The amnesty is a crude and shameful attempt by Peru's U.S.-backed rulers to wipe their hands clean of the blood of the tens of thousands of peasants, workers and middle class people that they have murdered and tortured. But this move only makes the ugly nature of Peru's dictators even more clear for the world to see.
But the case was blown wide open because of exposure that came up through infighting within Peru's reactionary ruling class. In May 1993, General Robles--the third highest-ranking officer in the army--told reporters of the existence of a death squad inside the Armed Forces that kidnaps, tortures and murders opponents of the government. Robles said this death squad was responsible for the disappearance of the La Cantuta students and professor. And he revealed that these assassins operated under direct orders from General Hermoza Rios, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and Vladimirio Montesinos--the head of the intelligence services, a long-time CIA operative and top advisor to Fujimori.
Following the exposure by Robles, two secret mass graves were found around Lima, and remains of several burned human bodies were uncovered. Evidence gathered from the graves confirmed that the remains were those of the victims of La Cantuta. These developments forced the Fujimori regime to switch from total denial to scrambling for a way to take the heat off top government and military officials. A secret military court gave six soldiers 15-to-20-year sentences. Three officers were sentenced one to five years for "negligence." The court then declared the case closed.
The secret trial was a blatant coverup of the decision-makers on top. The military court protected those in the top leadership of the Armed Forces and the government by ruling that the nine convicted men had acted on their own and that there was no involvement by the Armed Forces high command or by the National Intelligence Service (SIN), the secret police agency run by Montesinos.
The amnesty also covers a small handful of other military officers convicted in several other cases of atrocities against the people. (Other officers freed by the amnesty were put in jail in cases involving conflicts within the military and the government, such as those convicted for plotting a coup against Fujimori). If any kind of real justice existed in Peru's official society, thousands of military and political figures--all the way up to the top levels of the government--should have been convicted since the start of the people's war.
Just in the years 1983-84, the government counterinsurgency forces murdered 8,700 Peruvians, mostly poor peasants in areas where the Maoist guerrillas had made advances in linking up with the masses and mobilizing them in revolutionary armed struggle. Another 4,000 people were "disappeared"--kidnapped by the government troops or death squads and never heard from again.
Whole villages have been destroyed by the military, including through air attacks by helicopter gunships. Rapes are a regular part of the way Peruvian troops operate in the countryside and deal with prisoners.
In 1986, the government ordered a massive military assault on three prisons--hundreds of revolutionary prisoners were killed in cold blood. In 1992 government troops launched another murderous attack on political prisoners, this time killing over 40 revolutionary prisoners at Canto Grande prison.
Only a very small number of military and police officers have ever been jailed for the long and bloody list of atrocities by the reactionary forces during the past 15 years. And the masterminds behind these crimes sit at the very top of the Peruvian regime.
The U.S. government issued an official statement saying they were "concerned" about Fujimori's amnesty law. It's not the lives of Peru's oppressed people that the U.S. government is concerned about. The Yankee godfathers send blood money to back the Peruvian government's dirty war against the Maoist guerrillas, and they built a counterinsurgency base near some of the PCP's revolutionary base areas. The U.S. rulers are worried that the amnesty will add to the fascist stink of the Peruvian government, and they want to keep a bit of public distance--while continuing to back the Fujimori regime in various ways.
While the jailed military officers go free, the government and the military are continuing to carry out the vicious war against the PCP and a brutal crackdown against the people. Large areas of the country are under emergency rule, where the military is given free rein to carry out fascist repression. New prisons are being built to house captured guerrillas and people who are caught up in the mass arrests carried out by the police in the urban shantytowns. Paramilitary "ronda" squads, armed and led by the Armed Forces, threaten and attack supporters and activists of the people's war. Worried about student activism, the military has sent undercover agents to universities and occupied several of the campuses where revolutionary influence is very strong.
The Fujimori regime continues to hold Chairman Gonzalo (Abimael Guzmán), the main leader of the PCP, in isolation in an underground cell--denying him visits from his lawyers, doctors and friends. As the International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Abimael Guzmán (IEC) reported (See RW #810), Fujimori recently threatened to deliberately kill Chairman Gonzalo when he announced that the PCP leader will die his jail cell within three years.
The regime openly boasts of torturing revolutionary prisoners. In March the Armed Forces captured several people they said were leaders of the people's war, including Margie Clavo. After she was interrogated, she was brought before the press with obvious signs of torture. The Peruvian press reported that she was limping and that some of her teeth were missing. Clavo was captured with her 2-year-old daughter, and the Peruvian police has denied her family access to the child. It is well known that the police regularly torture political prisoners by threatening to harm or even raping their children. In the face of all this, Clavo shouted defiantly: "The People's War Will Triumph," "Persist, Persist, Persist," and "Long Live Chairman Gonzalo." The police torturer who interrogated Clavo told the press that the police "will get information by wrenching it from her...although the woman is stronger than we thought."
Opposed to all this is the road of people's war led by the Communist Party of Peru. It is a just war of oppressed people, aiming to bring down the nightmarish system in Peru and bring into being a new society where the masses are no longer victims but masters. All those around the world who hate oppression and injustice need to support the sisters and brothers in Peru who are leading the people in the heroic war against the death-squad regime and the imperialist monster behind it.