Thinking people cannot believe the lies propagated by the Peruvian regime and reprinted here by the U.S. mainstream media. We have recently read two pieces written by Calvin Sims, a reporter of the New York Times during the war in El Salvador.
In his first article on the role of women in Peruvian politics, he reported that Mercedes Cabanillas (a corrupt former Minister of Education of Alan Garcia, APRA) and Lourdes Flores (member of right-wing Christian Popular Party, PPC) are the true representatives of women in struggle in Peru. Thereafter, on December 14, at the time the Peoples Army has obtained a clear military and political victory against Fujimoris Army in the Huallaga Valley, Calvin Sims quotes a "western intelligence source" (most likely the CIA) to write in the Times: "Shining Path Shackled, and Joy is Unconfined." This piece is strikingly similar to what he wrote in 1985 on El Salvador when he also quoted "western intelligence sources" for his piece: "FMLN Shackled, the Peoples Joy."
It is not the first time that U.S. agents posed as "journalists" do their dirty job in Peru and the combative Third World. Their reports reflect the U.S. foreign policy and are always subjected to a balance between thepresence of multinational exploitation disguised as "modernization and reinsertion" and the double talk of "democratic values" that condones genocides. Such hypocritical policies are ones that pursue "profit" for the imperialists at the expense of the hunger and misery of our people. And this is not only the case of Sims, who had a long history of working as a "free lance," in Peru there are many of them. For example, "journalists" Gabrielle Gamini and Robin Kirk, who in similar fashion to Sims, quote "western intelligence" and government sources as facts. Where is the "objectivity" in their information?
The U.S. press, even the ones who claimed to be progressive, simply repeat the lies of the "official sources" that generally are the army, the Peruvian government or the Voice of America. Thus, news organizations and far too many journalists have been repeating the disinformation from one of the sides in the on-going civil war in Peru: The Army.
The readers just need a little thought and the barest of facts to show the complete absurdity of the fabrications of the "free press" against the Peoples War.
"RESPONSIBLE FOR 30,000 DEATHS" "What about the 30,000 deaths you are responsible for?", shouted someone in the crowd of cops and reporters when President Gonzalo was paraded before the press on September 24th, 1992. The figures vary, but the idea is to paint the PCP and not the genocidal Army, as the biggest mass murderer of our times. This slander comes from "journalists" who have nothing to say about Bush, Major, Kohl and Mitterand, who inflicted at least 100,000 deaths in Iraq in a matter of days! Those who have promoted the war in Yugoslavia (Bosnia) and those who have invaded Somalia and Haiti.
The Peruvian governments own figures for the total deaths until August 31st (quoted from El Pais 9/20/92):
Presumed subversives 11,872 "civilians" 10,286 "soldiers and police" 2,095 "narco traffickers" 264 Total 24,517
First, the government itself takes credit for the majority of the people killed. But who are these "presumed subversives"? They include thousands of unarmed civilians. As General Cisneros ("General 10-to-1") once explained, "It is necessary to kill 10 peasants to kill one guerrilla". Of the fallen revolutionary fighters, many were murdered not in battle but in captivity. About 300 prisoners were slaughtered in 1986 in El Fronton. In May 1992, more than 100 were taken out and shot after the government had retaken the prison of Canto Grande.
Second, as for those counted as "civilians" in the regimes figures, it has been widely reported that most of them died at the hands of the Armed Forces.
Repeatedly over the past several years, the Peruvian press has reported the discovery of mass graves. Even the mocked Peruvian parliament (CCD) presented testimony that it was the Armed Forces that killed prisoners with mutilated bodies. Lets not forget the killing of la Cantuta. The killing of the Barrios Altos in the center of Lima. Another notorious crime to come to light was in the village of Cayara, in the department of Ayacucho, in 1988, where the guests at a peasant wedding were seized by soldiers angry about having been ambushed by the PCP earlier in the day. The peasants were taken to the village church where they were hacked to pieces and shot. At least 26 bodies were later discovered. This execrable crime could not be hidden even by British senderologist Simon Strong. Members of death squads that perpetrated the crimes of La Cantuta and Barrios Altos were recently given Amnesty by Fujimori. General Valdivia, in charge of the troops in Cayara and the cover-up, was promoted and the case is officially closed.
WAR ON THE PEOPLE DISGUISED AS A WAR ON DRUGS. The PCP have a clearly stated policy on drugs: they are completely opposed to their production and use. They say that where the revolution has political power, drug use is not allowed, and the peasants who had been beholden to the drug barons are protected and freed from their clutches. It has also been reported in the same pro-government magazine Si that the PCP has done what the government has never done. The peasants in the Peoples Committees gradually replace coca leaf production with food crops.
Who is funding its war with drug money? The regime. The evidence is overwhelming and the U.S. government knows it well.
Just as the economy is run by the IMF, the Peruvian Armed Forces is "advised" by the US military and the CIA. More than 60% of Perus territory and a slightly lower percentage of its population is in "emergency zones", areas where revolutionary political power is emerging or has already been established. The Huallaga Valley in the northeastern jungle, the countrys central "breadbasket" in Junin, the southwest mountain department and vast areas of the country are under the arising new regime, the Peoples Republic of Peru are run by "peoples committees." They are made up of peasants, workers, small merchants, school teachers and other local middle-class forces, and Party representatives.
What can explain the PCPs spectacular success? Can there really be a plausible explanation at all, besides ardent and growing support from the Peruvian peasants and shantytown dwellers, the poor and all the "invisible masses," and progressives?
A detailed answer to these questions are in the document: Introduction to The Peoples War (45 pages) from New Flag Editions.