This picture story describes the June 19, 1986 uprising by revolutionary
prisoners in Peru. The story tells what happened at the island
prison of El Fronton -- one of the three prisons near Lima where
political prisoners rose up on that day to resist the reactionary
government's plans to murder them. At El Fronton, the prisoners
held out for twenty hours against naval and helicopter-gunship
attacks, mainly with slings, spears, and other homemade weapons.
Hundreds were killed in the uprising. Many were murdered in cold
blood after their capture by the armed forces. Many of these revolutionary
prisoners had been captured by the government while fighting in
the People's War led by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP). Other prisoners
were imprisioned students, lawyers, journalists, and other "subversives."
The PCP declared that, "June 19 is forever stamped as the DAY
OF HEROISM."
The picture story that follows comes from a pamphlet published
by the PCP on the third anniversary of the Day of Heroism. The
captions were originally translated to English from Spanish
by the Revolutionary Worker newspaper. To save space, some of the original picture frames are not presented here. However, all of the original captions appear in order with those "missing" the accompanying
frames within brackets [...].
The first of 17 frames:
Puka!* was the call to arms, to take
hostages and seize weapons.
*Editors note: Puka means red in Quechua, a language
spoken by the Indian peoples of the Andes
The Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru (USA)
PO Box 1246, Berkeley, California 94701
415-252-5786 * Fax: 415-252-7414
