August 4, 1996 * No. 867 (Vol. 18, No. 14)

There is no direct word from the PCP at this point about these recent actions. The information gathered here comes from the bourgeois media in Peru and elsewhere. The media has a proven record of censorship, distortion and outright lies about the PCP and the People's War, so their reports need to be looked at carefully and critically. But the basic picture which emerges is that the Central Committee of the PCP is leading the People's War in the face of heavy obstacles—not only the vicious attacks of the U.S.-backed Fujimori regime, but also the right opportunist political line which is calling for a peace accord to end the People's War.

A Reuters wire service report dated April 18 said that "Shining Path has carried out a string of ambushes on army and police patrols in recent months." (The PCP is usually referred to as the Shining Path or Sendero Luminoso in the media.) And a May 16 IPS report noted that the PCP had carried out "thirty actions¼in Lima and in the mountains and jungles of Peru" in the previous two months. A brief sampling of reports of particular actions shows fighting taking place in various departments (states) of the country.

According to various news organizations, PCP guerrillas ambushed an Armed Forces patrol in Tocache in the department of San Martin in the Upper Huallaga Valley. The media reported that 13 government soldiers were wiped out in the attack. There have been a series of reports of People's War actions during this spring/summer in the jungles of Upper Huallaga, several hundred miles northeast of Lima.

Reuters reported on March 22: "Sources at an army base in Ayacucho department said a patrol of soldiers and civilian militiamen was attacked by between 50 and 60 Shining Path rebels Wednesday [March 20] near the Ene and Apurímac river valleys in the Boca del Mantaro area, 217 miles southeast of Lima." The "civilian militiamen"—also known as rondas—are paramilitary forces set up by the Armed Forces to act as brutal enforcers in the countryside and to participate in the military's armed actions against the PCP. According to another Reuters report from April 18, guerrillas mounted an attack against rondas in the remote village of Anchihuay in Ayacucho. The department of Ayacucho, high in the Andes Mountains, is the area where the first armed actions of the People's War took place in 1980, and it has been one of the strongholds of the revolution in Peru.

A May 5 AFP wire service report discussed fighting in another part of the country: "Patrols of the Peruvian Armed Forces have been waging daily battles with [the PCP guerrillas] for the last 10 days in the Ene River Valley in Peru's central jungle." The Peruvian newspaper El Co-mercio reported that a guerrilla contingent attacked a military base near Satipo in the central jungle area of Junin department.

The May 9 issue of the bourgeois Peruvian magazine Caretas listed PCP actions in a number of areas around the country from March to early May. Included were: March 17—troops ambushed in Ayacucho; March 19—guerrillas attacked the Gicomsa mining complex in the northern department of Trujillo, reportedly taking explosives and radio equipment; March 30—attack on San Miguel and nearby towns in the central department of Junin; April 7—"Senderistas take over the town of Capilla Torres" in the northern department of Lambayeque; April 25—guerrillas and troops clash in the northern department of Piura; April 29—six soldiers and four ronda members are killed in a clash near Huancayo, Junin department.

News reports of PCP armed actions have continued into the early summer. Various Peruvian newspapers reported a series of clashes in early June in the Upper Huallaga Valley area near Tocache in San Martin department. La Republica reported on July 3: "During the weekend, for the second time in less than 20 days, a Senderista column once again occupied La Morada [in Upper Huallaga], this time for three hours. They left calmly even though a military patrol was nearby on Carretera Marginal."

El Comercio (July 17) wrote: "A group of Senderistas took over the town of Las Vegas—25 kilometers east of Tingo María—for six hours, and closed the highway leading to Pucallpa." The same paper reported on July 23 that a column of PCP fighters "occupied the towns of Mariano Damaso Beraun and Chinchao, in the province of Leoncio Prado in the department of Huanuco, for several hours."

While the main arena of the protracted People's War is the countryside, the PCP also carries out actions in the cities, where the reactionary state power is concentrated. The May 9 issue of Caretas described a bold action on May 1, International Workers Day: "The morning of May 1, the Purucuho hill in La Molina looked like a battlefield. A helicopter circled the hill as several troops climbed it. The guards at the main offices of the Central Bank had seen an enormous flagpole on the top of the hill and a huge red flag measuring 4x2 meters." Two members of the police bomb squad who climbed the hill to take down the red flag were injured by booby-trap bombs. And Reuters reported, "Police then came under gunshot fire from a neighboring hill--side as they swept the area for more devices."

There were a series of actions in Lima around May 17, the anniversary of the start of the People's War. The Lima newspapers reported that on May 16 a car bomb exploded in front of the main headquarters of the Shell Oil Company, heavily damaging the building. This was the same day that Shell had signed a contract with the Fujimori regime for rights to explore oil in Peru. On March 17 more large red flags were raised in several shantytowns and on various hills and bridges. And an electrical blackout hit Lima in the early hours of May 18, lasting several days in some parts of the city. The government claimed the cause was technical difficulties. But according to Caretas, the "common wisdom" among the people was that this was a PCP action, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the People's War.

The U.S.-backed Fujimori dictatorship has repeatedly claimed that they are close to completely "pacifying" the country. But Caretas magazine in particular has run recent commentaries with themes and titles like "Sendero Comes Back" (May 23). Caretas represents certain sections of the ruling class in Peru who have some contradictions with Fujimori and the forces now dominant in the government. But their comments off of the recent PCP actions clearly reflect worries in the ruling class as a whole.

The government's own actions show how seriously the reactionary regime is taking the continuing People's War. Fuji-mori has been regularly renewing and ex-tending emergency military rule over large areas of the countryside. Under emergency rule, the Armed Forces are given an even freer hand to brutalize the people and suppress the flow of information.

And the U.S. imperialists are undoubtedly keeping a close eye on the situation in Peru. On June 26, El Comercio reported that "several hundred" U.S. troops have been taking part since April in a huge "anti-drug" military operation in several countries, with the "focus" on Peru. The operation, called "Laser Strike," involves troops from the U.S. Southern Command based in Panama, AWAC radar surveillance planes, and other agencies such as the Coast Guard and the DEA. The U.S. has often used the "war on drugs" as a cover for "low intensity" military intervention in Latin American countries, and especially against the People's War in Peru.