The RW has been able to obtain copies of two recent issues of the revolutionary underground newspaper El Diario, published in Lima, Peru. The issues are dated June and October 1996.
These issues of El Diario have come out in the face of repeated attacks on the paper by the reactionary regime. The June and October 1996 issues are the first issues of this revolutionary paper that we have seen in some time. The reappearance of El Diario is a victory for the people's struggle in Peru, a significant and welcome development.
Over the last two years, supporters of the Right Opportunist Line that arose from within the PCP, calling for negotiations with the government and an end to the people's war, have put out a paper under the El Diario name. The Central Committee of the PCP has condemned and repudiated this line. The June and October 1996 issues of El Diario strongly uphold the continuation of the people's war led by the Central Committee of the PCP.
The two issues contain editorial articles, brief reports of military actions by the PCP guerrillas, analysis of current affairs and the state of the economy in Peru and exposures of the regime. The front-page headline of the June issue reads: "From Andes to the Himalayas, People's War Blazes Victoriously!" An editorial with this headline says that the initiation of the people's war in Nepal is a welcome support and reinforcement strengthening the prospects for the future birth of the People's Republic in Peru. A centerfold article welcoming the initiation of the people's war in Nepal salutes the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM). One of the pages contains two photos under the title "New Type of Culture." One is a guerrilla theater performance in a Peruvian prison. The other is a street graffiti from Colombia with the slogans "Rally to the Defense of Our Red Flag Flying in Peru!" and "Prepare the Initiation of the People's War in Colombia!"
The October issue has the front page headline: "PCP Resolute in its Plans to Develop the People's War!" The editorial in this issue strongly upholds RIM and calls on the Peruvian masses to "carry out the historic task of Developing People's War and Seizing Power."
This week, the Revolutionary Worker is making available to our readers excerpts from several articles which appear in the June and October 1996 issues of the El Diario. We have also compiled a list of PCP military actions from articles in the two issues.
 Drawing from Lima El Diario inspired by the People's War in Nepal. |
Our greetings to proletarian internationalism, to the initiation of the People's War in Nepal led by the Communist Party of Nepal, for taking up the invincible ideology of the proletariat, MLM. On February 13, 1996, they broke the dark night of oppression and lit the burning people's war that brightly extended from Rukum, Gorkha, Rolpa, Kathmandu, Sindhulpalanchok, Sindhuli...with three simultaneous attacks on police stations, confiscation of lands and goods from semifeudal forces, attacks on an Indian capitalist brewery, the destruction of capitalist banks and the transnational Pepsi-Cola corporation. In other words, the prairie fire has been set, the people's war expands from the Andes to the Himalayas as the only road towards liberation....
We are strengthened by the qualitative and quantitative leap taken by the CPN, by their deep grasp of Maoism as a third, new and higher stage of Marxism. Likewise, convinced of the ultimate victory of the World Proletarian Revolution we send our greetings to the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, and the International Communist Movement for their efforts to forge Communist Parties that dare to cross the inevitable river of blood in order to reach our goal, which will be reached by all of us or none of us: Communism.
From "Plan to Jump Start the Economy Creates More Hunger for Our People. Excellent Conditions for the People's War" -- June '96 issue:
Empty stomachs for the Peruvian people, for the peasantry, since that Law of the Land only serves to promote gamonalismo (semi-feudal oppressors in the countryside--RW) and out-and-out monopolies....
Empty stomachs for the Peruvian people and for the petty bourgeoisie who are being squeezed by laws that aim to make the government more efficient. And especially for the street vendors who are tear gassed and clubbed...
Empty stomachs for the proletariat, who, with the collapse of the national industry, must now bargain for the sale of their labor power succumbing to feeble wages that have been frozen for six years. That's the only thing this reactionary system can offer the people, empty stomachs, and therefore, death and oppression....
[The oppressors] on the other hand, will line their pockets. The investors will take with them as gifts our industries. The comprador bourgeoisie will line its pockets. Through imports, and without regulations and with the help of the government, they are getting rich. The bureaucratic bourgeoisie will line its pockets. All the talk of moralization does not hide the fact that they are getting rich from state enterprises and from siphoning of the country's institutions....
That is the reality of this rotten state, not the moralization it talks so much about. There is no efficient government, no development, none of that, only lined pockets for themselves. What is the response of the people to these intolerable conditions? Organize base areas in the countryside and build the Revolutionary Movement in Defense of the People in the cities, and develop even more the people's war which will take us to the goal we long for, communism.
From "The Enemy Drowns in its Own Contradictions" -- October '96 issue:
A few years after the people's war started, the government launched one of its first hoaxes against the PCP. The reactionary bourgeois government claimed that the PCP was allied with the drug-traffickers. They hoped to create a breach between the people and the PCP...
Now, after the reactionary press failed to get over with the big lie, it has come to light what everybody already knew: the alliance is between the drug-traffickers and the government. The government now doesn't know how to protect their partner in the struggle against the victorious People's Liberation Army.
Now the entire government has come out in defense of Montesinos [head of the Peruvian secret police and long-time CIA operative], wanting to hide the fact the he has been for years linked to drug-traffickers....
From this we draw big conclusions: the war on drugs is a farce and demagoguery. This government could never fight the drug trade since it is its main source of income. And the war on drugs is a hoax, in fact it is a war against the PLA and the peasantry. Above all it is a war against the PCP which, day after day, is destroying the old rotten Peruvian state.
From "Long live the PCP and the People's War!", October '96 issue:
Upholding, defending and applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, from the dungeons of the reactionaries, Chairman Gonzalo on September 24 of 1992 gave a historic and far-reaching speech to the world's press.
At a time when the People's War was powerfully shaking the country, especially in the very heart of the reactionaries, Lima, the PCP was hit by the capture of a group of leaders, including Chairman Gonzalo himself. This unprecedented event led the reactionaries to believe that the PCP was finished.
At that moment Chairman Gonzalo reaffirmed: "We are here in circumstances which some think to be a great defeat. They are dreaming. Today we say to them this is only a bend in the road. Nothing more! A bend in the middle of the road"--speaking about revolutionary war and the fact that the People's War should continue until final victory, in the interests of the masses of Peru and serving the world proletarian revolution. He also spoke of the possibility to develop MLM parties throughout the world, particularly calling attention to the role of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, and he emphasized the strategic perspective and the necessity for Maoism to become the line and leadership of the coming wave of the world proletarian revolution.
The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement was founded on the basis of the Declaration of the RIM, adopted by the Second Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations in 1984. This declaration correctly emphasized "Mao Tsetung's qualitative development of the science of Marxism-Leninism" and said that he had raised it to "a new stage." Today the RIM declares that Marxism-Leninism-Maoism must be the line and leadership of the world revolution.
The RIM brings together the nuclei of Maoist revolutionaries from all over the world who are determined to carry forward the struggle for a world without exploitation, without oppression, without imperialism. A world where the division of society into classes will itself be overcome, the communist world of the future.
Chairman Mao elaborated many theses on a whole series of these questions of revolution. But Maoism is not just the sum total of Chairman Mao's great contributions. It is the comprehensive and all-round development of Marxism-Leninism to a new and higher stage. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is an integral whole: it is the ideology of the proletariat synthesized and developed to new stages. It is the invincible weapon which enables the proletariat to understand the world and transform it through revolution. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is a universally applicable, living and scientific ideology, constantly developing and being further enriched through its application in making revolution as well as through the advance of human knowledge generally. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the enemy of all forms of revisionism and dogmatism. It is all-powerful because it is true.
In 1984, the RIM pointed out, "The post World War II world is rapidly coming apart at the seams. The international economic and political relations--the `division of the world'--established through and in the aftermath of World War II no longer correspond to the needs of the various imperialist powers to `peacefully' extend and expand their profit empires.[...] The relative stability of the major imperialist powers is becoming unraveled... The revolutionary struggles of the oppressed nations and peoples is again on the rise and delivering new blows to the imperialist world order.... The heightening of contradictions is now drawing, and will do so even more dramatically in the future, all countries and regions of the world and sections of the masses previously lulled to sleep or oblivious to political life into the vortex of world history. And so the revolutionary communists must get prepared, and prepare the class conscious workers and revolutionary sections of the people and step up their revolutionary struggle."
The Declaration's analysis of the temporary character of the current world order and its call to make urgent preparations for rapid changes and leaps in events, has been borne out by world events, although it couldn't anticipate exactly how things would develop--the collapse of the Soviet social imperialist camp and the mitigation of the sharp dispute between the imperialist blocs led by the U.S. and the USSR, which had brought the world to the brink of world war.
Chairman Mao Tsetung has taught us that the imperialists always lift huge rocks to hurl at the oppressed, and end up dropping them on their own feet. All the hype about the "new world order" and the current developments only go to show beyond all doubt that nothing good can come from this system which feeds on human beings.
Some people were triumphalist, claiming that with this blow they had done away with the PCP once and for all. Four years have passed, and what they call "Sendero Luminoso" continues to exist in the country; and according to the reactionaries' own statements this past July, speaking of the offensive against the so-called "patriotic holidays", they are concerned that the PCP has been rebuilt and is once again operating along the Central Highway and in the "conos" [outskirts] of Lima....
At this time, the strategic equilibrium reveals the following: an old power on its death bed, and a People's Republic of Peru being born; the prospects are bright. Look how the blood gushes from our people daily. A society which cannot hide the disgrace of its poverty, which evidences itself in everything being turned upside down--three sexual rapes every hour; a multitude of youth gangs killing each other in the streets; a high and increasing rate of prostitution; corruption and drug-trafficking in the military command; generalized unemployment, malnutrition, tuberculosis and many other "benefits" of Pacification and of the "successes" achieved in controlling inflation.
The political response to this pandemonium is People's War; it is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo Thought. Without power all is illusion! Everyone needs to understand that this is true; don't fool yourself. Lessons need to be learned. The Peruvian revolution continues; the People's War continues, it advances and will keep on advancing. The old Peruvian state is a paper tiger that is rotten to the core!
The masses' only hope is to join and strengthen the People's Liberation Front. Their only hope is to organize themselves and build the People's Republic of Peru. What is called for is to obey the directives of our political vanguard, the PCP, and also to strengthen the ranks of the People's Liberation Army: what we are called on to do is to carry out the historic task of Developing the People's War and Seizing Power.
Lima, Ate Vitarte, Huaycán: Activists of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), execute with two bullets and then dynamite the body of the instigator of repression and defender of urban rondas [reactionary paramilitary squads organized by the government's Armed Forces] in Huaycan, Pascula Rosado.
March 10--Lima, Canto Grande: Devastating attack by PLA forces against the Edolear company. A bureaucratic capitalist company that exploits the people.
March 11--Lima, San Juan de Lurigancho: Members of the PLA simultaneously leaflet various shopping districts.
March 15--Lima, Canto Grande, Huascar shantytown: A PLA column confiscates an FAF rifle and ammunition from a soldier from the Three Crosses Battalion.
Ayacucho, La Mar, San Miguél Huahuasana district: A column of the PLA ambushes a reactionary army patrol, killing one captain and leaving several soldiers wounded.
March 17--Lima, Canto Grande: Members of the PLA attack the Vito S.A. gasoline refinery.
March 20--Trujillo, Tayabamba: A column of the PLA occupies the Gicomsa mining center and confiscate large amounts of dynamite and fuses. A local profiteer is executed.
Ayacucho, La Mar, San Miguel, Vista Alegre, area known as Machete: A column of the PLA ambushes a military patrol, killing two soldiers and leaving more than half a dozen wounded.
March 25--Junín, Tarma, Acobamba district: Columns of the PLA take over towns and agitate in support of the people's war.
Huancayo, Chanchamayo, San Luís de Chuaro: A column of the PLA confiscates weapons and wounds five ronderos, paramilitary forces.
March 28--Ayacucho, Tacrapunta, Huaytara: A column of the PLA blocks Los Libertadores highway and carries out agitation and propaganda in support for the armed struggle among the passengers.
April 5--Huaraz: Members of the PLA raise flags in the main streets. One member of UDEX [a special police force--RW] who attempted to bring down a flag was blown to pieces.
April 8--Tingo María, Leoncio Prado province, Padre Felipe Luyando district: Julio del Castillo Rodriguez, president of a self-defense committee, leader of the enemy rondas, is executed while driving. A company of the PLA shot him four times.
April 13--Huaraz, Uco, on the border with Ancash and Huánuco: Nine soldiers of the Huanuco counterinsurgency unit desert and join up with PLA forces, bringing with them a number of FAL military rifles, thousands of sticks of dynamite, ammunition and other military supplies.
April 18--Ayacucho, La Mar province, Anco district: A 60-strong column of PLA fighters takes over the town of Anchihuay, killing four paramilitary forces and wounding nine.
April 19--Ayacucho: In a series of ambushes and attacks in Irquis and the ravines of Cotonia, one officer and one soldier are killed along with two paramilitary forces, numerous wounded.
April 22--Junín, Satipo, Ene Valley: A column of the PLA attacks the military base in the Esmeralda Valley, killing eight lowlifes and leaving an equal amount of wounded.
April 23--Huancayo: A column of the PLA attacks the José Huertas Torres military base; in subsequent actions one rondero is killed.
April 29--Piura, Huancabamba: A column of the PLA blocks the highway near Indio and burns a bus belonging to the Civa company.
May 1--Lima, Huacho: A column of the PLA enters the towns of Andajes and in the extreme north of Churin executes a rondero, wounds two in a subsequent clash.
May 2--Lima, Villa El Salvador: An infiltrator into the Party who had managed to become responsible for logistics in the southern cone was killed by masses when his actions against the people's war were exposed. His public capitulation in the SIN newspaper contained this exposure.
May 8: An encirclement and suppression campaign launched by the reactionary army in Ayacucho, La Mar, Huanta, left behind genocide and disappeared.
May 16--Lima, San Isidro: A column of the PLA sets off a car bomb at the Shell refinery, destroying the refinery and five tankers. This is a Yankee imperialist company that is siphoning out our natural resources.
May 17--Lima: Members of the PLA hoist flags along the Central Highway, Plaza de la Bandera, Comas, Canto Grande, San Juan de Lugirancho, etc., to celebrate the 16th anniversary of the initiation of the armed struggle, the strategic equilibrium and the new power.
June 15--Alto Huallaga, San Martín, Palo Blanco: A company of the base forces of the PLA ambushes the murderers of the armed forces and kills two of the lowlifes.
June 18--Huacho, Oyon, 5 km. east of Huacho: A murderer from the National Police is killed in the stands of a stadium.
June 22--Tingo María: The main force of the PLA ambushes the reactionary forces, eliminating seven lowlifes.
Huanuco, Loencio Prado, Marona: Members of the Base Forces of the PLA enter the community and carry out agitation and propaganda in support of the armed struggle.
June 23--Alto Huallaga, San Martín, Tocache, Nuevo Progreso: Fighters of the Main Force of the PLA exercise the New Power all along the Marginal Highway. They also carry out propaganda and agitation in support of the armed struggle and vehicles are painted with the red color of the worker-peasant alliance. Applying the military strategies of Chairman Mao, they retreated to the base areas. All the reactionaries could do was to witness the undeniable presence of the women fighters among the revolutionary forces.
June 24--Alto Huallaga, Tocache: Report of an ambush carried out by the PLA against rondas and armed forces. One soldier and one paramilitary diehard are killed.
July 2--Tingo María, La Morada: Main forces of the PLA take over the city and carry out agitation and propaganda in support of the armed struggle. The Base Area supported the combatants with food and other supplies.
San Martín, Tocache, Polvora district, Santa Rosa de Mishollo: Members of the PLA ambush the reactionary army and leave several wounded. In a subsequent action, three representatives of the old order are executed, thus consolidating the People's Republic of Peru.
July 3--Lima, San Martín de Porres: Members of the PLA blow up the offices of the hated Edelnor company.
July 18--Tingo María, Las Vegas: The PLA holds a six-hour meeting with the population, organizing open and closed People's Committees. This is a way of destroying the old state and building the new power.
July 26--Lima: The PLA rocks Lima just two blocks from the reactionary Congress. Seven blocks from the Government Palace, the action against the 22nd division of the Peruvian National Police, headquarters of the genocidal assault battalion, where one lowlife was eliminated and four wounded along with the total destruction of the police headquarters, emphasizing what Chairman Gonzalo said, "They are dreaming if they think they will defeat us, let them keep dreaming". That morning the scum Fujimori could not even keep dreaming.
July 29: The PLA destroys the house belonging to the hated murderer Manuel Valera Gamarra, responsible for the counterinsurgency war in the Upper Huallaga. This action reminded him of the blood debt he has with the people for firing rockets on the base areas, the highest expression of genocide. The action not only stunned the murderous high command but their imperialist masters as well. The organized people hailed the action.
Lima, San Juan de Miraflores: Activists from the People's Liberation Front hoisted the colors of National Liberation.
July 30--Lima, Los Olivos, shantytown in San Martín de Porres: The PLA executes a cowardly snitch who claimed to be a mass leader while informing the enemy about the mass organizations developing in the midst of the powerful People's War. Epitafio Santa María Rodriguez paid with his life the blood debt he had with the Party.
Huancavelica, Palca: The main force of the PLA takes over three encampments of the Hillconsa company, destroying the enemy plan to gain an outpost in a territory of base areas. Combined forces made up of 30 combatants.
August 2--Tingo María, Aucayacu: The main force of the PLA took over the town and started organizing the New State, destroying the police station and wounding three down-in-the-mouth reactionaries. More than 300 combatants stayed in the town for three hours, carrying out agitation and propaganda in support of the armed struggle.
August 6--Trujillo: Members of the PLA execute a murderer of the National Police who had a blood debt with the people.
La Libertad, Bolivar, Pataz, Tayabamba: Members of the base force of the PLA take over the town and destroy the police station, wounding two soldiers and carrying out agitation and propaganda in support of the armed struggle.
Huancayo, Satipo, Valle Esmeralda, Selva Virgen: Members of the PLA clash with ronderos and kill one diehard.
August 7--Chimbote, Malaga Santoiayo: Members of the PLA take over the town of Consuzo and organize the masses while carrying out propaganda in support of the armed struggle.
Lima, El Agustino: Members of the PLA place a booby trap near the imperialist corporation Celular 2000. One lowlife from the National Police is wounded while attempting to deactivate it.
August 18--Ayacucho, Huanta, between the Mantaro and Ene Rivers: The main force of the PLA attacks the counterinsurgency base at Soldamiento killing three soldiers and leaving several wounded.
August 20--Tingo María: The Main Force of the PLA simultaneously takes the villages of José Bernardo Alcedo, José María Ugarteche, Río Azul, Mesones Muro, Margarita and a sector of the district capital Herminio Valdizan. Finally, close to 100 fighters took the village of Las Delicias on the morning of Wednesday 21, eliminating the counterrevolutionary Celso Estela Perez. Transit was shut down on the Federico Basabre Highway to Aguaytia and Pucallpa. Agitation and propaganda for the Armed Struggle was done, and more than 100 vehicles were stopped and painted with the hammer and sickle. The fighters told us that the Red Army is preparing to take posts and military bases.
August 23--Lima, San Juan de Lurigancho: Members of the PLA execute Italo Ochoa Yauripaita, a landlord from Chanchamayo, Junin, for persisting in exploiting the peasantry and refusing to cooperate with the New State.
August 27--One murderer of the National Police was killed and another wounded as a result of a clash with members of the PLA on Trapicha Ave.
August 29--Ayacucho: A group from the PLA confiscated food and other supplies from five vehicles traveling to the Ayacucho jungle.
September 4: A reactionary that played the role of governor was executed, and the mayor of Huancarpata-Trujillo was taken prisoner. In the main square he was exposed as a collaborator of the reactionary armed forces and a traitor to his people.
...the night of August 2, as part of a political-military campaign which was gaining strength, a company of the People's Liberation Army mobilized the organized peasant masses of the region to take the town of Aucayacu (Tingo María-Huanuco) for several hours. The Maoists carried out a "people's assembly" in the central plaza of the town, where a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo Thought speech was given and the local population chanted: long live the Communist Party of Peru, the People's War and the People's Liberation Army. People were called on to join the armed struggle, organized by our vanguard, the Communist Party of Peru. In addition the Maoists urged the local population to be vigilant in the face of the psychological measures the reactionaries use to confuse them, using them and pitting them against the People's War.
In order to carry this out, the political and military leaders deployed a number of contingents both inside and outside the town. Many dozens of heavily armed guerrillas blocked the main roads into Aucayacu in a synchronized fashion, stopping the traffic on the highway to Tocache and Tingo María for several hours. Meanwhile several groups of Communists seized resources useful for the guerrilla war. At the same time, 30 henchmen of the National Police of Peru were overpowered in their own office and the walls and walkways were painted with slogans which later were shown to the world on television: "Overcome the bend in the road" and "Develop the People's War."
In this way, the more than 4,000 inhabitants of Aucayacu witnessed once again the effective movements of the members of the People's Liberation Army that, for more than 16 years, has been working in this part of the jungle, serving the construction of the new power.
The Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru (USA)
PO Box 1246, Berkeley, California 94701
415-252-5786 * Fax: 415-252-7414