. He is portrayed as a liberal, when in reality he is a representative of the most primitive right, the ultra-right. • But who is the right winning? Does it have support among the poor layers or not? Is this rightist propaganda having any impact on the poor masses?
Yes. You have to remember that the right controls the means of communication. Some people are convinced that APRA is ruining the country by applying the program of IU, and that therefore what should have been done was to pay the principal [of the loans] to the IMF, and that would have solved the crisis in the country. There are people who believe that. • But are they able to mobilize this fringe that they influence?
There were rightist mobilizations when the government tried to nationalize the banks, but they were not very big. In any case, they were not large by comparison with the mobilizations led by the left as such or those staged by the mass organizations fighting for their demands. We don't know who will be the winner of the next elections, which are scheduled for April 1990. But we know who is going to be the loser. APRA, of course, is going to lose. The ultra-right may win, or the left.
The ultra-right could win through the campaign that it is waging, plus fraud. In that case, the future of Peru will be tragic. The starvation policy of hunger will be pursued more vigorously than at present, alongside the repression. And all this will be presented as defense of a legitimately • What is the situation on the left?
The IU held its congress a few months ago. A program was approved and a leadership was elected. The form of choosing candidates was also approved. What has happened is that the candidate of the right wing of IU, Barrantes and his people, are disregarding some of the agreements made at the congress. And fundamentally, it is the PSR that is the axis of the Barrantes movement. This is the old Valasquista party [the populist military dictatorship of General Velasco Alvarado from 1968 to
They call themselves the Revolutionary Socialist Party, but that doesn't mean anything. They are the right wing around which other people are also gathered. They are trying to disregard the authority of the leadership and the agreements that came out of the congress. Internal elections took place a while ago and some are being held now. I heard was that they were going to withdraw their candidate, Barrantes,
PERU because they know that among the ranks of IU they don't enjoy any popularity.
At an IU rally after the congress, when the current chair of the IU for six months, Jorge del Prado — who is also the top leader of the Communist Party — referred to Barrantes, there were whistles all over the square. And after this Barrantes held a meeting in a bull-ring, and he got far less people than the IU had. There is a threat that centrist sectors such as the CP will capitulate to Barrantes' pretensions and drop the program voted at the congress, which is not a very radical program. There is also a danger that they will capitulate on the question of the candidate. • Does the left wing have a candidate, someone it agrees on?
No. But since we understand that the IU is a coalition of various forces, we think that the indicated candidate is Henry Peace, simply because he accepts the agreements at the congress. He was a deputy mayor under Barrantes. • In Western Europe the press refers to the left wing of the IU as the "vanguardist-militarist faction." Is that term also used in Peru?
Yes. They call us vanguardistsmilitarists. But this is out of line with our acceptance of the IU congress. There is nothing militarist about us. • What is the relation of Sendero Luminoso to the rest of the left in Peru?
This group does not have the prominence that it is given in Europe. It is of course significant. It operates in nearly all of the country. But it has no influence in the organized mass movement. It is hostile to the mass movement, and it has nothing to do with IU. It is a marginal force. But what happens is that when Sendero Luminoso kills two cops, the news goes around the world. When 60,000 peasants go on strike, and no one is killed, nobody hears about this.
Sendero Luminoso is a very sectarian movement. We don't call them Maoists. We call them Pol-Potists. Not only do they kill rightists, they also kill leftists. They kill political leaders of the left, or they kill left mass leaders, and they also kill a lot of innocent people accusing them of being informers.
But the government approves of Sendero Luminoso killing leftists because that enables it to put the blame for murders of leftists on Sendero Luminoso. For example, it put the blame on them for the murder of Saul Cantoral, the miners' leader. He was killed while I was in prison [in February] by the Comando Rodrigo Franco. It also put the blame on them for the murder of a left deputy who was killed a few weeks ago. He was also killed by the Comando Rodrigo Franco. And since Sendero hasn't said aything, the accusation tends to be 17 accepted.
PERU
Moreover, when I was in prison, the body of a thief appeared in the Plaza de Armas de Pucallpa, and next to the body was a sign saying "So will die the traitor to the peasants, Hugo Blanco." It was signed "Sendero Luminoso." And this news was broadcast over TV. But we know Sendero Luminoso did not do it. Because they do not sign "Sendero Luminoso." They sign "Communist Party of Peru." And besides they don't have robbers at their disposal the way the police do. Furthermore, the journalist who reported this story is one who always works with the police. • Does Sendero Luminoso claim responsibility systematically for the
No. They don't say anything. They don't say whether they did it or didn't. Sometimes they do say that they have done something. But they never deny it when a attributed to them. And the regime takes advantage of this. And they also have a very anti-democratic procedure. When they go into a peasant community, they appoint the chiefs, threatening to kill anyone who disobeys them, disregarding the people chosen by the community. • Do they have real support at least in some parts of the highlands?
Not in the highlands now. In Puno, they were reduced to insignificance, and precisely because of that they reacted against us, killing a peasant leader of the area. And they lost out still more because of that. After 1 was jailed in Pucallpa, there was a peasant strike in Puno.
They do have members who are peasants, but they are a minority. They are mainly students, teachers, professors, and so on. • What explains its development?
Well, I think that the great hunger that there has been and the incapacity of the left to organize the masses. Where there were not mass organizations is where Sendero Luminoso grew. And where mass organizations developed, it was totally smashed. Because Sendero Luminoso goes into a community, kills the rich people there, kills the police, and then they leave. The repressive forces come to find out who the leaders of this community are. They are killed, they disappear, or are put in prison. They find out what families support Sendero Luminoso and then kill them. Then they leave. Sendero comes back and asks who informed on the people who were killed, and then they kill those who denounced them, they kill those who provided lodging for the soldiers, and then they leave. In these conditions, there is no room for a leader of the CCP, for example, for a third force. They have to choose between the army or Sendero Luminoso.
We also have to understand that since the left paid a lot of attention to elections, it abandoned the people. It did not lead peas18 ant struggles, struggles among the students. In the absence of protests, Sendero LumiInternational Viewpoint #165 • June 12, 1989 noso seemed to be the only protest. Finally, we can explain that Sendero appeared because people want to eat every day. And if you belong to Sendero, you are guaranteed food every day, and sometimes meat. And if you don't belong, you can die of hunger. People would rather die from bullets than die of hunger. • How are they able to provide
Because they carry out robberies. They steal cattle, and so on. They can't give everybody food, just their members. They cannot accept the existence of the other guerrilla group, the MRTA [Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement]. Sendero characterizes everybody as servants of the regime, including the MRTA. It has had armed clashes with them. The MRTA is more coherent. They respect the rest of the left; they work with the rest of the left. In the CCP, there are people who belong to a political group linked to them, the UDP, Unión Democratica Popular. They work in the mass movement. They are involved in the leadership of the miners.
The MRTA also come largely from the Velasquista movement, and some of them also come from APRA. They have people from the left, as well, because some people think that the time has come to take up • How widespread is the repression
Today it is selective, since the appearance of the Comando Rodrigo Franco. It appeared first with the murder of a lawyer. Then it killed Saul Cantoral. A little before Oscar Delgado disappeared. The main leader of the teachers got a death threat. They killed an important peasant leader on the coast. Also they killed a left deputy. And they have also threatened me.
Recently also, Comrade Cecilia Olea has received a threat. She is a feminist leader who has worked with women workers, fundamentally around the struggles of women workers — in Nisan, for example, which is an assembly plant, and also in textiles. Recently a compañera who was also a leader of the women's movement was mur• What is the state of the peasant movement today?
I think that today the CCP is the strongest that it has ever been. It has existed for 42 years and is the oldest peasant union confederation in Peru. It is also very militant. It has held consecutive peasant strikes, first in three departments of the jungle area and then Cuzco and Puno and so on, not long ago. Now it is building a national peasant • What role do specifically Indian demands play today?
The demand to regain the land for farm communities is an specifically Indian demand. Also, there is the aspect of defending the soil. The Indians grow a variety of crops. But the people who come in, the capitalist farmers, cultivate single crops that exhaust the soil. If the European Greens are consistent, they should support the demands of the CCP. • Do you think that the historic division between the working class and the peasantry has now been overcome? Have there been joint struggles between the workers and peasants?
Yes, we now feel that we are brothers. There is unity not just with the working class but with the other mass organizations. For example, in Pucallpa, after the massacre of the peasants, the entire town went on strike for 48 hours. • Is the People's Assembly really able to coordinate all this?
Unfortunately, it does not have the strength to do that, but the organizations in
PUM executive statement
THE SICK and provocative sectarian-
Ism of Sendero Luminoso has claimed another victim from the ranks of the miners' movement, the Izquierda Uni-
In Its vain attempt to subject the working people to a reign of terror and frustrate the efforts to build i national miners' congress for June and win the national Ilst of miners' demands, the Senderistas directed their bullets this time against the Ilfe of Compañero Antonlo Cajachagua
Leyva, general secretary of the Work ers' Union of Morococha, one of the most important local organizations In
The Partido Unificado Marlateguista expresses Its repudlation and sorrow at this vile and cowardly attack by six armed Individuals, who did not hesltate to shoot to kill a leader who had no means of defending himself, and who had an Impeccable record as a fighter, who could have no enemles except among the explolters of the working class. The PUM expresses Its deepest felt condolences to Compañero Cajachagua's relatives, his workmates and his companions In
In memory of this comrade, our party pledges to continue the fight, alongside the workers, alongside the entire people, who will not let themselves be defeated by terror or by rep ression. Our homage will be one of unity, organization and struggle.
- Long live the preparations for the new national miners' strike!
- Long live the Second National
Miners' Congress! *