Press Reports of the People's War
CSRP Peru News Bullets
April 9, 1998
Note: For current reports, see our News of the People's War page.
News reports over the past six months show a People’s War in Peru that is being carried forward in important parts of the countryside of Peru as well as in the cities. Various reports describe ways in which the Maoist led revolution is apparently sinking deeper roots among the people, continuing to organize peasants, urban poor and others to join and support the People’s War. All in the face of the government’s continued terror, military tribunals, and new attempts to press-gang people into the government led para-military forces called “rondas”.
Even though mainstream press stories are often based on Peruvian military and police reports that are trying to paint a favorable picture for the government, they often cannot hide important aspects of the real situation. For example, numerous stories over the past six months report important clashes between the People’s Liberation Army and the government’s military and para-military forces.
Regions where the most intense combat have been reported include the Huallaga River Valley (in what Peruvians call the Northern “eyebrow of the jungle”); the Central Mountains (which include the departments of Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Apurimac); and the Satipo and Ene River Valley of Junin department (where people of the Ashaninka Indian minority have been important participants in the People’s War).
These three regions are places where the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) has been known to have organized Revolutionary Base Areas—communities where peasants, workers, and their allies wield a new people’s political power organized by the fighters of the People’s War.
Also of note in these news stories is the fact that Peruvian counter-insurgency experts are voicing heightened concerns about what they call the “resurgence” of the People’s War. The press has also reported on some of the government’s vicious response to the People’s War. Measures include extending the areas under a “state of emergency” (where civil rights are officially suspended and there is open rule by the military), and the formation of a special police unit assigned the task of hunting down and capturing the current leadership of the People’s War.
Government Calls it
a “Resurgence”“Shining Path Returns,” cries an October 12 Reuters article which reports on a column of 100 Maoist guerrillas who temporarily took over the city of San Miguel, the capital of La Mar province in the Department of Ayacucho. “The bold attack was one in a series of operations nationwide that have shocked the country...It is compelling evidence,” says the article, “that Shining Path... has reincorporated Ayacucho into a triangular power base after years of patient restructuring. The group now coordinates fighting units in Lima, the Central Highlands and the jungle of Ayacucho, and the drug-growing valley of Huallaga, according to analysts and security forces.”
PCP guerrillas The same article describes how the government sent a 50 man Peruvian Army unit into the same town a week later, summoned the inhabitants and threatened them with “drastic measures.” According to the article, Army Commander Luis Rojas “pounded his fist on a makeshift lectern,” saying “There are many people here who participated in this event [the takeover by the People’s War], there are many collaborators, you are going to tell us who they are.”
On October 18 most Lima dailies reported that “three police officials... were killed and another wounded in an ambush” by some 30 combatants of the People’s War on the road between Tingo Maria and Pucallpa in the Huallaga River Valley.
An October 23 article in Expreso reports four military wounded in a clash with a column of the Maoist guerrillas in the Ayacucho jungle. According to the report, the government’s forces had been dispatched from the Pichari “anti-subversive military base.” The same article reports that in another part of the country, a group of 15 revolutionary combatants had entered the town of Cochas in the Department of Ancash (the department along the coast North of Lima).
On November 23 most Lima dailies reported that eight government soldiers and six guerilla fighters were killed when a column of PCP led fighters took over the town of Aucayacu, the capital of the Jose Crespo y Castillo district, in the Department of Huánuco (just South of the Huallaga River Valley).
According to La Republica (1/30/98), guerrilla fighters of the People’s War entered the city of Tingo Maria and killed a retired Army officer who had been a member of “Counter-Subversive Battalion No. 313.”
Agence France Press (1/2/98) reports a study by “leading analyst” Carlos Tapia has calculated that in the second half of 1997 there were some 500 armed actions of the People’s War, the majority in the Ayacucho area, resulting in “150 casualties” of government forces. He says the figures “demonstrate that the group [referring to the PCP] is clearly in a process of reactivation.”
Foreign Oil Exploration
TargetedOn August 18 many papers carried the story that a column of PCP guerrillas, consisting of 26 men and four women, occupied an oil exploration site run by the French owned ELF oil company. “The workers, among whom were foreigners, were researching... the building of wells along the banks of the Ene River.” According to Expreso (8/18/97), the revolutionaries “lectured” the workers on the goals of the People’s War, and later carried away supplies and radio equipment. In October, an ELF company spokesman said that until there could be a full guarantee against further PCP activities in the area that operations would end. Workers at the site indicated to reporters that the Maoist guerrillas originally wanted to seize a helicopter that was being used by the oil company (El Comercio 10/ 3/97).
Lima wall El Comercio (3/14/98) reports that “according to an official communiqué of the Political-Military Command of Ayacucho” (which represents the government under “emergency rule”) there was a violent clash between Army troops and a column of PCP guerrillas in the region of Vizcatan, in the department of Ayacucho, in the early morning of March 12 (which is International Women’s Day). The government’s report claims that ten guerrilla fighters were killed, and that on the government side one soldier was killed and six injured. But the report also says that “an Army helicopter was not able to land and rescue the [government’s] injured because of the inhospitable and difficult access” and because the revolutionary forces “were firing continuously on the military aircraft.”
Armed Actions
in LimaArmed actions attributed by the press to the People’s War have also been reported in Lima. On November 5, two offices of the foreign owned Peru Telephone Company (owned by a Spanish transnational corporation) were simultaneously attacked with explosives during the night. There were no reported casualties.
Lima shantytown On December 28 it was reported that a car bomb exploded near the offices of the privately owned electrical company Luz del Sur. No casualties were reported (El Comercio, 12/29/97).
Other actions attributed to the People’s War included a bombing that completely destroyed the Police Station in the Ate district of Lima.
The Government’s
A number of articles pointed to the government’s renewed efforts to organize Army led para-military forces called “rondas”—especially in the parts of Ayacucho and in the Satipo and Ene River Valley. These “rondas” are usually directly led and organized by the Peruvian military and in cases where the ronda leaders are said to be “civilians,” the leaders of the “ronderos” (which is what they call the participants) are often retired military and police, or local pro-government lackeys. Sometimes the government refers to these rondas as “Self-Defense Committees.” What they are defending is the government and it’s entire repressive apparatus.
Counter-insurgencyA November 12 article in El Comercio reports that “rondas” in the jungle Province of Satipo are using Ashaninka Indians as guides and frontline cannon fodder against other Ashaninkas who are organized and fighting on the side of the People’s War.
El Comercio reported on November 20 that “in the face of a resurgence” of the People’s War, “some 2,500 ronderos of Ayacucho received an allotment of arms and cases of munitions from the high military command.” A house was also built to house and assist “ronda” members within the Peruvian military base in the city of Ayacucho. According to the report “the weapons were blessed by Monseñor Juan Luis Cipriani, Archbishop of Ayacucho.”
Also, reported on November 27, part of the government’s counter-insurgency was the extension of the “state of emergency” in nine regions of the country including Lima, Callao, Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Cusco (in the South), Junin (where the Satipo River Valley is located), Pasco (the principal mining region), Huánuco, and San Martin and Loreto in the Northeast Amazonian region.
Meanwhile, Peru’s secret police created a new special unit to capture PCP leaders. La Republica of November 7 reports that “In an effort to destroy the nucleus of Sendero leadership, which has maintained the armed struggle five years after the capture of Abimael Guzmán, the government has authorized the formation of a special command of the anti-terrorist police, similar to the one that captured ‘Presidente Gonzalo.’ ...The objective is to stop Oscar Ramírez Durand, ‘Comrade Feliciano’—the man that intelligence services say has been able to reorganize Sendero... The Army in particular has failed numerous times in operations to capture Feliciano in the deep forest of the Apurimac Valley, in the heights of Razhuillca, and in the mountains of the Ene River Valley.”
Hooded Judges System Suspended
But Arbitrary Arrests and Detentions
Have Continued“On September 30, Peruvian defense minister General Sanchez announced that the system of hooded “faceless” judges that was used to try people accused of terrorism will be eliminated.” According to La Republica (10/2/97), the President of the Lima Superior Court noted on October 1 that “it is positive for the country’s image abroad that this system be ended.”
Troops hold those who lack proper ID Despite this move to clean up the image of the vicious Fujimori regime, civilians will still be tried by non-hooded military tribunals when accused of “treason to the fatherland,” and others will still be tried by non-hooded civilian courts for the “crime” of “apology for terrorism”— a “crime” defined as saying or doing anything that can be construed as sympathetic toward the People’s War.
The repeal of trials by “hooded judges” will not change the status of over 4,000 people who are currently imprisoned after being convicted by these outrageous secret tribunals. For example, El Comercio reported on September 25 that the National Police had arrested and accused nine people for belonging to the “People’s Intellectual Movement of the Huancavelica zone.” These teachers were accused of trying to win over students to solidarity with the People’s War. Among the arrested teachers was the Secretary General of the Huancavelica section of the national teachers union (SUTEP).
In another report of people being tried by hooded judges right up to the October 30 suspension date, “A Special Military Tribunal convicted six people” for the “crime” of “treason to the fatherland” while another received a life sentence (El Comercio, 10/8/97).
Also, on October 25, the President of the Women’s Federation of the shantytown of Villa El Salvador (on the outskirts of Lima) was accused of “terrorism” for allegedly helping the PCP organize among people in her shantytown (La Republica, 10/25/97).
More Scandals and Infighting
for the Fujimori RegimeRetired Army General Rodolfo Robles re-affirmed in January that the Army’s Grupo Colina death squad was indeed responsible for the 1992 assassination of union leader Pedro Huilca. Until these recent revelations the government had accused the PCP of Huilca’s assassination. Robles was the Peruvian Army’s third-in-command until he denounced the existence Grupo Colina. In 1994 he was forced to seek exile in Argentina. (Many Lima dailies and AFP, 1/2/98)
Vladimir Montesinos Luisa Zanatta, “a former Army intelligence officer has accused Peru’s spy chief [Vladimir Montesinos—the head of the Peruvian National Intelligence Service who has been closely associated with the CIA] of ordering the tapping of telephones of leading politicians and journalist.” Zanatta, who is now seeking political asylum in Miami, also said in a televised interview that “army intelligence had killed fellow agent Mariella Barreto for passing information to a magazine.” This information regarded the secret burial site of the nine La Cantuta university students and their professor who were murdered by Grupo Colina in 1992. They were killed because the military suspected them of being PCP sympathizers.
According to Zanatta, fellow agent Barreto confided in her shortly before being killed that she had belonged to Grupo Colina (Associated Press, 3/17/98). President Alberto Fujimori has supposedly ordered a “thorough” investigation of her allegations (Los Angeles Times, 3/20/98)— what a joke!
These events are unfolding in the context of the People's War led by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP). In 1992, the president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, staged a coup to assume dictatorial rule over the country and instituted more brutal and sweeping forms of repression against the revolutionary movement -- and anyone else critical of the government. We invite and encourage you to fax or mail articles about Peru that you come across in newspapers, magazines, etc. to the CSRP. With your help, the CSRP will be able to make these news bullets an ongoing resource for our members, supporters, and others trying to follow events in Peru.
Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru
PO Box 1246, Berkeley, California 94701
415-252-5786 * Fax: 415-252-7414
www.csrp.org
