The image of women fighters in the people's war in Peru. It strikes you one way or another -- depending on whether you are the oppressor or the oppressed.
For the oppressor there is fear and panic: "This is not the way it's supposed to be. Not the way women are supposed to act. It's unfeminine. Vicious. Women with guns! Taking up Marxism! Fanatics. A threat to our control. Bad for business.
But for oppressed, working people everywhere, the revolutionary women in Peru are supremely uplifting. For people in the barrios and ghettos in places like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago -- these sisters are part of us. They are like us. They are part of our blood, sweat and tears. They are part of our fearless struggle, not just to survive, but to bring about a new revolutionary day.
The revolutionary women in Peru are shining light on a brighter future -- where there are no rich or poor. Where women are not treated like the dogs of the world. These women are proving that the future belongs to the dispossessed. And they challenge us and give us heart to step up the struggle for revolution in every corner of the world.
The people's war, led by the Communist Party of Peru, is known for its uncompromising commitment to women's liberation. The Communist Party of Peru has raised the slogan: "Break the Chains! Unleash the Fury of Women. As a Mighty Force for Revolution!" And the fight against women's oppression is a component part of its whole program, strategy, and goals. One of the things this revolution is known for is the extent to which women fighters and leaders have been a part of the struggle from the very beginning. And it is a living example of what the great revolutionary Mao Tsetung meant when he said, "Women Hold Up Half the Sky."
Why have so many thousands of women in Peru joined the people's war? They like the idea that all existing governing structures must be destroyed in order to rebuild society from the bottom up. they are attracted to a struggle aimed at digging up the deep systemic roots in class society that place women under the foot of just about every person, place and thing. They see no hope in pitiful reforms. And they refuse to live and die on their knees.
In the people's war, they know they will not be raped by a Shining Path soldier. They will not be humiliated and degraded for being poor and having no formal education. They; will not be put down for being Indian or for being a women. Instead they will be welcomed, trained in the science of revolution and given a gun. They will become confident leaders and fighters against the system that has kept them down since the day they were born.
This International Women's Day, all those who dream of a new society free from all forms of oppression can draw heart and inspiration from the revolutionary women in Peru. For they are fighting in concert with all our struggles against the system -- for an end to all oppression and a brighter future for all of humanity.
Mao said that revolutions must go through many twists and turns. In 1992, Peru's Fujimori captured Chairman Gonzalo -- the leader of the Communist Party of Peru -- in an operation directed by U.S. spy agencies. To this day, he is being held in total isolation and denied visits from his lawyers, doctors, and friends. The Peruvian military has been carrying out a brutal counter-revolutionary campaign in some of the areas where the Maoist guerrillas built base areas and mobilized the masses in building a new revolutionary power. Fujimori calls these military operations his "Little Vietnam" -- after the mass murder and destruction that the U.S. carried out in Southeast Asia. But since the people's war began in 1980, our revolutionary sisters and brothers in Peru have persevered and advanced in the face of the enemy's extreme reactionary violence. And today, the people's war continues in the mountains and jungles of Peru.
The following scenes from the revolution in Peru show the power of the women in the Peruvian people's war and how that war is breaking all the chains of women's oppression.
In a rural area in Peru a revolutionary rally gets underway. Peasants gather to march through the countryside, holding red banners and flags with the communist hammer and sickle. A young woman with a gun leads them in revolutionary slogans: "Long Live the Communist Party of Peru!" "Long Live the People's Guerrilla Army."
A young woman, wearing a hat, sneakers, and blue jeans, props her gun across her lap as she sits down to take a rest with her fellow comrades. In a defiant voice she says, "I am proud to be a member of the People's Guerrilla Army. As a soldier, as a Red fighter of Chairman Gonzalo, I too am willing to give my life for the Party and the Revolution to defend the new power we have gained all over the country.
Another rally is going on in Ayacucho. This is an area where the people's war has been particularly strong. The peasants have gathered today to celebrate a significant victory. A young woman with a gun steps forward from the crowd. A flower is stuck in the brim of her hat. A blanket and full pack of provisions is strapped to her back. Unsure at first, but then gaining more confidence as she continues, she gives a speech to the crowd, raising her fist to emphasize certain points. She says:
"Today we open our Open People's Committee. We are guided by the shining light of the greatest man of the era, Chairman Gonzalo. Who is Chairman Gonzalo? He is the new leader of the heroic struggle. Teacher amongst teachers, great amongst the greatest. He is the eagle of our party. Look at the years of the triumphant revolution. Look how he forms legions of iron willing to overcome any storm. Look how he builds New Power brick by brick. Revolution is justified.
"What do we have? Nothing. What do we want? Everything! We want a new society without rich or poor. A society in total harmony guaranteed by Chairman Gonzalo. By defending and applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and Gonzalo Thought, we will light the Shining Path. Follow Chairman Gonzalo!"
Today, these women are remembered and honored for the tremendous sacrifice they made to the revolutionary struggle.
Edith Lagos was one of these revolutionary martyrs. In 1982 she was a young 19-year-old guerrilla fighter. She led a small detachment of guerrillas to blow a hole in the Ayacucho jail. She and her comrades freed all of the prisoners, including captured revolutionaries, and seized weapons from this outpost. Edith was later captured by the police in Ayacucho and bayoneted to death.
Edith was loved by the people for her revolutionary actions. The government declared her funeral an illegal gathering. But 30,000 people came to her funeral in Ayacucho--a town of only 70,000 people.
The women revolutionary prisoners here are disciplined and organized. They cook and serve their own food. They organize clean-up, study and volleyball and basketball games. On the walls throughout their living quarters are hand-drawn pictures of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao. And in the prison courtyard, the stone walls are covered with huge, colorful murals of the people's war and Chairman Gonzalo.
It is International Women's Day and the women have worked hard to plan an elaborate and spirited commemoration. In columns, heads held high, they march into the courtyard in uniforms they have made themselves: dark pants, green khaki shirts and matching army "Mao caps." They are carrying large red flags and each woman waves a red scarf up and down to the rhythm of the march. They carry a big picture of Chairman Gonzalo. And to the beat of a drum, they sing a revolutionary song. On this day, their voices bounce with extra force off the high prison walls:
"Fighters of the Revolution! The front of the clamoring people! Defenders of the Revolution. Our way is armed struggle against hunger and exploitation. We will defeat evil imperialism! Victory is the people and their guns. People's Women's Movement."
"Chairman Gonzalo is our Guide. He leads the people of the world to victory. We follow the Shining Path. Fighting to the end without surrender. They perform a skit, reading quotes on women's liberation from Marx, Lenin and Mao. And holding handmade wooden guns, they sing about Mao Tsetung and the building of socialism in China.
A woman prisoner representative says: "We are prisoners of war. Like fighters of the People's Army we carry out three tasks. We fight against the genocidal plans that are part of the government's campaign. We demand our rights as prisoners. We prepare ourselves ideologically and politically with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and Gonzalo Thought. And we try to be self-sufficient so that we're not a burden on the masses."
"Since last September, the two prison buildings holding the revolutionary men and women have been under siege by the Armed Forces. The prisoners warned, in declarations smuggled out to the world, that the government was planning to slaughter them, under cover of 'regaining control of the prison' and 'transferring' the revolutionaries to other jails. Fujimori, who took the government completely into his own hands through an Army coup in April, badly needed some sign of success to show his foreign and domestic backers and dispel the growing shadow of doom hovering above his regime.
"Hordes of heavily armed soldiers and elite police surrounded the women's pavilion on Wednesday, May 6, hoping to first subjugate the women and then later the men. But they could not. The prison they had built was turned against them. Women standing on the tops of thick cement walls and on high rooftops amidst gunfire and explosions, scarcely visible amidst the smoke and teargas clouds, threw down whatever was at hand at their assailants. They fought wearing homemade gas masks and using whatever they could until they beat back the assault waves, killing at least two police. Then the women gained the building where the men prisoners of war were held and together they fought off the police until the night of Saturday, May 9. Finally, after an eight-hour pitched battle in which the reactionaries deployed all of the heavy weaponry imaginable, the revolutionaries were overpowered.
"At noon on Sunday, May 10, Fujimori personally was brought into the prison courtyard to conduct an obscene victory ceremony. Behind him could be seen prisoners, kept face down on the ground with their hands behind their necks. Whips and clubs cracked out and unleashed dogs were set on them. But still the prisoners could be heard chanting and singing."
More than 40 prisoners were murdered at Canto Grande, more than 100 were wounded, and revolutionary leaders were singled out and executed when the fighting was over.
People's committees are elected and under their leadership the people organize a whole new way of production, a new culture, new forms of justice and new relations among the people. A new economy is being developed by the People's Committees that casts aside the old and rotten relations of production and exchange that have been controlled by landowners and top drug traffickers. The new economy is based on the principle of self-sufficiency and collective labor in accordance with the necessities of the people's war.
The land is seized from the landowners and distributed, first among the poor peasants and then, if there is any left, among peasants who already have a little land. The land is given not to the male head of the family, but to the family as a whole, with women in the family having equal control over the land. Even though the land is given to individual families, it's not worked individually. Instead, collective work is organized where everyone is expected to pitch in for the benefit of the whole community.
Divorce is granted on demand. Children and women are not the property of their husbands or their fathers. And if a woman wants to join the guerrilla army, she's allowed to go, even if her husband or father may not agree. People's committees have put an end to prostitution, drug addiction and wife beating. Widows and the elderly receive necessary assistance from the community and education is made available to everyone.
All this is in stark contrast to the way the peasants are forced to live under feudalism and capitalism--where everything is subordinated to the needs of big landowners and capitalists--and women are kept down by brutal social relations.
A whole new set of revolutionary social relationships are being nurtured in the revolutionary base areas, and in this way the people's war is preparing conditions for the revolution to seize nationwide political power.
The significance of the role of women in this whole revolutionary process was brought out in the New York Times in a 1982 interview done with a woman prisoner in El Callao. Lilian Torres, who had been a street vendor in Lima, had been jailed for being a guerrilla fighter. She said, "At first, when they asked me to join the party, I was a little scared. But when I finally understood I was fighting not just for Peru, but for breaking chains worldwide, for the world revolution, then I wasn't scared anymore. Finally, I had something to live and die for. At the time, I stopped being a vegetable." This is the kind of vision that has brought many more women fighters forward to strengthen and lead the revolution to victory.