Perus Electoral Farce Played Out In The Midst Of The Intense Boycott Of The PCP.

The Great Elector And Guarantor: The Armed Forces

"The oppressed are allowed to decide every few years which members of the oppressor class will represent them and crush them in parliament." Marx

In Latin America, elections have solely been the instrument of domination by feudal landlords and big capitalists. Elections serve to maintain domination, preservation and legitimization of military coups and generate the deformed constitutions to serve them better, as is the case in Peru. As expected, the recent "presidential" election in Peru was held within the imperialist social order, as an instrument in the hands of the comprador/bureaucratic bourgeoisie that through contradictions and constraints has determined the class character of the elections. From this we can deduce the following:

The Peruvian state is a landlord-bureaucratic state, a dictatorship of feudal landlords and the big bourgeoisie under the control of U.S. imperialism. The peoples alternative is: Fight for the construction of a state of New Democracy that requires the destruction of the old order.
The Peruvian state, like every state, is sustained, defended and developed through the use of violence. The peoples alternative is: Revolutionary violence, surrounding the cities from the countryside.
The elections serve the landlords and the big bourgeoisie. They are not for the people, they are not instruments of transformation or "modernization", nor a means to overturn the power of the ruling class. From this we derive the correct line of using elections with the goals of agitation and propaganda.

The general elections of 1995, as expected, have been presented as a defense of the decrepit existing order and the evolution of Peruvian society. In this framework, the bourgeois parties like Cambio 90, Nueva Mayoria, Union Por el Peru (UPP), Fim, IU, Renovacion, and APRA upheld and defended goals and objectives that are fundamentally the same, and are only differentiated in form, means and methods.

Even the state apparatuses admit, in these elections, more than 300,000 members of the Armed Forces and police have been mobilized. They have mobilized all their institutions, unleashing propaganda not only to get votes, but to pressure the population at bayonet point to vote and fight against the Peoples War; all of this aside from the lowest and most vile demagoguery. We emphasize the growth of direct participation in Peruvian politics not only of the repressive forces, but of the Catholic Church "as a spiritual power." At the same time, it is worth noting the performance of evangelism in the elections and of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs), within which Yankee imperialism acts. These elections more openly show how everything is useful for the reactionaries who in the midst of their internal contentions, are capable of using everything to defend their group interests. What might they be capable of in the struggle against the people and the revolution? Within the course of the recent elections, they have unleashed four tactics:

They claim to have gained a military and diplomatic victory over Ecuador in the recent border problem.
They deny that the state is being hit harder than ever by the Peoples War, claiming that the revolution is "defeated" and 98% of its leaders are dead or in prison. This illusion of theirs only reflects their psychological war against the people.
They deny the record growth of at least 5 million people plunged into hunger and misery as a consequence of the politics of genocide in the countryside. As each past government in turn has crowed, they maintain there is an "economic miracle", that the people are being "modernized" and are better off than before,.
The absolute control of the electoral process through the army and the SIN, with the complicity of the "observer" Gavidia, the OAS representative (another thug and former narco-president of Colombia) and the NGO "Transparencia", an appendage of Yankee imperialism. Thus, they carried out machinations with impunity where even the dead voted. Traps, schemes and fraud in the overseeing of the elections along with the background of repression and massacres mainly in the countryside, which reeks with the stench of fascism.

Taking into account the approximate figures of the "Total Calculation of the General Elections of April 1995" [Caretas magazine April 20, 1995] based on data from Perus Board of National Elections, approximately 31% of the eligible voters didnt vote. To this number must be added the void and blank votes which accounted for 41%. Perez de Cuellar obtained 10%. Therefore Fujimori only obtained 18% of the registered voters. Wheres the overwhelming majority publicized by the regime? Here is the self-proclaimed triumph of "democracy" and the supposed defeat of "terrorism"!

What stands out is the extremely low turnout for traditional candidates, including the revisionists of the United Left that barely got 0.5% of the vote. Where are the masses the phony "left" frequently boasts of controlling? The so-called Partido Unidad (Unity Party) of Del Prado, lackey of Khruschev expelled from the PCP in the 1960s, allied itself with the representative of the big bourgeoisie Perez de Cuellar and thus it was buried for good.

The low percentage of the votes implies the collapse and extinction of the old traffickers of Peruvian politics and the consolidation of the "two hills" that contend for power: the genocidal military leadership with Fujimori at the head, and the Peoples Liberation Army led by the PCP.

Developing actions in different parts of the country, combatants of the Peoples Liberation Army (EPL) boycotted the elections, dealing hard blows to the rotten reelection campaign of the genocidal Fujimori, who seeks to reinvigorate bureaucratic capitalism and contain the growing Peoples War that has completed 15 years of victories this May.

With the slogan "Dont Vote! Seize Power!", the combatants boycotted the farcical elections, applying the four forms of struggle: agitation and armed propaganda, sabotage, annihilations and guerrilla actions such as:

On March 26, a contingent of the PCP overran the police barracks of Julca and Bolivar in the department of La Libertad. Eleven policemen were annihilated and many soldiers were captured. The officers Miguel Ganoza, Fidel Perez, and Gaspar Alvarado, chief of forced recruitment for the Army were brought to justice in the middle of the public plaza.
On March 29th, after chasing out the members of Fujimoris army, a PCP contingent overran for several hours the town of Chuschi, Ayacucho, the birthplace of the Peoples War in 1980.
On March 31, at least 200 combatants of the PCP chased away Fujimoris genocidal police from their barracks and were joyfully greeted by the people. One barrack was destroyed, the town hall was burned down, and the people held a big meeting in the town square and listened with joy to the message of the revolutionary Maoists. Hundreds of youth then joined the ranks of the Maoists.
In Villa El Salvador the streets were painted with the slogan "DONT VOTE!" and various balloting tables where taken apart by Maoist contingents in sector 3 among others.
Similarly in the city of Huaraz the chief of the notorious paramilitary force (peasant ronda) Felix Epifanio Sanchez was annihilated. This killer of peasants was the most cruel and arrogant of the genocidal army in the North.
In Lima, various imperialist firms were sabotaged; also in Lima over six local offices of Cambio 90 were turned to garbage by separate attacks of the Maoist guerrillas.
In Leoncio Prado, Huanuco, the comrades took over the military base of Venenillo and five other military bases were simultaneously taken and then destroyed.
In Piura (Huancabamba) and Huancayo there was a blackout, and then an immense explosion in a military barrack. Other actions occurred in Junin, Pasco, Apurimac and Huancavelica. In the North there was an armed strike on April 8th. In Tocache and Uchiza there was an armed strike for four days (April 6th--April 10th); in Ayacucho, the armed strike of April 8-9 paralyzed the entire city; in Callao, Ventanilla, Comas, Tahuantinsuyo and in Cusco there was sabotage and agitation with armed propaganda; in the central highway in Lima the shantytown dwellers were mobilized with flyers, they blocked the roads with stones, tires and other material, thus showing their rejection of the electoral circus of the genocidal dictator, while his cops with arms in hand and with painted faces vainly deployed themselves in the major locations. Thus, the Maoist guerrillas were able to implacably continue their actions.

These victories of the people are called by the yellow press in Peru "acts of banditry", as they desperately try to hide the truth. Overseas the press show only the government version of events, most of the time the "free press" quotes the opinion of the notorious army collaborators, the senderologists. For instance, Maria Luisa Martinez, a boot-licking correspondent of Univision (Spanish TV in the U.S.) presents senderologist Raul Gonzales: "There is no more Sendero, all there are left are bandits". Then, she interviewed a Fujimori clown, the prosecutor in Huallaga: "Sendero is preparing its own drugs, I saw them with my own eyes." How ridiculous!

IMPERIALISTS, LACKEYS AND SENDEROLOGISTS: WHERE IS YOUR DEFEATED SENDERO? The crude slander of a defeated PCP ended as one more stupidity rather than as a psychological wrecking ball, like everything the police and armed forces of the landlord- bureaucrat state do. Just one more farce that not even the Yankee advisors believe any more when Fujimori opens his mouth. WHAT THE REACTIONARIES DONT UNDERSTAND: The Peoples War is in charge of an integrated force made up of the best of human element in Peru and is not comparable to M-19 in Colombia, the FMLN in El Salvador or the fleeting group in Chiapas, Mexico; all of them were opportunistic fighters or armed adventurists with no more ideology than the providentialist chimera that has led them to get bogged down in situations with no way out except capitulation.

These fighters have never constituted nor do they constitute the living expression of a Communist Party, unlike the Peoples War led by the PCP, which develops, despite the temporary bends in the road inevitable in any revolution, unconquered on the shores, mountains or jungle.

The hallucination of the reactionaries is to see the Peoples War broken down. Thus, in every election, the vulgar journalists, the senderologists and the political demagogues fill their mouths saying: "the big loser in the elections has been Sendero"; or when there is a pause in the acts of revolutionary violence, they trumpet that "Sendero is dying". When there are violent acts, the newspapers and television stations say: "Sendero is in a desperate crisis", "they have been defeated politically and militarily", "they no longer have popular support", as three of the most nauseating rats on the Peruvian political spectrum, the senderologists Carlos Tapia, Raul Gonzales and Degregori, have been saying now for the last 15 years (see Oiga magazine, March 20, 1995). The people know them well; and with their rejection of the elections, they have placed them permanently where every reactionary should be placed: The puddle of opportunism (ganapanes miserables). In other words, no matter how they look at the situation, for these reactionary gentlemen the PCP is already extinguished (didnt they say the same thing in 1991-92?). Nevertheless, the regime continues its massive purchases of helicopter gunships and heavy weapons, the cries for help to the Pentagon and Clinton, and the expenditure of millions of dollars to cover the costs of the counterinsurgency. In addition, more areas are subjected to a state of emergency and the suspension of all basic civil rights, along with a growing budget for the repression of the people.

The example which hits home is that in Peru, for 15 years, the proletariat under the leadership of the PCP has led the Peoples War, with the results recognized by everyone. In the face of this recognition, there is no slander or genocide that can prevail. While the fate of the Peoples War is victory, the fate of the reactionaries is counted, weighed and measured and they will not escape it.

Peru Peoples Movement (MPP), April 1995