One month ago, on April 22, 150 commandos from Peru's Armed Forces stormed the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima which had been held for four months by members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). All but one of the hostages held at the residence came out alive, while the troops killed all 14 of the MRTA members involved in the takeover.
Since this bloody raid, more evidence has come out showing that this was a premeditated massacre by Peru's Fujimori regime--and that the U.S. government had a direct hand in the brutal operation.
But Fujimori let slip in an interview with the Associated Press that he gave orders to ``neutralize''--in other words kill--all the MRTA members in the residence. Other news reports say that the troops were under orders to ``take no prisoners.'' The soldiers shot two young women who had tried to surrender. Two other MRTA members were reportedly disarmed, stood up against a wall and executed. The troops reportedly fired bullets into all the bodies to make sure their gruesome work was complete.
Shortly after the raid, the local TV news repeatedly showed clips of Fujimori walking through the ambassador's residence and gloating over the bodies--some showing signs of mutilation by the troops. This sickening display was obviously meant as a message that any armed opposition to the government would be put down savagely.
At the same time, the Fujimori regime tried to presage that any armed opposition to the government would be put down savagely.
At the same time, the Fujimori regime tried to prevent facts about the full extent of the barbarities committed by the troops from coming out. The relatives of the murdered MRTA members were not allowed to claim the bodies. Most of the bodies were buried in unmarked graves at scattered sites. The relatives were harassed and questioned by the police for even trying to find the bodies and have funerals. Two relatives were arrested and beaten for handing out pamphlets calling for better prison conditions.
Peruvian soldiers began practicing for the raid within a week of the MRTA takeover on December 17. The much-publicized negotiations were an effort to buy time and put the military preparations in place. Whenever there was talk of an agreement, the government would do something to derail the talks. A diary belonging to the MRTA leader, found in the compound after the raid, reportedly revealed that they had reduced their demands to the release of 23 imprisoned MRTA rebels, from the original demand of the release of over 400. This clearly contradicts Fujimori's claim that the MRTA was refusing to negotiate.
It is hardly surprising that the U.S. praised Fujimori--because the massacre was a U.S.-led operation! Cohen claimed that ``the U.S. played virtually no role'' and that the raid ``was entirely a Peruvian government operation,'' while the CIA just said ``no comment'' when asked about its role. This is like a mafia boss insisting that he had no role in murders carried out by his own hit men.
In reality, the U.S. had a direct hand in this crime. There were reports immediately after the raid that the Peruvian military received training, assistance, and logistical support from the U.S., Israel and other countries. An ex-FBI agent told CNN News that the Peruvian security forces which carried out the raid were trained on U.S. soil last December for precisely this type of operation.
Intelligence information supplied by the U.S. government played a crucial role in the Peruvian regime's ability to carry out the raid. Fujimori said that intelligence was key to the whole operation and that he gave the final go-ahead because ``the information was so precise.''
According to the Peruvian press, a CIA-operated Schweizer RG-8A spy plane flew over the ambassador's residence during the MRTA takeover. The plane carried high-tech devices--probably including heat-sensitive instruments--which allowed the CIA to pinpoint the location of people inside the residence, as well as mines and booby-traps reportedly planted by the MRTA.
According to news reports, a variety of high-tech listening devices and radio transmitters were smuggled into the residence in chess pieces, a guitar, crutches and a Bible. These devices were also placed in the tunnels dug by the troops under the residence, allowing the military to determine precisely where the MRTA members and the hostages were.
Fujimori boasted that this was all ``Peruvian know-how.'' But this is nonsense. One aspect of the imperialist domination of the Peruvian economy is that the foreign capitalists have a monopoly on advanced technologies. So it is certain that the high-tech spy equipment was supplied by the U.S.
It has come to light that the on-the-scene mastermind behind the raid was Vladimiro Montesinos, the head of Peru's National Intelligence Services (SIN). Montesinos' connection with the CIA goes back to the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he passed on sensitive information about the Peruvian military. Later, he was a leading lawyer for Peru's drug barons. And in 1990 he became one of the most powerful officials in Peru as Fujimori's ``right-hand man.''
His position gives Montesinos the ability to monitor and exert much control over large parts of the state apparatus, including the Peruvian police and military. Montesinos is reported to be the head of the most vicious death squad in Peru--the Colina Group. This death squad has carried out many horrible crimes--including the kidnapping and murder of eight students and a professor at La Cantuta University in 1992 and the massacre of some 15 people at Barrios Altos, Lima. The victims of these massacres were people accused of being sympathizers of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP--known as the Shining Path in the media), which is leading the Maoist people's war.
As head of SIN, Montesinos is a key channel for the powerful U.S. influence over the Peruvian state. Last year, after Montesinos was accused of accepting $50,000 per month in drug bribes and then torturing his accuser to force him to recant, the U.S. government came to the defense of Montesinos. The State Department issued a statement defending the Fujimori regime from charges of involvement in drug trafficking. Then Clinton's ``drug czar,'' General Barry McCaffrey, made a special trip to Peru and was photographed with Fujimori and Montesinos. This chummy meeting was widely understood as a signal of firm U.S. support for the regime and its two most powerful figures.
The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have been deeply involved in the counterinsurgency operations of the Peruvian military for years, and the embassy massacre revealed other aspects of this connection. For example, the U.S. State Department--while denying a direct role in the April 22 raid--admitted that it had provided ``counter-terrorism'' training to hundreds of Peruvian police officers since the mid 1980s.
The U.S. government was not alone in giving Fujimori high marks for the embassy massacre. Japan's Prime Minister Hashimoto traveled to Lima to thank Fujimori for the ``successful outcome'' to the embassy crisis and said that Japan's ties to Peru had been strengthened. And the Japanese imperialists are now extending a record amount of aid and loans to the Peruvian regime.
While the embassy massacre has given Fujimori a boost, at least in the eyes of his big-power backers, the reactionary rulers in Peru face many deep problems. Fujimori's so-called ``economic miracle'' has been a boon to the imperialists and a handful of rich Peruvians. But his policies have driven the majority of the people deeper into suffering. Half of Peru's 24 million people live in poverty, almost one in five live in extreme poverty without enough food, and 85 percent of workers do not have full-time jobs. One woman recently told a reporter, ``My whole family has to dedicate itself to street hawking because there is no work. Where I live everyone is poor and we have water for only about an hour every three days.'' This situation is fueling widespread hatred of the government.
Meanwhile, there is sharpening infighting within the reactionary ruling class--and the embassy crisis brought some of this to the surface. Shortly before the raid, two top government officials--the Interior Minister and the National Police Chief--were forced to resign, apparently for disagreeing with Fujimori's plan. Immediately after the massacre, 19 top police officials, including five generals, were fired and charged by the Military Supreme Council with negligence and disobedience.
Most importantly the Communist Party of Peru, under the leadership of its Central Committee, is continuing to carry forward the people's war--the real answer to the life-and-death problems that the people of Peru face.
Fujimori and his U.S. backers may have hoped that the embassy massacre would serve to frighten and silence the masses of people. But there were signs that the massacre touched off some open expressions of anger against the government. One tire shop worker told reporters, ``The whole time the government was negotiating, it was building those tunnels and planning to kill them all.'' A man who washes cars for a living said bitterly, ``They said we would never see a military intervention, but that's what they did. They are liars.''
The Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru (USA)
PO Box 1246, Berkeley, California 94701
415-252-5786 * Fax: 415-252-7414