DAY OF HEROISM: HONOR AND GLORY TO THE HEROES FALLEN IN COMBAT ON JUNE 19, 1986

Since May 17, 1980 and up to the present time, the Peoples' War in Perú has been expanding victoriously. At first, in the early 1980's, the Popular Action government of Fernando Belaunde Terry tried to crush the revolution by levelling entire towns in the Ayacucho highlands. This genocide was carried out against the unarmed masses. However, the Peoples' War expanded nearly to the whole national territory. Later on, in the second half of the 1980s decade, Garcia Perez headed the fascist and corporative APRA regime. His regime perpetrated gruesome genocide against the best children of the people, particularly in the black dungeons of reaction (prisons).

The heroic resistance of hundreds of Communists imprisoned in those luminous trenches of combat (LTC), with a seal of proletarian class on June 19, 1986, set an example to our Peruvian people, to future fighters, to the combatants of the Communist Party of Peru, and the peoples of the world. This was also a revolutionary reaffirmation in our calendar of a new type, in which that day was declared as the "Day of Heroism" by the people.

That way, once again, thanks to the cruelty and viciousness of the reactionaries, families, relatives, friends, peasants, intellectuals, workers, and so on, who took a great leap in their lives by massively incorporating themselves to the Peoples' War. The result: "Strategic Equilibrium." Later, in July 1990 the genocidal flunky, Alberto Kenyo Fujimori assumed Power. He is certainly a puppet of North American imperialism and desperately preaches that the revolution in Perú is finished. Let him keep on dreaming until the machine guns (seized by the fighting people in the heroic struggle) show up on the streets of Lima aiming against his head victoriously announcing the supremacy of the People's Republic of Perú over the reactionary regime!

Following the steps of its predecessor, Belaunde, the reactionary Aprista government used genocide in its attempt to crush the Peoples' War. Reaction aimed cowardly and sinisterly against the weakest segment of the people that is the unarmed and chained prisoners of war. They planned their genocidal annihilation that materialized on October 4th, 1985 and brutally murdered 30 fighters in the Lurigancho prison.

Various struggles were waged on the luminous trenches of combat (prisons, LTC). Among them was the joint struggle of July 13, 1995, when the first written agreement (act or consent order) between the prisoners and the government was signed, in which the combatants of the PCP were recognized as "prisoners of war" by the regime. Then came the genocide of October 4 of the same year, which facilitated the wresting away of the second act from the Aprista government. These acts deserve special notice. That is how the "Day of Prisoners of War" became a reality. The political prisoners were also recognized by the regime on that day as "special prisoners".

On June 18, 1986, at 6 a.m., in the prisons of San Pedro "Lurigancho," San Juan Bautista (Formerly "El Fronton") and the Women's Prison of "Santa Barbara," groups of inmates carried out actions simultaneously by taking hostages and seizing any weapons they could to defend themselves. This happened at approximately 9 a.m. Lurigancho inmates climbed the roof of the prison to demand that their relatives be allowed in, since that was a visitation day. Minutes later, about 30 troops of a specialized corps of the Republican Guard (GR) arrived on the island of El Fronton, while lawyers for the inmates struggled to be allowed into the prison, but were prohibited from doing so. The lawyers went to the Palace of Justice in El Callao and filed a habeas corpus petition before the presiding judge. At 10:00 a.m. the penal enforcement judge and the officer holder of the 39th Provincial Prosecutor arrived at Lurigancho. They then spoke to the inmates, who showed them the hostages and once more voiced their demands. At 11:00 a.m. another GR contingent arrived in Lurigancho. At the same hour, a direct intervention by the armed forces was decided at the Council of Ministers, in an emergency meeting.

At 4 p.m. the Special Operation Forces (FOES) of the marine infantry made their appearance on El Fronton Island, landing on two decks. A few helicopter gunships were flying over the area. The genocidal executioner, Agustin Mantilla [Minister of Interior of Garcia Perez and now member of the Fujimori's Kangaroo Congress, TNF.] announced that from that moment on, the island was under the control of the armed forces. The armed forces and the Republican Guard stationed themselves around the prison perimeter.

At sunset, two successive explosions shook the Island and immediately after, prolonged machine gun fire was heard. At 8:30 p.m. a second big explosion was heard, toward the point of El Callao. At that same time, in Lurigancho, about 200 troops entered the prison. Also at that hour, synchronizedly, the operative started at the "Santa Barbara" Women's Prison, where the reactionaries tore down a wall, and aided by flashlights, entered the facilities. They then launched tear gas bombs and paralyzing gas bombs in an operation which lasted two hours. After the hostages had been rescued, 6 of the mutinied women were wounded, and 2 of them died shortly after. At 9 p.m., army trucks arrived in the Lurigancho prison, surrounding the perimeter, then forcibly entered the compound through a side gate around midnight. It was the early morning hours of June 19, 1986, when inside the prison, an ultimatum was given to surrender within 10 seconds. This was followed by a regressive count that ended with a rifle shot that signaled the beginning of the assault.

At 3:00 a.m. a commission of the mutinied got out under truce flag, to hand over a hostage named Agent Jose Suarez; but, after Suarez was delivered, those in the commission were cowardly gunned down and riddled with bullets. At 4 a.m. all had been consummated: 126 imprisoned guerrilla fighters had been ruthlessly murdered!

At 7:30 a.m. a navy helicopter gunship launched 2 rockets that brought down the walls of the Blue Pavilion. After that, the war songs of the communist fighters could still be heard singing in unison. At 1:30 p.m., marine infantry troops completed taking over the Blue Pavilion.

On June 8, 1996, in El Fronton, Lurigancho, and El Callao, the prisoners of war rose up in rebellion against a new ongoing genocide already in progress. This took place after having publicly and repeatedly denounced, before the courts and the authorities themselves, the butchery that the government and its genocidal armed forces were openly planning. They rebelled in defense of the revolution and their lives, and made very just and reasonable demands for better conditions of imprisonment from the regime.

On June 19, 1986 the reactionary Aprista government headed by the genocidal Garcia Perez, after a crude manipulative action, cynically appointed a "peace commission" to fool public opinion, but at the same time unleashed, the most cowardly sinister operative of extermination. They mobilized the Army, Navy, Air force, and Police Forces led by the Joint Command against the prisoners of war, and in cold blood, the reactionaries and their corrupt old state, once again bathed themselves in the warm blood of the people!

Honor and Glory to the Heroes Fallen in Combat!
Glory to the Fallen Heroes, Long Live the Revolution!
Blood Does not Drown the Revolution. It Irrigates It!
Long Live the Day of Heroism!
Long live the Communist Party of Perú!
Long Live President Gonzalo!
Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought!
[Photo: The Communists are transforming the black dungeons of the enemy in Luminous Combat Trenches as an expression of the new power.]

Translated, reproduced and distributed by Perú People's Movement (MPP) of North America and The New Flag: 30-08 Broadway, Suite 159, Queens, New York 11106. E-Mail:lquispe@nyxfer.blythe.org