Revolution is risky. For some it always sounds risky and insane (especially from a certain vantage point). In Peru, the Communist Party decided (after a sharp internal debate) that they had reached strategic equilibrium with the government (in the late 1980s and early 1990s). This piece looks at the specific strategic and tactical decisions that were to be made as Guerrilla activities moved into urban settings. This shows the tactics of a real revolutionary movement that truly mobilized and relied on the great creative power of oppressed people, and that provides an understanding of the possibility of “creating favorable conditions through struggle,” i.e. that our work can transform objective conditions that (otherwise) seem to be quite adverse. Everything from graffiti as propaganda, to armed strikes, to labor strategy, is touched on here–so read this and grab whatever universal lessons you can, it’s a fantastic read!

Note: above picture is from Instabul, May Day, 2014. Not Peru.



May Directive for Metropolitan Lima



INTRODUCTION

The Third Campaign of the Plan to Impulse the Development of Base Areas (“impulse”) is taking place at a high level, and with a great impact. It is providing solid bases toward its completion, and laying down a solid basis for a great future plan for the People’s War. In Lima the major sabotage against the Institute of Liberty and Democracy (ILD) was very good, of great political content and took place at a very opportune moment, just hours before the signing of the U.S.-Peru treaty against the People’s War. This treaty, which is disguised as a “war on drugs,” targets and uses the People’s War so they implement their so- called “reinsertion.” This action clearly expressed how the PCP condemns the aggression perpetrated by imperialism, mainly Yankee imperialism. It also shows our complete opposition to revisionist positions of those elected or armed like the MRTA, who at no time condemned it, much less denounced, the treaty as an imperialist aggression against the People’s War. This is evident in their official communiques published by the Daily “Cambio” and the interviews of their leaders in official reactionary magazines such as “Caretas.”

The attack against ILD has a great impact in the country and abroad, because it promotes anti-imperialist feelings in the Peruvian people and the need to defend our nation that is being developed now. It even has an impact in part, on the big Peruvian bourgeoisie, which has strong contradictions with the mercenary of Yankee imperialism, Fujimori. After highlighting the above actions, we extend our greetings to the Party in Lima, for a good start of the Third Campaign of the Plan to Impulse the Development of Base Areas.

AGENDA

I. REPORT ON THE TASKS ASSIGNED BY THE NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND THE APPLICATION OF THE THIRD CAMPAIGN.

II. ABOUT THE FIVE PROBLEMS:

1. The XI Anniversary: Documents of the Second Plenum and other documents.

2. Initiate the celebration of the V Anniversary of the Day of Heroism, yearly Campaign throughout the country; objectives agreed upon (in the Second Plenum of the Central Committee); possibilities of a central publication and statements of other organisms; poster; denouncing the demagogue and genocidal Garcia Perez; mass actions in diverse small sectors; what is reaction up to in the Shining Trenches of Combat. And above all, what is reaction doing during the months prior to the first year in Government of the most shameless lackey of Yankee imperialism (Fujimori)? (THIS IS THE MAIN POINT.)

I. REPORT ON THE TASKS ASSIGNED BY THE NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND APPLICATION OF THE THIRD CAMPAIGN

ON JUSTICE BY THE MASSES. Promote and ensure that the masses arm themselves, get organized and administer justice by themselves, as they are the Base Force of the revolution. The Party must lead and teach them how to do it. In addition, since they are fighting tirelessly, the masses create many forms of organization and struggle. We must lead and elevate their potential to struggle for the revolution to higher levels.

ON “CIVIC ACTIONS” IN THE CITIES BY THE REACTIONARY ARMED FORCES. Oppose the army’s “distribution” or “civic actions.” The masses must get organized to handle the food and medical attention that they are rightfully entitled to get. Therefore, they should manage and distribute it themselves. The rule to apply this policy is simple: the first served should be the poorest of the poor, then the poor in general, the little ones, the middle ones, and least of all, the rich. Thus, the people understand that they must appropriate these products, since the handouts given to them are not gifts by the government, nor by imperialism, but are some by-products of the Revolution, and part of the rights benefitting them. The masses rightfully demand for more and better services, and must refuse to do any counterrevolutionary work in return, such as cleaning the walls from PCP writings, or snitching in exchange for these handouts. The walls are the pages whereon the people express their ideas, since they have nowhere else to write on, neither radio, nor TV, nor newspapers. This is because the entire media is in the hands of their exploiters.

When have they allowed the poor to express themselves? The only ones they allow to speak in the media are the opportunists, the revisionists, the pastiches, the lackeys, the workers’ aristocracy, and the bogus leaders of the masses. Educate the masses about the political objective of these actions by the State: they are part of its low intensity warfare, aimed against the People’s War, and at containing the explosiveness of the masses. Teach the people that these crumbs, which they have wrested away with their ceaseless struggle, are not going to solve their problems, and that only the Revolution can truly address the rights of the people, and the Revolution is made with the People’s War.

Educate them on the State’s economic objectives, and teach them that the essence of these hand outs is to minimally compensate the monstrous cut in wages, and how and why this is done by the reactionaries in times of crisis. This has been already taught to us by Marx (reproduce his quotations or those of the party documents.) Denounce and unmask how imperialism and reaction use that compensation of salary to buy consciences and try to tie the people to their ideological, political and economic plans. The oppressors and the exploiters want to use the masses to support fly-by-night ideologies and reactionary idealism. To this end, they traffic with the people’s religious fervor. This is done in order to sell them the ideology of an old backward, hypocritical and false Catholic religion, which historically has always been against progress, and science.

Didn’t the Church organize and support armies, crusades, thousands of intrigues leading to mass slaughters, conquests and oppression of people? The Inquisition was used here in these lands and its tortures were savage. Did Pope Pius XII ever condemn Hitler’s Fascism and his genocides in World War II? With regard to Protestantism and its proliferating sects, aren’t they developing plans of penetration of imperialism, mainly Yankee imperialism? The Catholic Church not only does the same but also uses these compensatory crumbs to help revisionists and opportunists continue manipulating and galloping over the shoulders of the masses.

Politically, they want to convince the masses of the need to preserve the Old State, which gives them “freedom” and “democracy,” when in reality the masses experience repression and death on a daily basis, add their hunger and misery. The “freedom” they talk about is freedom for the powerful now ruling, and not for the downtrodden. The “democracy” they preach is simply the dictatorship of the rich ruling classes of the Old State: the big bourgeoisie and the landlords, and both of these classes are accountable to Yankee imperialism. This is the “democracy” that the cynical and mercenary Fujimori steps daily on, undermining the State’s supposedly demo-bourgeois order, and expressing fascist ideas and positions.

Again, reaction is launching the old treacherous slogan of “sacrifice today for a better tomorrow,” and as usual, “in defense of freedom and democracy,” covering up new capitalist accumulation based on the largest feasible surplus value. The result is the increase of exploitation and oppression in which they are sinking us. Furthermore, for example during the Drug Agreement, what poor coca growing peasants express their ideas? Oh, of course! Some of them might have been called in to “express their views” but no one would pay attention to them. This is because here only those in power listen to each other, all decisions are made among reactionaries. But above all, they obey anything that their imperialist masters order them to do.

When did they have any interest in solving the problems of the people? Never, and today even less. Other examples of their “freedom and democracy” are the decrees against the working class or the marketing of lands, which is just despoiling the peasants off what little land they had.

Another example occurs when the masses get out on the streets to demand their rights. Aren’t they then repressed, arrested, disappeared and murdered? This happens at the minor sign of political opposition, which is more brutal against those who profess Marxism. Aren’t they trying to annihilate us? The genocide of the Shining Trench of Combat on June 19, 1986 must be remembered. The genocides committed by Fujimori too. Show facts and concrete examples of struggles to teach the masses. Allow them to express their opinions, their legitimate grievances and demands freely.

Economically, with the so-called “aid” and “survival organizations” (Glass of Milk, Kitchen Soups, etc.) they are trying to compensate for the brutal reduction in wages, so that the workers and laborers who live in situations of hunger and extreme poverty, are forced to work for meager wages that are not even enough to recover their labor power. And for what? To apply the so called “neoliberal revolution,” which is an obsolete economic concept imposed by imperialism to promote its “market economy” and “sustainable growth, “A Yankee imperialist thesis applied through CEPAL (and the IMF), which are only plans for more dependency and exploitation.

For this reason, they want to lower inflation by applying deflation, generating recession and reducing the fiscal deficit. All of this is done by squeezing the working class like a lemon, cutting wages, generating more and more unemployment, increasing the cost of living, reducing the people’s purchasing capacity, and imposing crippling taxes on those below. In summary, all the recipes of the IMF, the International Development Bank and the World Bank have the goal of demanding the “accumulation of wealth,” which is nothing more than the imposition of more draconian measures against the people, to accumulate new capital through increased surplus value, and consequently provide better guarantees to foreign investments.

They dream that in 1992 they may get some, since the loans serve to pay the foreign debt. That is what the international finance system calls “reinsertion.” Hence, their stabilization plan enslaves the people and the class even more. That’s why the people must not let themselves be tied down. Their only way out is to struggle to wrest away more conquests. They must advance toward the conquest of Power by means of the People’s War, demolish this Old State, and then build the People’s Republic of Peru, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Peru.

Summarizing, the economic plan of the reactionaries has the following characteristics:

1. It is part of the low intensity war,

2. It tries to compensate the cut of wages with philanthropy (short term handouts); and

3. It uses “bourgeois philanthropy” trying to tie the masses into their neoliberal plans, the market economy, the ideology, politics and economics of imperialism (mainly Yankee imperialism.) The above plans are implemented by the pro-imperialist mercenary Fujimori, sustained by the genocidal armed forces and police, and supported by the Church, principally the Catholic Church, and all the defenders of the Old State, revisionism and opportunism of the so-called United Left (IU), the Socialist Left (IS) or their offspring, and the collaboration of armed revisionism such as MRTA.

We must unmask the reactionary programs and plans, understand well their essence and purpose, destroy them, and organize the masses to carry on the struggle and wrest away conquests (from the oppressors). We must also empower their struggles with armed actions so that the reactionaries are unmasked, undermined, and their plans are blown up through the air. The Party leads, the masses do the rest. We must blow up the sinister plans of Peruvian reaction, imperialism and revisionism, who are tying the masses down to vile exploitation, and are trying to annihilate the People’s War.

ON THE STRIKE AT THE CENTRAL HIGHWAY INDUSTRIES (CARRETERA CENTRAL, LIMA APRIL 29-30, 1991) First question, what are the facts? What happened? The report states that a female official ordered a worker to clean the sanitary latrines. The worker was a technician from another section who was not under her supervision. This comrade refused to carry out her orders. The petty official insisted on humiliating him in front of his co-workers, threatened to fire him on the spot, and apply the new anti worker decree. This provoked a cardiac arrest from which he died. The petty official did not even allow his fellow workers to get close to the body laying on the floor. It was an unforeseen situation.

How does a Communist act in such circumstances? One thing is to be a Communist and another one is to be an activist. He, (another comrade being criticized) was a Communist, and his duty was superior. Therefore, his duty was to place himself at the head of the protest of his fellow workers, and to coordinate the planning of the struggle with the activists. If the workers decided to stop work, they were right in proposing a two-day work stoppage throughout the Central Highway. They could not let that murder of a worker by a Company official remain quiet. What was the mistake of the comrade leading the strike?

He did not communicate forthwith on this incident to his Party cell, and therefore did not empower additional means to strengthen the struggle. We can’t criticize him for not counterpoising the Party to Front, because as a communist, he leads the struggle and promotes the response of the masses. Besides, the strike was successful and mobilized the masses. Another mistake he made was not to call the workers to strike in the name of the Central Highway Struggle Committee. But what gets complicated is that they (inadvertently) agitated for “free trade unions.” What does that mean? Let’s analyze well so as not to err. The so called “free trade unions” follow the false concept that political parties must not lead workers’ unions, which is contrary, opposed to Marxism. Was that his idea? On the other hand, the regime just promulgated “Supreme Decree 016,” by which 20 workers associated are enough to form a union; so that in a factory with 100 workers, five unions could be organized.

Were they against that disposition? It would be good to scratch the bottom of those criteria exposed and analyzed in the midst of the two-line struggle, in a Rectification Campaign aiming to educate the new militants. A lesson we must take out of this is: Never counterpoise Party to masses. The Party is the highest social organization of the working class and defends the interests of its class, the proletariat, and other classes that constitute the people. The Party is the Highest Command of the revolution, the Party is an indispensable tool to lead the revolution, Lenin said: “Give me a Communist Party, and I will transform Russia.” Therefore, he conceived the Party as a lever (palanca). President Mao taught us: “Trust the Party and trust the masses.” We reaffirm those truths.

One thing is the obligation of militants, another is that of activists, and yet another is that of the masses. As an example, the comrade erred in not notifying the Party, and applying the Party line to the slogans used in the strike. This is corrected internally and by persuasion, by education, by analyzing what those ideas entail, by looking up the experiences of the Party, the teachings of Marxism, and by distinguishing us from the criteria spread by reaction and revisionism on the subject. We must never counterpoise the Party to the masses or the Party to the Front, because they are two distinct parts of a contradiction. The Party leads the revolution and the masses make history.

A geographically limited strike is not bad, and that event was very good for agitation. The event was correct. But if he had communicated his leaders on time, the party would have made the strike more powerful with marches, and would have made that reactionary woman accountable for her action. Furthermore, the struggle would have given impetus, the class interest defended, and the Party’s position on the anti proletarian and anti popular government’s decree, spread. This is part of linking the struggle for economic demands to the struggle for Power.

Finally, we always must salute the combativity of the masses, how they struggle despite the difficult conditions in which they are subjected to. Our position is different from the PUM’s (Partido Unificado Mariateguista), which is opposed to stoppages and strikes ostensibly for the sake of organizing its “wave of strikes” (the wave of strikes is a set of continuous and simultaneous work stoppages and strikes in various sectors of the workers, peasants, laborers, of the people; these intensify specially during an insurrection and are prepared events; to us now it means the march toward the revolutionary crisis and preparing the insurrection.) But, what does PUM do to that end? Today, we see the public employees fighting more than industrial workers because they are being hit harder by the crisis and government measures. But industrial workers are fighting as usual. We must apply our principles (see pages 323-324 of the document of the Preparatory Session of the Second Plenum of the Central Committee.) To carry out strikes is still the main form of an economic struggle, as Lenin taught, and prepare for greater struggles to come. Marx said that the struggle for better wages is guerrilla warfare and President Mao taught us that we must fight the workers’ sellers, capitulators before reaction and traitors to the workers’ movement. We must push forward strikes, prepare them well, with reason, advantage and limit. Educate the class and the masses that the strike has a limit, yet by the use of this indispensable instrument conquests are won. The strike is right and must be defended, strike days should be paid, not to allow lifting it as a condition to enter into direct negotiations.

Negotiations are reached by pressuring with persistence, and sharpening the struggle. Not like some say now, “stop struggling and let’s talk.” Today everything is dialogue to reaction and revisionism; we must fight against it. In every struggle the time comes to dialogue, but at the negotiating table you can only win what you have already won at the battlefield; that is a fundamental military and political criteria.

The strike, then, must be handled firmly and astutely, not only by teaching the class how it’s a good and necessary tool, but also by teaching its limitations. With the strike, you do not conquer Power, nor break the vicious circle in which this old capitalist system (today in its imperialist phase) subjects the class. The proletariat and the working people have to struggle using all necessary means, especially the main form of economic struggle: the strike. If not, they will not wrest away living wages from their exploiters, nor improve working conditions, neither gain the respect for the 8-hour workday. Always keep in mind that what has been conquered can be lost as a result of capitalism’s cyclical economic crises. Therefore, what corresponds is to break that vicious circle, to destroy the capitalist system, which in Peru is at its bureaucratic stage, under the control of imperialism and subjected to semifeudalism. Hence, the need to link the vindicating economic struggle with the struggle for Power can only be achieved by conquering Power, exercising and defending it. Only then we will be able to change the old system, and create and develop a new one: socialism, with the dictatorship of the proletariat and communism as the final goal. This will be achieved going through the first stage: the democratic revolution, the joint class dictatorship, the People’s Republic of Peru with the People’s War, will be achieved. There is no other way to accomplish this objective.

In the country, we have seen how the nurses struggle for more than fifty days. This is a stern strike, which doesn’t slow down and it continues the fight without any major support. They are brutally repressed, arrested, and threatened that the strike will be declared illegal unless they return to work within 72 hours. However, the deadline expired and the threats were not carried out. Why have not they, being crushed? They were not crushed because the masses trust the strength of their struggle. They march, they mobilize, they take the streets and main squares of the city giving no room to the maneuvers of reaction. They use the tribunes of public opinion to denounce, they agitate in the neighborhoods, they organize pot lucks, and they get on the passenger buses to spread propaganda.

That’s how they refrained the reactionaries’ repressive action. And what has the General Central of Workers (CGTP) done? or the State’s Employees Union (CITE)? They did nothing to support the masses, and most of the strikers are nurses and medical technologists. Internally, there are factions in every struggle, that’s how it is in every Front. But the most steadfast sector is imposing itself, and it is made up of women who are giving an example of combat. What are the prospects of this struggle?

1. It’s good because it hits the stabilization plan and protests take place on the streets.

2. If the strike persists, it will wrest away something. The main thing is not to be broken organically, to persist on mobilizing, marching, keeping on the strike, and they will gain some economic, social and political benefits (the support of the Party to this struggle is very helpful: It fortifies, stimulates and supports them, while armed actions press and weakens the exploiters further.)

3. But, the little they manage to wrest away will not be enough to cover their needs. The family basket (monthly income needed to survive) will continue to be very expensive compared to their wages. The reduction in their purchase capacity will again confront increases in the cost of living due to inflation.

4. How will that impact others? Industrial workers, laborers, and the people will be in better condition to develop their political conscience, and to understand that they are the ones transforming society, and that only by organizing themselves will they will be able to conquer Power with the People’s War, and break the vicious circle. In addition, they show how within bureaucratic capitalism, they will never be able to achieve what is called a “just” wage. This is because the essence of capitalism is exploitation, and accumulation of capital through the purchase of labor power. Thus, they can show how the strike educates the masses. To this end, read and reproduce “Wage, Price and Profit,” by Marx; “Long Live the Strike!” by Lenin; and “The Workers’ Seller … ” by the Chinese comrades; and propagate them among the strikers at a solidarity price.

Later on, since Peruvian society is in a critical situation, with so much unemployment in the cities, and above all, in Lima where 70% of the proletariat is without a job. We must apply other forms of struggles as well, taking advantage for instance, of the workers’ quitting times to create revolutionary awareness (agitation), and spread concrete facts like the killing of that worker at the Textile Union. We must promote debates, for example, on the need to struggle and get organized with the unemployed since nobody struggles for them, and in Lima, organize with the underemployed. These people reach 95% of the Economic Active Population according to the National Institute of Statistics -INEI- (unemployed 10%, underemployed 85%, fully employed 5%.) We must form groups of workers to air their grievances, paint graffiti, and sign denunciations in a study group.

Start with live, current, red-hot facts to promote the need for work stoppages, and propose them as a discussion theme: What difficulties can be expected and what other creative forms of struggle can be used? Disseminate the thesis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought on the proletariat, share the Party experiences. Is a strike convenient or not? Let the masses participate. Organize marches at the workplace during quitting times, and wait for the right time to post banners and posters, then do graffiti, expressing grievances and propaganda. Agitate and organize according to a plan, and promote marches. At first, organize a small and short march around the plant, then a larger one with the participation of other plants or factories. Thus, it can be expanded up to a march of an entire industrial zone, supported by the neighborhoods, which are always close by the industries, such as the Central Highway. Call the TV and newspapers and the workers themselves will expose their situation. The implementation of this plan requires the incorporation of more activists, fighters or comrades at the plants; put into practice the role of being a “soldier-spy,” worker by day militia by night. Wherever the fulfilment of these acts at the plant generates repression or risk, they should be exempted from such tasks at their plants. Organize a Struggle Committee amidst this struggle. Fight the false leaders ideologically, unmask their revisionism, and their role as “firefighters” and aim at overthrowing them and penetrate more and more of these workers into organizations, or neighborhoods plagued with workers’ aristocracy, to fight industrial or trade union bureaucracy.

Let’s think of the following relationship: GRAFFITI AND BANNERS – EXPRESSION OF GRIEVANCES – RALLY – STOPPAGE – STRIKE – PEOPLE’S WAR. (INSURRECTION). WHAT FOR? TO PREPARE FOR THE GREATEST ACTIONS TO COME!

Let art fulfill its role as an instrument of class, let the masses take over the stage, let actors and actresses represent them, that the masses see themselves represented there. Let daily life be enacted, “the artist and his time” is not merely a phrase, sowing is done that way too. It’s part of propaganda. Let graffiti drawings and writings be generalized in the workplace, neighborhoods, schools, universities, centers of street vendors, or workers in general. Let graffiti be in big bold letters on the walls, because only there can the people really see and express their democracy. The walls are the sheets of books where the people write their prose, their poems, their poems, their literary works to air their demands, their struggles and the songs of the Revolution. This is the only way to conquer Power: the glorious People’s War.

And let’s not care if the masses make spelling mistakes. They will learn later on. Let them write on the walls how they participate in the war. Let them criticize what is wrong. Let them fight imperialism, Peruvian reaction and revisionism. For instance, what does the General Worker’s Federation (CGTP) do for the proletariat? They no longer even like to use the word “proletariat,” They have betrayed the class completely. Instead, they repeat the way fascist dictator Velasco used the term “laborers” or simply “workers” (trabajadores). A wage-earning worker can never equal an employer even if both do work; one exploits, the other is exploited; one is a bourgeois or landowner, the other is a proletarian or part of the people. Let there be talk of classes and of class struggles, of dictatorship of the proletariat, of joint dictatorship. Let them express how the CGTP has betrayed the principles of the class, and how it is an instrument to harm their interests, which does not represent the class and must be destroyed and replaced by a truly class conscious body, and one that struggle under the ideology of the class: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought. Disown those false leaders and bosses, who capitulate before imperialism, reaction and revisionism. We must struggle against revisionist CGTP and for a class-conscious worker’s central led by the proletariat.

Let the youth, in graffiti, compare the phrases of the opportunist and revisionists with those of the imperialists and reactionaries. For instance, the known phrase by bourgeois philosopher Maritaine, “youth is barbarism,” with those of Enrique Bernales “the response of university students against President Fujimori is barbaric“; (on Fujimori’s visit to San Marcos University when he was thoroughly repudiated by students and faculty), and counterpose them with those of President Mao: “The youth is the sun that dawns.”

Women too must write graffiti: Under the law, women workers have the right to have cradles for their children at the factories they work. What employer abides by that law? Does the State force any enterprise to obey that law? No. The mothers stretch the wages in order to feed their children, and many times themselves remain with an empty stomach for lack of food. Reject work for free. Actually, family work is being used to promote mini enterprises in which all must labor: Children, parents or other relatives work 12 or 14 hours a day, selling their products at a miserable price, and what social and health benefits do they receive? None. Let them denounce and condemn those types of exploitative family work.

The expression of grievances must be encouraged at all manufacturing centers, neighborhoods, community centers, mothers’ clubs, street vendor markets, merchants, artisans, etc. The people have the right to expose their situations of exploitation so all can hear it. Let the masses speak up with deep class conscientiousness, instead of those sell outs and treacherous false leaders. At the market, a bench or wooden box is sufficient to agitate. The elderly must also speak on how the situation becomes worse with each successive government, and how long this deterioration will continue? The elderly have heard before from the exploiters the same empty chatter: “Sacrifice today so things will be better tomorrow.” Thus, with the graffiti, the masses express true people’s democracy in writing, and verbally with the expression of grievances.

Marches and rallies are good and make the reactionaries tremble. When workers march, they give tone to the struggle. It is a good example the way construction workers march with sticks, rocks, burning tires and agitating the people with revolutionary slogans. The same thing is done by miners, textile workers, teachers, women, youth, state employees and ambulatory workers. The people must march against the exorbitant price hikes on kerosene, water, light, gas, etc. and against the grievous taxes imposed on them. The merchants, must protest the fines, coercive penalty payments, etc. In some marches, they merely agitate with slogans; in others rocks are thrown at exploitative or repressive institutions. In other marches, groups are formed to block passages of troops with anything they can find, such as tree trunks, rocks, tires, garbage, traffic shacks, paving stones and anything else that the masses can find to support their initiative.

This type of march can be applied at the workplace exit, at quitting times, and that way wages are not affected: In times of crisis the masses see themselves economically overwhelmed and fear losing what little they earn; yet they still want to struggle and indeed are struggling. Marching during non working hours is efficient. Why aren’t marches done again from the Old House of San Marcos, from University Square, now surrounded by a steel bar fence? Let us provide Lima again with its tradition of the struggle, why should those places be like museums? Let us march in the industrial neighborhoods, in the young towns, at Lima’s main spots, in Miraflores, San Isidro, at Manco Capac Square, blocking highways, avenues, such as the “big ditch” in Lima (El Sanj’on), etc. Apply at the marches BLOCKADES, SACKING, RALLIES.

The mobilization is a more developed form of marching, in quality and quantity, and so it must be well prepared. PCP detachments and militia must teach the masses how to repel aggression. It is completely false that in Peru there is unity between the Army and the people. The opposite is true: the people reject, hate and repudiate the genocidal armed forces. We must rescue those arrested by the police. Aiming against armored trucks (it’s a political stupidity to call them “Little Pinochets,” these are vehicles used to break up demonstrations, it’s repressive and not a little puppet with a growing nose nor a harmless Pinochet, that’s what TV announcers spread in order to defuse the wrath of the masses). Attack the vehicles transporting people who were arrested, block them with other cars or trucks, overturn them. We should be already dynamiting the armored military trucks. Will the Army then intervene? That’s a given. It has already been decided, and soon we’ll have them on the streets of Lima anyway. They should not be feared either, but loudly denounced as they really are: genocidal, murderers, rapists, butchers, shameless traitors to their patrons Grau, Bolognesi, Qui¤ones, brave when confronting unarmed masses, but scary like rabbits when facing the guerrillas. What morale do they have when fighting the People’s War? None. Their desertions grow. Their officers force the soldiers to be their servants and to eat dogs. What can they do against a march of one thousand people just from one neighborhood? They just use brutal repression. Their regulations say that to break up a demonstration, they should first shoot to the air, However, it is a norm that they shoot to kill from the onset, not even to the feet. Could they kill 10, 100? It’s difficult but possible. The masses would react still more explosively, since blood does not drown the revolution but irrigates it, and internationally, a good-by (adios) to “respect for human rights!” The Peruvian situation is going to get worse and the masses will have to apply even more developed forms of struggle. They do not fear to pay the price paid for a true change of system. These are not longer the 1930s, nor the 1960s, but they are the 1990s, and there is a Communist Party leading the people in a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo Thought People’s War. The Party is assuming its role of leading them, preparing them for days to come, to conquer Power. We are going from a revolutionary situation in development, to a revolutionary crisis, which is coming anyway. That is today’s tendency. The slogan of today is “Fight and Resist for the People’s War!” and it is a very good one.

The strike, whether localized or general, is another form that must be applied. The armed strike is a military form of struggle, which allows the masses to participate widely in the People’s War, it propagandizes, agitates, mobilizes. In this strike the masses express themselves in their protest, their repudiation of the Old State, the government, the genocidal armed forces and police. It allows the blocking of vital parts of the city, preparing the future insurrection. It manages the four forms of guerrilla action: agitation and propaganda, sabotage, selective annihilation, and guerrilla combat; and all the appropriate procedures. Local, zonal or regional strikes can be organized. With respect to the common work stoppage, it’s a form of an economic struggle that is generating conditions for a superior form of economic struggle: the strike.

Strikes are, we reiterate, the main form of economic struggle. In essence, they are “guerrilla warfare” fighting for wage increases. Marx said that strikes vindicate demands of part of the class (e.g., a plant or productive sector) as such is an economic struggle. But those strikes developed by the general interests of the class (e.g., general wage hikes, in defense of unions, against the economic policy, etc.) are political struggles. Furthermore, we must not forget that nowadays every class struggle is political, and part of the struggle for power. So when revisionists and opportunists attack the strike movement calling it as merely a vindicating struggle, they (as usual) attack the class and defend the bourgeoisie. Therefore, in these times the struggle for better wages is eminently political because Fujimori’s government plan is to impose the lowest possible wages (“salaries” are also “wages” that’s the terminology we must use, on the hand it denounces the exploitation, and on the other the proletariat link its struggle with other nonindustrial workers). Yes, struggling for better wages is economic, but the crux of the government’s economic plan is to achieve stabilization for the “reinsertion.” And to do so increases the surplus value and cut wages. That’s why we must smash it because it goes against the class and the people. Their phrase “Sacrifice today to have it better tomorrow” is mendacity.

Thus, the key of this struggle, the strike, or localized or general work stoppages, is the surplus value, the wages. Its political essence is to overthrow this old order because it generates hunger and exploitation. The greatest political vindication of all is the conquest of Power. This guerrilla war prepares for grand moments. It is bonded with the final struggle for the conquest of Power and the main form of a political struggle, the People’s War.

In the midst of all these struggles, various kinds of apparatuses are built and organized, and obviously the clandestine Party manages them all, and ideology unites them all. An existing Struggle Committee can be consolidated, or new ones formed in various areas to support the Revolutionary Movement in Defense of the People (MRDP), which makes possible a new and greater leap in the incorporation of the masses to the People’s War. Finally, do not fear reaction’s bloody response.

That is part of implementing the Party’s mass line in the cities, in and for the people’s War following the following directive: base, neighborhoods and young towns. The proletariat is the leader and its militarization is being developed.

ON THE SIXTH FORM OF POWER AND THE SEEDS OF POWER IN THE CITY.

About three years ago, at Lima’s MRDP meeting, we discussed the names of organic forms, which will manage the new forms of struggle that will link the workers’ struggle with the struggle in the young towns and other neighborhoods (barrial): People’s Committee, People’s Struggle Committee or simply Struggle Committee. We saw how the People’s Committee was not convenient because it could be confused with the People’s Committee we organize only in the countryside due to the character of the democratic Revolution. Later on, we discussed how to go on finding forms of Power in the city, because, if we are going to conquer Power in the whole country, we must organize the cities to control them from the underground, and manage everything until the time comes for the final insurrection. We concluded that a Struggle Committee was convenient. However, this is to undermine the Old State in the cities and have the masses follow an organized direction. It is a germinal base that allows the management of Power. The issue is to create means of united action under the leadership of the Party or joint actions united organically with the exercise of authority. We can conceive it as another form of struggle in the people’s Power, along with the other five forms, as an additional form of war only in the city. Then the Struggle Committee would be a 6th form of Power and the first germinal form in the city.

The Struggle Committee would have 3 mile stones. The 88th meeting of the MRDP is to apply the Second Session of the Congress: Struggle Committee to coordinate workers and masses in the neighborhoods and young towns, assuming functions; Preparatory Session of the Second Plenum of the Central Committee October-November 1990: Struggle Committee to provide unity, organization and authority; and today, in 1991, the Struggle Committee as we said before the sixth form and first germinal form in the city. Why so today? Because of the development of material reality, These are the facts. The growth of our mass work in and for the People’s War has generated it that way.

The main thing is to apply the principles and not to lose direction. Ideas come from practice. We would not have achieved that much by only storming our brains in 1988, nor would we have accomplished it how we have today. At the time it was correct to discuss it, and that is how we delineated the general road. Now the moment has come and reality shows us how to build it. It is the sixth and first form of power in the city, a model to organize germinal forms of the New Power in the cities. We insist that it is not the form of Power we created in the countryside, but a different form. Let’s keep in mind its direction and purpose:

First Struggle Committee: TO COORDINATE WORKERS AND NEIGHBORHOOD MASSES (YOUNG TOWNS).

Second Struggle Committee: UNITY – ORGANIZATION – AUTHORITY

Third Struggle Committee: SIXTH FORM AND FIRST GERMINAL FORM IN THE CITY. IT IS NOT THE NEW POWER AS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE. TO PREVENT AND OPPOSE IT BE CONSIDERED IN THE SAME WAY AS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE. TO CONSIDER IT AS GERMINAL FORM, A NEW AND SIXTH FORM ARISING IN THE CITY LINKED TO PREPARING THE INSURRECTION AND IN FUNCTION TO THE CONQUEST OF POWER COUNTRYWIDE. AN ACCOMPLISHMENT OF CONSTRUCTING THE CONQUEST OF POWER, IN THE CITY, IT IS NOT A COMPLEMENT OF THE ACTION THE OLD STATE TRIES TO DO. QUITE THE CONTRARY, IT AIMS AT NEGATING IT, UNDERMINING IT AND, IN RESPECTIVE, DESTROYING IT TO FORM THE NEW POWER.

With regard to the situation of takeovers of … the issue is how to develop it and how to defend it. The key is to spread and ingrain the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought in children, youth and adults. Forge the Party, the People’s Guerrilla Army, Generated Organisms and Struggle Committees; to promote collective work; to write graffiti, people’s democracy. To have a people’s defense plan because the masses are going to be hit, infiltrated or undermined with reaction’s “civic action” plan and repression. To use the legality, not reddening, clear slogans and support them with concrete actions.

ON INFILTRATION AND ENTRISM

Always keep a high vigilance but even higher today, because we are in more developed, therefore more complex, political moment. We are at strategic equilibrium and both sides in the war. They (the enemy) and us, are preparing for a definitive situation.

Always, investigate fully any signs of infiltration or entrism, specifically from MRTA and reaction. We must develop a political-ideological unmasking campaign against MRTA’s revisionism, based on what the document of the Plenary Session of the II Plenum of the Central Committee says, and what was set forth at the Political Bureau July 1990’s meeting. Publish flyers, do group discussions, promote debates, emphasize the latter since they always run away from it, they can’t stand a political-ideological attack. What has they answered to the publication of the document “Elections No, People’s War Yes!” Nothing. They babble based on bourgeoises’ papers headlines and editorials, repeating the old tale of reaction:”Division exists in Sendero … ” And do they ever prove anything? No, they remain as parasitical as ever, fulfilling their role of “dividing tasks” to annihilate us, as active and armed complements of Peruvian reaction and of social-imperialism. It is besides ironical that they are not only wrong on us, but are very likely split, it suffices to read that pamphlet “Cambio” they are allowing to distribute freely. Even Lima’s TV Channel 5 is at their disposal, and it wouldn’t be surprising if ever Lima’s TV 4 soon is placed at their disposal too.

ON ACTIONS IN LIMA. With respect to actions of the ongoing Third Campaign in Lima, as well as in the entire country, these increase in quantity and quality. The political objectives of these actions are higher and on the rise, including the fighting capacity of the people’s militias and detachments. A problem we notice is conservatism of the d.e.’s. The percentage of growth is low compared to the People’s Guerrilla Army. And why is that? Because of the erroneous criterion of “lack of sophisticated weapons.” They must apply the agreement of the Central Committee about “Building Three Bases and Three Guides” and worry about capturing more developed weapons. In addition, the new d.e.’s now being formed will wrest them away and that will be part of their own forging.

We ask ourselves, are something like that happening with the main forces throughout the People’s Guerrilla Army? Is conservatism showing up there to?

We emphasize about the need to increase the actions by the d.e.’s, coordinated acts, and synchronization of forces. A good example is how on the day of the April blackout in Lima (which was politically very timely) there were 200 actions against imperialism, among then actions against the embassies of the countries, which will be in the economic “Support Group”.

The 80 armed sabotages to the banks, precisely on the eve of the promulgation of the Law of Banks. It was expressed in the complexity of the actions, handling of double plans, fulfilling acts pending in the process of People’s War in Lima such as “Arms for the Revolution! , Money for the people!” It supports mass struggles, with armed actions we provide success and political perspective to their vindicating actions, which is strategic because it advances preparations for the insurrection.

There are limitations in the annihilation of live enemy forces, police and Armed forces, high bureaucracy and financial oligarchy. We insist: we do not hit the plain street cops, but those specialized in counterinsurgency actions -those with blood in their hands. We apply the norm of selective annihilation: First to the Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force); to Police Forces specialized in counterinsurgency actions; to genocidal(s), the torturers, to all who have a debt of blood; then to the (paramilitary) rondas, reaction now aims at organizing rondas also in the cities. Apply differentiation:

First target against the most recalcitrant; flyers must be spread explaining why the specific action is being carried out by leaving signs, paint walls. Differentiate between the “black heads” (leaders of rondas who willingly and willfully commit crimes against the people), and the masses who are pressured or coerced by the armed forces into the paramilitary rondas (who must be respected and educated to defend themselves.) Apply double politics, penetrate them, undermine them until they rebel. For the pressured masses, make them understand they are being used against their own interest, how reaction traffics with their unemployment, their hunger, their needs so as to use them as cannon fodder for lack of soldiers and police.

Hit the high bureaucracy and financial oligarchy; the bureaucrats and representatives of the Old State, their institutions and explain clearly why it is done. In the city of Acari, for example, we executed the Mayor because he was a despot and corrupt hated by the masses, and acted after we received 40 written petitions from them explaining the reasons for revolutionary justice. The letters described what the masses wanted, and he only got three bullets because we do not apply cruelty or humiliations. People’s justice is swift but fair. We do not seek to create suffering. But in Lima, El Comercio, Expreso, La Republica, what did these sewers publish on this action? That an elected representative of the people, beloved by all, had been dynamited, etc.

Specially let selective annihilation actions help two objectives: To disintegrate the enemy forces and to develop the United Front. Explaining in a clear and simple manner the causes help the Front, and not explaining undermines it. To help develop the Front, the targets must be selected very well, and in Lima the targets must be very high. We are near the celebration of the Fifth Anniversary of the Day of Heroism, select the genocidal(s) well, and wherever they are we must apply their well-deserved punishment. What to do if they know we prepare something? They cannot know where, whom, or when. We must prepare more and better actions.

ON THE JUNE 27 ARMED STRIKE IN LIMA.

Another issue we must address is the forthcoming armed strike. We are in agreement with it. Prepare it well. There are good conditions for its success, but take into account the following:

1. Propaganda on “the strike was a victory of the people or the reaction” is part of the process of the strike.

2. Apply what we have set forth on work with the masses (PCP mass line).

3. Link the strike to the celebration of the fifth Anniversary of the Day of Heroism. Take into account and be prepared because reaction and the Government will move everything to defeat the strike, in collusion and collision obviously. The success of the armed strike will depend on how well it is conceived, prepared and implemented! The achievement of a new victory with the armed strike is necessary, and it is up to us to develop and lead it; the rest, the masses will do!

May, June and July will bring hard battles. The Government needs successes to present them on July, LET’S DEFEAT THEM! On these months reaction gambles with the whole “stabilization” and must show some “victories” by July 28: LET’S DEFEAT THEM! In conclusion, the Third Campaign to Impulse the Development of Support Bases is ample and overwhelming. From the onset, it sets forth solid bases for the new plan.

II. ON FIVE PROBLEMS.

1. On the XI Anniversary of the People’s War: The document of the Second Plenum and others; apply the new form we have initiated.

2. On the Fifth Anniversary of the Day of Heroism. Yearly campaign in the entire country. Objectives (See the document Preparatory Session of II Plenum of the Central Committee, p. 260): A fighting instrument allowing us to unmask this whole farce form its roots, wholly, amply and completely, all this putrescent pieces of junk they present as a supposed `democracy.’ By exposing this rotten system, we also depict how the New Democracy is and what is the Democracy the New Power is building for the masses, how that is the only Democracy truly serving the people. It helps us to propagate and defend the interests of the class and of the people, fulfilled as people’s rights, as counterpart to the so-called `human rights,’ which is a bourgeois position. Also, it helps us to analyze the genocide, the monstrosity and barbarity it represents, and all the judicial charade that was involved. We must completely unmask those false congressional hearing and resolutions about the genocide at Lurigancho and El Fronton. Finally, it helps us to unmask completely that genocidal demagogue Garcia Perez, the infamous officials who consented to the genocide, those who supported it and defend it, the false `dissenters’ and the political trafficking they do around the genocide, too late, after they called it a `provocation,’ then a killing, and later genocide, looking for water they can take to their reactionary mills.

Expose also, as a sample of what the reactionary justice and system are, the parliamentary maneuvers about the genocide, as it is aired nowadays. We must cause all that to come out public always paying attention the problem of the contradictions in the reactionary camp, those arising in political organizations like United Left and others; to clarify responsibilities and unmask.

This campaign will serve the masses and the people to understand that the Party led that heroic action, that the Party is the legitimate defender of the rights of the people. The Party must serve to support and strengthen the daily struggle of the comrades, fighters and friends in the Shining Combat Trenches, who never bent nor will ever bend their knees. Let the glorious Day of Heroism be celebrated as it corresponds. All that will help the conquest of Power in the country and will serve communists and revolutionaries worldwide.

ON GENOCIDE (pages 362 and 363, Document of the Second Plenum.) In the concrete program (of the Party), see about how to handle the rights and duties, and how to use legal situations to unmask reaction, to defend the rights of the people, to create favorable public opinion in the country and abroad. It would be also convenient to see how reaction has manipulated the matter of the genocide. Concretely, study the genocide and see there how the accusation against Garcia Perez has evolved.

GENOCIDE. Flores Polo in his juridical dictionary defines it as a crime with no name. Reputedly, it was Lemkin, a Polish criminal law attorney (penologist), the first to use the term in its present meaning: a mass slaughter with the deliberate purpose of totally or partially destroying a human group. Technically, it is some kind of continuous crime. The Convention on Genocide, approved by the U.N.’s Third General Assembly has been in force since January 12, 1951. According to the international criminal law, it is a common offense.

The above definition is very brief, but gives us an idea. Study this problem, consult texts, books on genocide, such as texts on the process at Nuremberg, when the Nazis were charged with that crime and sentenced to death. Also how this problem has been dealt in Perú, how it has been treated as part of the accusation against Alan Garcia, it serves our purposes, it is one more element of judgement to expose how the possibility of a trial on this grievous crime is denied in Perú. Get the documents of the Parliamentary Commission. There are several testimonies by the general commanders themselves. The crime of genocide was not stipulated in the Penal Code, but the accusation against Garcia Perez was for homicide. See also the trial in the Second Judicial Zone of the police about Lurigancho, as well as about El Fronton and any others there may be.

The matter of the genocide must be studied well, pointing facts and data to formulate a denunciation. If the crime of genocide is not legislated nor litigated in Perú, do it in Costa Rica, there the problem would be if the countries making up the Inter American Court adhere to the U.N. Declaration or if, being the U.N. who approved the Genocide Convention, it automatically applies. In that case think of Geneva. See also about the need of a small group studying this problem so as to file the denunciation and follow its course thereafter. For instance, get a lawyer from abroad to handle the matter, then use it for propaganda increasing volume and sound effects, think about newspapers in the United States and Europe, taking care not to vitiate what is being proposed. All that would help to form public opinion. It is a fighting weapon we must use well. It must be part of the celebration of the V Anniversary of the Day of Heroism. Keep in mind the document, “Glory to the Day of Heroism!” it may be used now to write a pamphlet and raise awareness on the campaign of the First Anniversary.

See also the notes of the December 1990 meeting of the Political Bureau:

“GENOCIDE. FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DAY OF HEROISM. SLOGANS: GLORY TO THE HEROES OF THE PEOPLE; FOR THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE; THE PEOPLE WILL PUNISH THE GUILTY ONES. GENOCIDE IN THE TRENCHES, including the legal process, its current situation, analysis and conclusions. Annual Campaign for the Fifth Anniversary.”

Counterpoise their so-called “human rights” (DDHH) with the people’s rights (DDPP). Take as an example the Day of Heroism, it is a key historical fact to disembowel their “human rights” and at the same time that false bourgeois democracy, all its putrefaction. Fight for a New State, only the revolution can guarantee the rights of the people freely and permanently, the rights wrested away with their blood, and the bourgeoisie puts them on the Constitution, or Magna Carta as they call it. But since those from above continue to rule, these rights are not respected and remain mere words written on paper, they are something like burned paper, useless to the people, good only to the exploiters. For them, yes, there are constitutional protections.

To expand the analysis on the genocide, the Communist Party of Peru will develop a document, in addition to the pronouncements of several organizations: lawyers, of relatives of prisoners, of political prisoners, of the generated organizations, of struggle committees, trade unions, industrial unions, neighborhoods and young towns, students, etc. The Party’s People’s Assistance Committee (Socorro Popular) must analyze everything reaction publishes in that regard, for instance Sunday articles of El Comercio of Lima, from April 21, 1991. Prepare a poster and postcard, mass events, well protected open celebrations, public celebrations, art, music, dance, theater, painting, sculpture, embroidery, poetry, multiple ideas the masses create and express the people’s character of the art. The comrades should strive to advance popular art, like those famous works in stone, fish bones and extraordinary tapestries left by the heroes of El Fronton, Lurigancho and El Callao. Reproduce their music, the cassette of 1984 in El Callao, the last one from El Fronton with huaynos sung using new lyrics, the last one from Lurigancho (the one denouncing a Lima radio station, “The People Talks … “).

Form a Commission presided by xxx and supported by yyy, to write a well-prepared document based on facts and in law. Attend the Costa Rican Commission of Human Rights and its Tribunal, to have access to the tribunal one must go through any State or the Inter American Human Rights Committee (or Human Rights Commission), so we should appeal to this Commission first. We should study all possible materials on this: Report of the Ames Commission, Piquera’s Report on the paramilitary, etc. In a Report by the majority of a Congressional Commission, senator Biaggi said that if there was an offense, it was not by Garcia Perez but by the Attorney General (fiscal) Elejalde, that opinion is very important because it is coming even from an APRA member. The positions aired in the accusation against Garcia Perez, presented before the house of representatives on July 29, 1990 (all of them) must be objectively analyzed, so we can base our accusation on their own words, that way they will have no basis to accuse us of being subjective or showing prejudice, leave no room to any of their objections. It is fundamental that our accusations are accurate and undisputed. We have plenty of evidence. The issue is to use it from our class position.

It is very good that they provide us with documents of the constitutional accusation:

The first document, intervention by R. Letts in the House of Representatives, says:

“Therefore, we call this event as the genocide in the prisons on June 18-19 of 1986.” The document proposes the case must be tried by the judiciary as a “violation of the constitutional order and the Penal Code and that the essence of the evidence is in the Order issued by former President Garcia, which violated articles first and second of the Constitution, the right to life.” It continues:“There was direct relationship between the Order issued by the President of the Republic and the leading role he played to carry it out, his leadership, presiding the Council, the initiatives he took and the large number of lives lost as a result of such Order … Our findings reveal there was a direct relationship between the Order and the results it followed, besides, during the handling of the execution of the Order, there were important, notorious and precise violations of the constitutional order and the Penal Code.” He adds, “the Sendero Luminoso prisoners, of the Communist Party of Perú, Sendero Luminoso, mutinied in the three Lima prisons: Lurigancho, El Fronton and the Women’s prison at El Callao. As a result of the armed intervention ordered by the President to the Joint Command of the Armed Forces, 124 prisoners were killed in the Lurigancho Industrial Pavilion, 119 in El Fronton Blue Pavilion, and two in Santa Barbara, a total of 244 prisoners were killed or murdered, as the case may be in the course of approximately 12 hours.”

Another paragraph says: “The Order given by the President to the Joint Military Command was summarized in four expressions: to act decisively, to act energetically, to act within the least possible time, and try to save the lives of the hostages … without mentioning a word on the lives of 350 mutinied persons. We believe that this Executive Order contained the essence of the matter … “

Another interesting situation is the reference to the unconstitutional dispositions and decrees they made when they put down the mutiny, and all was finalized to cover up their crime:”… It was necessary that on June 19, when the genocide was consummated by evening time, the official minutes of the Council of Ministers -Cabinet Members examined by the Ames Commission shows they approved and issued a totally unconstitutional Supreme Decree called 006-85-JUSTICE in order to create additional restricted military zones in the three prisons, and leave them under the control and jurisdiction of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces during the time the state of emergency lasted, which was decreed on June 2, 16 days before the genocide.” “… It is our viewpoint that the decree was issued not to put down the mutiny, which had already finished, and had concluded in a pile of human bodies, but to hide the evidence -tracks, fingerprints and other indicators about the operation that had been carried out, and the crimes committed. Therefore, in that sense the first and foremost responsibility also lies with the then President of the Republic, who presided the Council of Ministers and took the initiative to carry out the genocide, who had the leadership, and who of course signed the decree.”

“And that decree approved by the Council of Ministers on June 19, was published in the official paper after the facts, since the Order to publish it on El Peruano was delivered on June 24 at 11:45 a.m. That is, there is no doubt that said supreme decree had no legal validity at any time on June 19, and it was agreed upon after all was consummated. Therefore, the Armed Forces entrance to the prisons was absolutely unconstitutional, absolutely illegal … ” It goes on with a part which corroborates once more what the Party denounced right away on June 19 and a few days later about the genocide: the presence of Mantilla to withdraw the civil authorities from the prisons, and the insistence at all times from Garcia Perez to put down the mutiny and safeguard his prestige before the Socialist International at the time meeting in Lima.

“… However, on June 18 and 19, the President of the Republic was constantly pushing, urging with that personal political Force we know he has for the military to enter. He made sure that the then Vice Minister of Interior Agustin Mantilla was present at El Fronton at 14:50 of the 18th to make sure the withdrawal of the prison authorities, and the civilian judges, who were there as part of their routine functions, because he had decided they should act along with the Armed forces. That was all, absolutely illegal, and the President headed it all.”

Later on it disagrees with the majority opinion, which stated that the President was ill informed by the military commands. It denounced also that five of the six official communiques emitted were falsified and signed only by Garcia Perez and not known by the Council of Ministers. If we compare all this with the Party’s denunciation in that small but significant resolution, there we accused Garcia Perez of the execrable genocide, his Council of Ministers, his armed Forces and police forces, the political parties, who knew everything, and the sacrosanct Catholic Church, Garcia Perez being the main genocidal.

But in following lines, the document falls in the ambiguities inherent to those who sustain the Old State, to consider: “we believe that here we may have a case of a preter-intentional offense.” Unbelievable! What is that? Is it a genocide perpetrated by Garcia Perez and company, or is it a preter- intentional offense? It is genocide committed with premeditation, sadism and advantage, prepared as shown by the denunciations made by the political prisoners (and which show in the Acts of the Judicial Power) and by newspapers like El Nuevo Diario, which then had nothing to do with us. Also, the pattern shown by the genocides committed by Garcia Perez and his armed forces in Accomarca, Pucayacu, Umaru, Bellavista, Ayacucho and the October 4 genocide at Lurigancho, including his personal opinions stated at “social” meetings such as the following:”What would happen if we finished off all imprisoned Senderistas?”

Another interesting question, it says, “that voting in the Commission, caused that a majority headed by Romualdo Biaggi, however, to adopt the impetus of the text and accuracy of the facts contained in the opinion of the minority, presided by Rolando Ames….That this APRA majority, in this Commission, also found enough basis for the constitutional indictment (accusation), only it did not believe the culprit was Dr. Garcia Perez, but Dr. Cesar Elejalde.” It means that even the APRA hacks thought there was room for the judicial process against Garcia, since Senator Biaggi is an Aprista, and that they would like to indict (accuse) Elejalde, the Nation’s Attorney General, All that is very good.

Second document: Constitutional Accusation for the Genocide in the prisons on June 18 and 19, 1986. It says, “we request that former President Garcia be accused of punishable violation of rights consecrated by the Constitution and for punishable acts that violates the International Agreements on Human Rights signed by Peru, concerning genocide and by the National Penal Code as preter-intentional genocide, committed with cruelty and ferocity … ” “Abuse of Authority, an offense against the Administration of Justice and of Violence and Resistance to authority … ” “This Constitutional Accusation seeks to open up the way for a later criminal action against the former President of the Republic … “; “… it is a political decision … it is not then a jurisdictional decision. Therefore, it does not have the elements nor consequences of a Res Judicata. “ Notice two things here: it’s an accusation for genocide as recognized by International Agreements signed by the Republic of Perú.

And, two, it’s not Res Judicata, of course it is not because Parliament did not try it. It formulates the accusation and defines whether or not there is merit for the Judicial Power to try the matter. Pay attention to the signatures, those are persons not just from so-called United Left, and that helps to substantiate our accusation, signing it too, are Rojas Tafur, Letts Colmenares, Baca Luna and Quintanilla, E. Calmell del Solar, Aurelio Loret de Mola, Rafael Rey, M. Roggero, the four last ones from the Movement Libertad. Chapter II, point two, states that the President informed the Council of Ministers, Joint Command of the Armed Forces, and Peace Commission on issues that artificially magnified the facts ending up with “which will not be tolerated” and that for the Commission that is the evidence that “this line of action provides evidence of the intent to artificially magnified the facts.” In point three, “It is evident that … the President executes actions during the events guided by certain invariable criteria, which are, to assume personally and strictly control of the situation and the reestablishing of order, not considering –and even knowingly exceeding– the breach in the legal and constitutional order, and the fracture of individual rights and guarantees, to achieve resolution of the problem using instruments legally and professionally inadequate such as the Armed Forces, and of means absolute out of proportion to the objectives; to guarantee a later cover of immunity for the acts of the Armed Forces and National Police . . . “; “… the message of June 21 … greets the action of the Armed Forces and declares that a precedent has been set on how a democratic government invested of authority must act.” Very good!

This allows to defeat that “preter-intentional” escape route. They say, “… Therefore, the agreement of attempting to dissuade through the Peace Commission is not convincing, and the latter is only charged with going to El Fronton, but decides to go on its own to the other two prisons.” It’s good because it counterpoises what Garcia says about first having tried persuasion by sending the Peace commission to the prisons. Point five says that Garcia knowingly and deliverately trespassed the lawful juridical order, part of this is the presence of Mantilla at El Fronton.

Here, what interests us is to see the note attached to the document, in which the opinion of general Ismael Araujo, chief of the Second Military Region is: “There were many consultations on the precipitation with which Garcia urged general Monzon, President of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces, whom he phoned often,” “how about it? ,” “When are you going to act? ,” “At what time are you starting it? ,” “But what are you waiting for to start the thing?”

The note also says that general Monzon, questioned if militarily the mutinies were such a danger that warranted speed over dissuasion, which could have reduced the number of dead, he answered, “to us it was an order from the Supreme Chief of the Armed Forces -the President and we had to obey it.” In point 10 they state that the issuance of Supreme Decree 066-85-JUSTICE had the purpose of covering up evidence of what happened. Point 13 says Garcia condemned the so-called excesses at Lurigancho, but not the slaughter of El Fronton. It’s good because nobody says anything about El Fronton, and there the Navy of Peru acted. In Chapter III they clearly describe how the Armed Forces “obeyed order … with swiftness and violence,” but they exonerate themselves by saying they obeyed an order from their Supreme chief.

Why wasn’t the order questioned? Aren’t they the ones charged with ensuring the compliance with the Constitution? Point three refers to the idea Garcia defended during the process as “having helped to show the country how the authority of the government had been imposed” and “congratulated the Joint Command for such speedy compliance.” Point four calls it the “engine of the operative,” it says the action culminated with “the demolition of El Fronton and the destruction of the Industrial Pavilion at Lurigancho.” Point five is very good, it deals with the matter of intentional infraction, and its differences with unintentional, with negligence and it’s based on article 100 of the Penal Code.

Point six refers to the denial made by the General Commander of the Navy, vice-admiral Victor Nicolini del Castillo, the General Commander of the Air Force, lieutenant general FAP Luis Abram Cavallerino and the General Commander of the Army General Guillermo Monzon Arrunategui, on the assertion that the government had just learned about the facts on June 21 from the report by the Joint Command of the Armed Forces: “… he was informed of everything since he gave the terms of the order -a bloody and atrocious operation.” “… he ordered `to reestablish order in the prisons with the maximum energy allowed by Law, preserving if possible the lives of the hostages and rescuing the principle of authority‘ (Act of the Council of Ministers June 18, 1986).” It says that General Monzon specified, “this military action is a combat action inserted in the `counterinsurgency strategy,’ subtracted from the humanitarian right in war and, contrary to the Geneva Convention, it is legitimate violent reprisal with genocidal intent, extrajudicial executions and the disallowance of the human rights by the subversives and presumed subversives.”

Point seven mentions the articles violated, and indicates that conclusion 22 of the opinion of the majority of the Commission is a mask of the crime committed disallowing the sacred bounds of the human person, of the Public Ministry and the Judiciary. Point eight identifies the names of those responsible for the genocide ordered by Garcia, for instance Abel Salinas, Luis Gonzalez Posada, Jorge Flores Torres (Minister of War), Julio Daniel Pacheco (Minister of the Navy), Jose Guerra Lorenzetti (Minister of Aeronautics). Here too, it is defined as “execrable genocide.” Chapter IV established two forms of reasoning, here we can expose that charge of “preter-intentional” offense, destroy it.

Chapter V sets legal responsibilities and that “the conduct of Garcia can be specified as of an author of a crime against human life and health“; “guilty of the crime of Violence and Resistance to Authority (article 321 of the Penal Code … aggravated by the second paragraph which increases the punishment because he was a public official.” But we saw before how Peru has subscribed an International Pact which mentions genocide and we must apply besides of the violations of articles 332, 337, etc., of the Peruvian Constitution. For example the Motion at the end speaks only about a massacre.

The 3rd Document: On the Special Commission Finding a Constitutional Accusation, formed on September 25, 1990 by Pedro Alvaro Calderón, P. Ceteriano, E. Calmell del Solar, from the Movement Libertad.Here it states that Garcia attended to make his defense: the wording is, “already the Ames Commission addressed it and was rejected by parliament.” He acknowledged a crime was committed but not his but of the Republican Guard. Garcia claimed that violence was not applied, but the first thing tried was persuasion when the Peace Commission and the Nation’s Attorney General before the Armed Forces acted. But this is contradicted by Cabieses himself, who presided over the Peace Commission, who said they went to two of the three prisons on their own, and the Attorney General said, “it looks like there was a battle here“; besides, Garcia had already been instigating the genocide.

The military themselves denounced that he insisted and insisted, called repeatedly to find out if it had been put down, but Garcia recognizes that he gave the order. He invokes that Lima was under a State of Emergency. About the sudden burial of the prisoners of war by the Armed Forces, before dawn, in several cemeteries in the Department of Lima, he replied that it was necessary for the public order and security, for public health reasons.

However, Luis Alberto Sanchez himself told foreign reporters the bodies would be handed over to their families and would be given “a Christian burial.” Garcia also adduces that the prisons were “restricted areas,” but there is no such legal term. It is very interesting to see how in his speech he blames everybody trying to save himself. It is useful to learn about the character of this individual, and how he is capable of anything as long as he saves his skin.

Salinas too made his own plead of “innocence,” he must be unmasked. Zimmerman says that it was a planned and premeditated crime. Mantilla claims he knows nothing. Cabieses says Mantilla made an “exhortation” at El Fronton, and that they were not allowed in Lurigancho. Furthermore, they went to this prison and to the women’s prison and they went on their own. Clearly we see how the “Peace Commission” was used by Garcia, but the “useful fools” allowed themselves to be used. Therefore, they consented to the genocide. Did any of them condemn the premeditated plan? Did they demand that Garcia revoke that order? Or Did they move heaven and earth trying to save the lives of the prisoners? They cannot be acquitted, but they must be differentiated in degree of responsibility from Garcia Perez, the Council of Ministers, and the Armed Forces.

Document three details what Garcia used to say at Presidential breakfasts and lunches, “and what would happen if we get rid of all the Senderistas in prison? Nothing,” we would say “they were a demonic organization.” If that’s what he thought, then what “persuasion” is he talking about? A crude farce to cover himself up, we must show the intent he had. For instance, he used to say that “the prisons were free territories” and that “no one knew what Sendero Luminoso was doing there.”

The armed force commanders state that it was not in their competence to act, but that of the police. The document also says, and it is very useful, that the motive the mutineers had was to enforce compliance with the Consent Agreement they reached with the prison authorities in June, but this date is wrong: The actual Consent Agreement was by both parties (the Government and the prisoners) on 16 July 1985. The Chief Directors of the Republican Guard, Martinez Lira says that he and his troops presented themselves at Lurigancho following a request by General Monzon, “with whom he had communicated through a phone call he received from the President himself.”

He says that “his presence had the purpose of substituting the lack of a written order demanded by Colonel Narciso Azabache. But in no way, it was his attribution to give orders because General Rabanal was present there. Therefore, due to his situation he was there merely as an administrative and not an operative officer.” “He couldn’t understand the acts of Colonel Cabezas who worked as Commander of the Organic Counterinsurgency Regiment, a Permanent Reserve Unit of the Supreme Command serving the requirements in emergency zones.” Martinez Lira says that when he learned about the execution of 124 prisoners in Lurigancho, he reported about it to general Monzon, and the latter congratulated him in his name and in the name of the President of the Republic.

Then, he said that Salinas (Minister of Interior) called him to remind him, “leave for us a few prisoners alive.” His opinion is also important, “the bloodshed could well have been avoided if other means had been tried, such as cutting off drinking water supply, electricity, etc., which was not done.” He denounces that on June 13, 1985, there was a surprise emergency meeting at the Government Palace to “brainwash them” and they were told “about subversion, how bad the problem was looking, the need to finish off terrorism and that President Garcia didn’t want any more prisoners in the jails,” that vice-minister Mantilla, the Joint Command of the Armed Forces, the Supreme Directors of the Investigative Police (PIP), and of the Civil Guard, the chiefs of the National Intelligence Service (SIN)and Army Intelligence Service (SIE), among others, were there; that it was Garcia who spoke and also a PIP Commander spoke.

We must transcribe and analyze the military texts about subversion, doctrine, guerrilla warfare, urban warfare. There is where they describe what steps, and what weapons they can use to fight disturbances, and then compare each of these elements with what happened during the genocide. Also, read the Magazine “Oiga” of that date (June 13, 1986.) Garcia attended the Commission a second time, and said he had not said what Zimmerman claimed he had said.

We can quote Zimmerman and ask him who else was at that breakfast; the Minister of Justice (Gonzales Posada) may had been one of them. There’s also the matter of “res judicata” (tried matter), and they destroyed it. Well, for us, use it and go deeper. Garcia knows, as the lawyer he is that there is no room for “res judicata.” He is a demagogue. He steps over the rights of others, and violates blatantly the Constitution. We insist that in penal law, the qualifications of the individual (character, etc.) are very important. It is very important to define the main crime: Genocide, no need to get ourselves entangled in various offenses since that hides the main one. Prior to the events, Garcia said there was a more acute environment of violence, as the papers reported. See Expreso, for example. He said that the Senderista leadership was concentrated in El Fronton, and that it was liberated territory.

He twisted the facts in the Council of Ministers itself. It is important to show how in the opinion of those present, Garcia wanted to brainwash them. Later on, show that what we did was a complete success, a victory product of a plan for a specific demand, the compliance of 10 points we were demanding. We demanded that the condition of special prisoners we wrested away, as a step in the struggle to be recognized as political prisoners and then as prisoners of war, be complied with.

This document records it and was an act ratified by the APRA Government on October 31, 1985, signed by Apristas in the Government such as Aquezolo, Aurea Saenz; and on October 4, 1985, there had already been an Aprista annihilation of 30 Lurigancho political prisoners. This proves that the genocide was planned and premeditated and we so denounced it. We even filed actions of protection, and judge Paz de la Barra had just signed it on the day the events took place.

It says that prisoners were unhappy because that Act was not comply with by the prison authorities. On the other hand, see our actions from the transfers of prisoners from their points of origin to Lima; their concentration in El Fronton, in British Pavilion, the January 15 struggle (death of Comrade Mauricia), the July 13, 1985 joint struggle to wrest away the Consent Agreement (el Acta), which was finalized, their willful noncompliance, up to the denouncement of the genocide, the series of judicial petitions we filed in Court, such as the action for protection three months before the facts, signed by Judge Paz de la Barra on the same day of the events. The attitude of judicial authorities and of the Public Ministry until the genocide was consummated. Let it be clear that our denunciations were not being heard because there was prejudice. Since the times of Belaunde, we were given the label of “terrorists.” The words of Vice-admiral G. Cafferata speak for itself: “they are `subhuman’,” (insert the source and date.) In addition, we must transcribe the petitions and motions filed before the judges on behalf of the prisoners.

OTHER MATTERS

In order to acquit themselves from the genocide, the military blames everything on Garcia, and has no choice to release issues that are useful to us. Nicolini says the purpose was to do us propaganda, Flores Torres says it was for publicity, but then there is no connection between these answers and the facts. Abram Cavallerino says he didn’t know that there was a civil war in the country, etc., as Garcia said:”The national order is disturbed.” We must go to a law dictionary, such as the one of Cabanillas’, to define whether it is public order or national order. The fact is that the prisoners did not compromise the national security, and therefore, there was no justification to hand the matter over to the armed forces (for their annihilation). Analyze articles 21 and 22 of Law Decree (DL) 217; article four section “J” of DL 117; article 23 of DL 330. Who can determine that the armed forces enter a prison?

That should have been handled as an `internal order’ problem. Show how in Peru the State of Emergency is the routine, and not an exception, use what we studied at the Second Plenum, the international documents, the meeting with Siracusa. Unmask and denounce Garcia’s petition to lift his own immunity, which was just another one of his poses, of his show offs, of his demagoguery. Let’s denounce those who did not attend the vote (in Congress) because they acted as accomplices trying to cover up the genocidal demagogue, and of the execrable and vile genocide itself, committed against communists, fighters and revolutionary masses led by and identified with the Communist Party of Perú.

There are rumors that these cowards were bribed: investigate and prove. Gerardo Lopez, of Cambio 90, did not attend. State the facts and document the evidence. Besides, let’s show the collusion between APRA with this government (Fujimori.) In general, base the denunciations with solid and incriminating evidence based on law and facts. 1. clear facts 2. publish documents and 3. political situation of yesterday and today: both seek to annihilate the People’s War. The process of the denunciation we filed (which they did not accept here,) go through the motions in Costa Rica, take into account the parliamentary accusation, it must be shown clearly that here there is no chance to litigate in Perú, and appeal to the Commission of Human Rights in Costa Rica is necessary. Spread the information in the United States and in Europe, the political situations there provide some margin to do this, but not security. We should not be certain they will admit it either, but even if they reject the denunciation, we must use it to denounce the genocide before the people in our country and abroad.

HOW TO CARRY OUT THE CAMPAIGN IN PERU?

Our focus is the People’s War, and aim for a great celebration of the Day of Heroism! (The campaign here will last an entire year). Mention rights of the people: denounce the rotten nature of the old order, its old “democracy,” its Old State and its “human rights.” Support the struggles for economic demands by the masses in function of conquering Power; link it with the great process of People’s War and explosiveness of the masses. Denounce how the Fujimori regime spread hunger on the proletariat and workers in general, it takes the lands of the peasants away, and all who protest are persecuted, repressed, jailed, murdered. Denounce the genocide perpetrated in the Shining Trenches of Combat on June 1986, as part of the genocide against the entire people committed by Belaunde, Garcia and now Fujimori.

That is because the People’s War is a continuation of the political struggles of the masses by other means. Mobilize the masses as much as possible for the campaign, linking it to their daily struggles: use clear and concise slogans. Plan the beginning of the campaign, special political situation in May, June and July. Unmask and fight their “human rights.” Raise the subject of the rights of the people; let there be ideological and political struggles;

Let our denunciation and acts be stunning ideologically and politically developed and useful to unite the people, aimed at building the United Front of the Revolution. Develop the campaign at all levels: Party, People’s Army, New Power, masses. Appeal to international organizations: Jurists; Amnesty International, Red Cross, etc., provide them documentation. To develop and implement the plan, all organisms working in that front must develop and submit documents.

WHAT IS REACTION UP TO?

Be alert, in May, June, July their situation will be difficult, and they need to hit us and hit the people. They need to show “successes” in their first year in government. They will seek to contain the explosiveness of the masses and as usual boasting on their “final blow” on the People’s War. They will enhance their “intelligence,” but they need to hit us since in reality they have no “new strategy.” We must prevent and frustrate the blow they seek, so they cannot hit the people with impunity, and denounce them.

Denounce also the genocide this government (Fujimori) is perpetrating, the most pro-imperialist yet, mercenary of Yankee imperialism, acting in collusion with revisionism and opportunism to contain the people’s struggle, and annihilate the People’s War, which today enters the strategic equilibrium. It is a genocide managed and led by Yankee imperialism, availed by the Fujimori regime, the armed forces and police, revisionism and all of reaction, so as to apply their plan, fetter the struggle of the masses, and annihilate the People’s War.

Actions must be well prepared, bold, and develop fully “Combat and Resist,” be ready to pay whatever quota (cost of war) is necessary, and toil so losses will be the minimum possible, developing adequately the plans. Another matter, it’s almost three years since the death of Comrade Cesar and five years of Comrade Vasquez. Both of them were lawyers who tirelessly defended prisoners, and who give up their lives for a just cause. Let us remember them, and denounce the vile and sadist manner of the crime against the first one, and the disappearance of the other by police forces (DIRCOTE).

They are two heroes of the people. Denounce the rape of women; the students who were blown up; the mass slaughters of peasants; the armed forces’ policy of: “steal everything, burn everything and kill everybody.” This regime, even less than the former ones, can claim to be defending or upholding “human rights.” The Fujimori regime is more discredited than the two prior ones, and has lost credibility in less time. It is our task to show the masses how they violate blatantly the rights and demo-bourgeois freedoms, and express openly fascist positions. Especially now, that mercenary of imperialism, mainly Yankee imperialism, the cunning and sneaky murderer Fujimori.

May, 1991

PCP-CENTRAL COMMITTEE