Here is a summary of some of the most important political and military guerrilla actions carried out by the PCP. Only in the month of January, more than 140 actions of sabotage, shaking (zozobras), selective annihilation, agitation and propaganda, ambushes and clashes with the genocidal armed forces and police, took place. One sample of the strength of the PCP in these 18 years of the invincible People's War is the following: since November 1989 to January 1991, more than 150 electrical towers were dynamited.
The revolutionary offensive continued with a stunning ambush to a Navy patrol in the Upper Huallaga. On January 15 about 300 members of the People's Army smashed the counter subversive military base in the district of Acosvinchos, annihilating 39 armed paramilitary "black heads," and the same number of ronderos were wounded (army-run civil defense committees.)
On January 30, a Navy patrol was ambushed near the locality of Puerto Inca, Department of Huanuco, causing them four casualties. On February 4, three army officers and five soldiers were killed in combat after the People's Army ambushed them near the community of Huaranjallo, in Huanta, Ayacucho.
In early April, a PCP detachment executed the despised APRA bureaucrat Felipe Santiago Salaverry in the locality of Lurin, Lima. The population considered this action to be an act of people's justice against a notorious henchman that oppressed and ripped off retirees and disabled persons who hardly survive on their meager and fixed incomes. (Salaverry was the head of the bankrupt National Institute of Social Security, trans.) Later on, seeking to erode the people's morale, the reactionary strategists staged a vicious propaganda campaign (TV, radio and newspapers) alleging splits within the PCP.
But as usual, their dark designs failed and ended up in history's garbage dump. During the celebrations of the anniversary of the People's War, the PCP showed in deeds that it was stronger and more united than ever. The PCP, showing a deep appreciation for the masses and the national and international proletariat, issued warm greetings which were well received by the people.
In the first days of May, the Committee of Families and Relatives of Prisoners of War, Political Prisoners and Disappeared, held an impressive march in downtown Lima. At the corner of Lampa and Emancipation streets, they publically denounced the genocidal plans of the government. They quickly distributed flyers and broke off the police cordons, launching explosives against the Ministry of Justice and nearby corporate buildings. The public witnessing these actions encouraged the bold incursion of the revolutionaries, and later helped the demonstrators to disperse unharmed.
In the district of Barranco, Lima, a contingent of the People's Army blew up a large car shop where the luxurious vehicles of high-ranking officers of the Air Force and Navy were being repaired, destroying more than 20 vehicles. A few days later, several buses owned by the government (ENATRUPERU) were set on fire. In mid May, the families and relatives of political prisoners and prisoners of war again held rallies and armed actions (agitation and propaganda) near kilometer 32 of Lima's Central Highway (Carretera Central.) The same thing happened at the Atocongo bridge, in the District of San Juan de Miraflores, and in front of the "Jorge Chavez" supermarket in the District of La Victoria.
By the end of May, an extraordinary display of propaganda celebrating the anniversary of the People's War, took place in the entire country in a bold demonstration of the New Power exercised by workers, peasants and progressives. Hundreds of red flags of the international proletariat were conspicuously displayed in various districts of Lima, as well as paintings and posters that read, ¡Viva el Presidente Gonzalo!
In the Ayacucho province of La Mar, a detachment of the People's Army easily engaged and defeated a marine infantry patrol that operated organizing paramilitary rondas. In Lima, on June 1, Tomas Yrigoyen, a known exploiter and oppressor of workers, was executed. He was the personnel manager of the company CITECIL. Also around that time, the headquarters of Cambio 90 and APRA were dynamited at the time when all of its leaders were inside.
Two days later, armed detachments of workers affiliated with the People's Revolutionary Movement (MRDP) took over several neighborhoods in Lima carrying out propaganda to boycott the presidential elections organized by reaction. On June 5, the Regional Deputy for Huancavelica, Juan Mendoza Espinoza, was annihilated by the People's Army (Mendoza was a close collaborator of the repressive forces in the Region.) The next day, the "Curva Bellavista" bridge in the locality of Casapalca was dynamited, and as a result, cut off Lima from the center of the country.
A day before the elections, detachments of the People's Army tore down several high voltage line towers, blacking out Lima and other cities, while other detachments raided and burned the offices of the Electoral Registry in the District of Jesus Maria, Lima.
On June 5 and 6, detachments of the People's Army detonated two car bombs, one behind the Cathedral of Lima and another one very close to the Palace of Government, breaking the repressive cordon that supposedly would "prevent terrorism's tainting the electoral festivity."
On June 8, 9 and 10 stunning ARMED STRIKES shook the Departments of Junin, Ayacucho, Pasco, and Ancash, jamming the electoral farce in hundreds of districts. Also, two car bombs were detonated against a Huancayo military barrack, another one in Cusco, and another one in Huaraz. These last three cities are located in central, southern and northern Peru.
In early July a contingent of the People's Army attacked a police post at the mining center "La Caudalosa" in the Department of Huancavelica, executing in combat the captain of the post and four policemen, while the remaining policemen ran away covering their wounds. Later on came the taking of the city of Ingenio, District of Palpa, Department of Ica, and the wiping out of paramilitary (mesnada) bases in several districts through the province of Dos de Mayo, Department of Huanuco.
On July 27, car bombs shook up the Joint Command, the Ministry of War, and the Rimac Armored Division barracks in the heart of Lima. A few days later, several paramilitaries (mesnadas) were annihilated in the Department of Ancash, while in the city of Lima, Antonio Rosales, a henchman of the multinational renown tire company, "Good Year" (a.k.a. Goodrich) was annihilated.
Just before July 28 (the change of guard in the reactionary State), the PCP carried out an offensive in the capital, which caused the panicking of the reactionaries.
On August 8, the People's Army attacked the counterinsurgency base of Tambo, annihilating in combat 10 soldiers and taking over the city for three hours. On August 15, fifteen soldiers were annihilated in combat in the Mantaro River's mouth area. On August 16-17, a stunning ARMED STRIKE took place in Ayacucho against the Fujimori government and its genocidal and hunger bearing measures. Four days later, a successful ARMED STRIKE rocked the entire city of Lima.
The People's War has put the problem of the native peoples on the forefront, which the New Power has been solving not as a racial or minority problem, but as a class problem. Specifically, with respect to the land and the national question, the PCP's program addresses, synthesizes, and leads the struggle of the peasantry and the native minorities. These people are the ones who are now being subjected to the exploitation and despoilment inflicted upon them by the reactionaries.
The PCP has earned the leadership in hundreds of native and peasant communities abutting the Rivers of the Ene Valley, Urubamba and Perene, which has alarmed the counterrevolutionary strategists. In the second week of October, the People's Army clashed with an army patrol in the Maquisapa locality, in Tingo Maria, annihilating (in combat) at least 15 soldiers. Several marine infantry troops were also annihilated in the Apurimac River area in the province of La Mar (Department of Ayacucho.)
On October 20, in the Vilcashuaman locality, a province of La Concepcion (Huancayo), a police control post was smashed by about 40 combatants of the People's Army. This daring attack caused them four casualties, and the rest of the enemy troops surrendered. Meanwhile in Lima, the PCP takes over of neighborhoods was a hard blow inflicted upon the repressive forces. Two patrolmen were attacked in Villa el Salvador, and countless of actions of sabotage, selective annihilations, armed propaganda and agitation took place throughout the city.
In early November, the smashing of mesnadas in the Department of Huancayo continued. In the Districts of Pucara, Chupaca, and mainly in the Huachacc District, several heads of paramilitary (mesnadas) were annihilated. In the North, the Tuman cooperative installations, a latifundio was attacked and subsequently, machinery was distributed to workers, and facilities were destroyed. On November 4, four bombs exploded in the northern city of Trujillo. On November 6, a contingent of the People's Army in the northern province of Casma, took over the town of Yautan. It attacked the police station for three hours, wounding four members of the technical police, and forcing the others to flee.
In the second half of November in Huacho, the ranch of landlord Javier Puiggros was demolished. Afterwards, the People's Army fighters carried out a people's trial, then a crop harvest and distribution of proceeds and goods among the peasants' population took place.
On the night of November 22, in the province of Cangallo (Ayacucho), hundreds of Maoist combatants of the People's Army leveled two nucleations near the Cangallo military base, around Sachabamba. On that same day, in Humanguilla (Huanta), the People's Army attacked the Apacheta anti-guerrilla base and caused them at least 15 casualties.
A few days later the People's Army assaulted the police post "El Rancho," in Huanuco, killing seven myrmidons. In Santiago de Chuco, a military patrol was ambushed causing them several deaths. In the Department of Huancavelica, Edilberto del Pino Cenzano, General Secretary of the APRA was annihilated. In addition, the State was unable to carry out the complementary municipal elections to impose its officials in the war zones. To this day, 330 municipalities and localities have been affected.
In December, numerous guerilla actions, sabotage, selective annihilations, armed agitation and propaganda took place not allowing the repressive forces a moment of rest. These actions originated from the violent clashes between Maoists and paramilitary rondas in Mosollacta, Huanta, and many casualties among the reactionaries resulted, which the reactionary army tries to keep secret. These include the demolishing car bomb at the "Camino Real" shopping centers. One of the most luxurious shops centers of the big bourgeoisie, causing several millions of dollars in damages.
But the hardest blow handed to reaction and imperialism in the last few months, was the capture and smashing of the base of Mobil Oil Corporation, capping off a successful campaign by the New Power and its People's Army. After being hit heavily, reaction and its armed forces ordered the indiscriminate bombardment and strife of civilian villages in the war zones (especially those in the jungle areas) as revenge and exemplary punishment against the unarmed people for having dared to escalate the degree of the struggle.
The great Lenin reaffirmed the predominant role of the youth in every revolution, when he stated in his work "About the Youth": "The youth will decide the outcome of every struggle, especially the student youth and of course, the working youth . . . "
Our daily struggle corroborates Lenin's sentence. The overwhelming participation of the youth in the intense class struggle in the country is certainly remarkable.
After 18 years of even greater development of the People's War led by the PCP, the actions corroborate the participation of the youth as the leading majority of the forces of the revolution. In many actions such as Armed Strikes, the taking of towns, acts of sabotage, ambushes, and so on, that the People's Army of Liberation has carried out in these 18 long years of the People's War, the youth, ages 14 to 30, has shed its blood and gave up it lives, for the triumph of the revolution.
The news also informed us of the many attacks that took place on army and police barracks, for instance in Ayacucho, Huallaga and other areas of the country. Among them were the attacks on La Madre Mia, Santa Lucia, and other military bases. These were each carried out by Maoist contingents of the People's Army of Liberation consisting of more than 100 youth.
In Lima, the reactionary papers reported the annihilation of Santiago Salaverry, the "Buffalo Pacheco," and other elements that are despised by the people, and these were carried out by two to four youths who are less than 25 years of age.
The taking over of many of Lima's neighborhoods, such as Villa El Salvador, Huaycan, Canto Grande and the northern zone of the capital, had massive youth participation, according to witnesses.
The outstanding struggles for demands and vindications carried out by the workers in the Civil Construction Sector, Carbolan, ESMLL, CLIM, and others were led by young workers, just like those struggles of SUTEP (teachers), CITE (public employees), FEP (students), Social Security, Health Workers, and Street Vendors (Vendedores Ambulantes), etc.
The People's War has promoted the widest mobilization of students in defense of their basic rights in all universities and higher education schools in the country. On the other hand, the present fascist Fujimori regime has been enacting laws or reforming their statutes in desperation, in a futile attempt to militarily control the universities (as was done by his predecessor Garcia's APRA government). They are also trying to close down the universities or privatize them because of the youth's intense political development, which is in opposition to the exploiting classes. Despite this brutal repression, the students have intensified their militancy in and out of campuses, causing the repressive forces to tremble.
Universities such as San Marcos and UNI (Engineering School) have witnessed many mobilizations, rallies, posting of red flags, etc. by PCP militants.
Let us recall the rally of last August when a large contingent of "Socorro Popular del Per'u" (People's Aid) took over the university for more than half an hour and paid homage to the six students of San Marcos, heroes of the people, who were assassinated by reaction.
Also the continued postings of red flags in the universities, sabotage and other actions in which the student's masses participate, cause panic among the myrmidons assigned to guard the campuses.
All of these events illustrate the important role of the youth in every revolution, especially in oppressed countries like ours in which they are the majority of the population. Once again this proves Lenin's conclusion that: "Without the youth no revolutionary cause can triumph, neither in the factories and in the rural areas, nor in the Army, or the educational centers."
The sinister plans of the dictatorship against the people include genocide, disappearances and jailing, and relentless repression against workers, toilers, students and peasants (in the countryside.) The murders of youth, male and female, such as in La Cantuta Teacher's College, in the San Genaro neighborhood, Chorrillos District (in July), a female student at Argentina Avenue (August), and several others, is the desperate answer of the reactionary regime.
The laws and decrees against education, budget cuts to deliberately close down or privatize the universities, the abusive increases in tuition, the arrests of intellectuals, university professors (including tenures), the fascist "social assistance" programs run by the intelligence services (SIN/SIE) in order to recruit and stupefy the youth and hook them into serving the old system, have all failed.
As the struggle to transform Peruvian society, in which the youth is the most active and vital force, has intensified, the reactionary plans have also intensified. But the reactionary plans have not yielded any positive results. On the contrary, the people have been fighting hard and are reversing these plans.
The PCP is waging an overpowering peasant war along and across Peru, consolidating its actions in the coastal valleys and the main departments of the Sierra and high jungle. It is applying the agrarian policy of destroying semi-feudal property (whether old type or new type), distributing land and cattle among poor peasants, encouraging collective sowing and harvesting of crops for self-consumption. The People's War is establishing a new peasant economy different from that controlled by the bureaucratic and profit-oriented myriad threads of the so-called "free market," which fatten the big landlords and the private or state oligopolies of basic articles.
In response to this overwhelming activity of the Maoists in the countryside, the reactionaries and their armed forces, in complicity with the Yankee agents operating covertly and overtly in our territory, have reactivated the paramilitary peasants (mesnadas), and nucleations, implementing the policy of confronting masses with masses. This is in addition to the torture and genocide against the People's Committees and support bases. It is estimated that more than 30,000 unarmed peasants were slaughtered by the reactionary armed forces and police.
Although the reactionaries and their feathery hacks of the press try to hide the advances of the revolu ]tion, the current events (1998) speak for themselves:
Actions such as the successive smashing against mesnada bases in Accosvinchos, Vinchospata, San Lucas (Ayacucho), and the seizure of teh cities of Aucayacu, San Miguel, Tocache, maong others have served to stop the genocidal plans against the People's War, which the armed forces have tried to use at the expense of hundreds of peasant lives.
The reactionary government is responding in a focalized fashion trying to foil the free passage of the guerrilla detachments and assure the free traffic of export products to the coast.
Fujimori tried to reestablish political and military control in several areas in the Department of Junin (such as the valley abutting the Cunas River), where actions of sabotage and the leveling of big landlords' properties hit the old State apparatus hard in that area. As part of their plans, they organized poorly armed rondas (Civil Defense Committees or mesnadas) to use them as cannon fodder against the platoons and contingents of the People's Army of Liberation. The fact is that the New Power installed years ago remain. There are large agrarian enterprises, such as SAIS "Cahuide" (demolished in 1988) that were not reactivated, which show the bankruptcy of bureaucratic capitalism in the area.
In other areas of the Andes' spinal cord and the jungle, the PCP has also carried out a genuine agrarian reform with the participation of thousands of peasants. These revolutionary measures not only shook the old State in the Central and Upper Huallaga areas, but have also reached the native communities which were subjugated for centuries by landlord power. The PCP managed to organize them and lead them in their struggles, unmasking the diversionist campaign by MRTA aimed at cutting off the People's War from the native population.
While in certain areas of Pasco and Junin, the native communities have been forced to join "peasant rondas" to use them against the People's War. Thousands of natives have joined the People's Army of Liberation, mainly in the valleys abutting the rivers Ene, Perene, and others.
The peasant war has also developed in other regions. This is shown by the stunning actions in Vilcahuaura (Huacho), against latifundio plantations (haciendas) in Puno, Huamachuco (La Libertad), Ingenio (Palpa), Humay (Pisco), and the Conchucos Valley (Ancash), to mention just a few.
Nowadays, according to "confidential" Interior Ministry reports (some captured by the PCP and others "leaked" to some in the media), land distribution and cooperative farming became widespread in the valleys of Lima, and in Huaral, Can'ete, Pisco and Ica, where "massive crop operations" have been applied, distributing the agricultural production of the vast landlords' estates among poor peasants, and their covert: "little gamonals" engendered by the fascist regime.
"Contrary to what reaction and revisionism preach, the proletariat and other oppressed classes have elevated their struggles, and are more conscious than ever today of the need to conquer power."
The balance of eighteen years of People's War leaves a positive balance of strikes, work stoppages, and other struggles by the proletariat and other workers against the oppression and poverty they face. These actions did not emerge out of nothing, but alongside the development of the People's War, the highest expression of the class struggle in our country.
The current decade began when the reactionary State, first with Garcia Perez and then with the current genocidal Fujimori, cut down further the rights of working people, trying to better serve the big bourgeoisie and imperialism, mainly Yankee imperialism.
Fujimori earned enough merits as the SERVANT OF IMPERIALISM AND REACTION with series of anti-labor measures implemented by means of a brutal repression and supposedly aimed at creating a "climate of confidence for foreign investors" and "globalization," which in reality means more exploitation, plundering and poverty.
During these years we saw the interloping into trade unions, the cutback ("regulation") in the right to strike, massive layoffs of government workers and stepping onto collective agreements seeking to declare them null. Their rubber-stamp parliaments have passed a myriad of decrees that affect workers, such as the general labor law, strike law, and others that the reactionaries and their revisionist partners are trying to enforce. Lately, the shameless Congress controlled by the political police (SIN/SIE) has granted a "blank check" to the dictatorship so it can impose by decree any fascist laws it wishes.
It is common to see the collusion and "dialogues" between the Peruvian Workers Confederation (CGTP), CITE, and other union hacks with the big entrepreneurs and representatives of the landlord-bureaucratic State. It is known that these mercenaries actively supported Garcia Perez, desperately putting down any measure of the struggle advanced by the workers for fear of being left behind. When the reactionary regime of Fujimori began, revisionism (United Left, PUT, UNIR, UNIDAD and others) suddenly became a co-government, and they provided three cabinet members and many officials hitched to the State apparatus. However, it took less than six months for the reactionary regime to become completely discredited. In that period of time, more than 200,000 small businesses became bankrupt, and the slow down or stoppage of many more affected a total of two million workers who were fired from their jobs or saw their salaries arbitrarily reduced.
Let us recall a pathetic case of the sap work by these revisionists which is the National Executive Committee of the teacher's union (SUTEP-CEN) in the early 1990s. These hacks had a dual role as labor leaders and as officials from the Ministry of Education's appendices known as USES, firing teachers, snitching, and trafficking with the word revolution in teachers' assemblies, to calm down the cries of their rotten consciences.
In 1990, for example, revisionism called just one "national strike," and that was to try to warp and climb into the August 21 ARMED STRIKE. This was a year that revisionism was dedicated to tuning up the exploitative apparatus of the oppressors, like in the civil construction area, where Pedro Huillca went from a strike seller to slave hooker, implementing the so-called "Employment Market" of law 25202, by which the union would provide 25 percent of the workforce needed by the contractors who would pay meager wages. (In 1992, Grupo Colina, the regime's death squad murdered Huillca for i) failing to adequately control the striking workers, and ii) to blame the PCP for the murder so as to discredit it.)
Another sad example in the 1990s was the betrayal by the SUTEP leaders to the stunning teacher's strikes such as in May 1990. They sold it for crumbs: that is for the supposed "modification" to the professorship law D.S. 25215, which provided no benefits to the teachers.
In these days the militant health worker's strike was sold out by the union's General Secretary Benjamin Leon Chilquillo, an opportunist linked to the Popular Action party, in exchange for a handful of jobs for his relatives and cronies.
Revisionism and opportunism shelved and in many cases prevented measures of the struggle initiated by the workers such as the indefinite national strike by miners (scheduled for mid October), which 60 bases backed, mostly in the Central Sierra. Among others was Hierro Peru, Centromin, Southern Cooper Corporation, Millotingo (lately bankrupted). Many of these mining centers closed to start their protest independently from the leadership of the National Federation of Miners.
Who are the mentors of this sinister boycott to the people's struggles? Jorge Quezada, a former General Secretary of the Mining Federation (member of revisionist group PUM), the bizarre "UDPilla" (crook) Cecilia Oviedo, and her cronies of Bloque Popular, MRTA, and the weird opportunist Letts Colmenares and his "militant marches" or the fake "socialist" Gustavo Mohme. This Gustavo Mohme is a dynamite-proof opportunist: the owner of three large construction companies, a major stockholder of "Editora La República," publisher of two national dailies, a major stockholder of Radio Cadena, Banco Latino, Surmebanc, an active member of organizations of the great bourgeoisie CAPECO, CONFIEP and others. However, that will not stop his boasting that he is a "consistent social fighter." He even claims to be an "opposition" figure, after being so close to the murderers Fujimori and Garcia, his paper "La República" has served for years in the psychological warfare campaign against the people and the PCP.
With respect to the CGTP hacks, who for decades have betrayed the workers and the people, today more than ever, they are bureaucratic crusts serving the old State and the big bourgeoisie in their role as firefighters of the people's struggles.
All the above -betrayals, jamming, boycotts, etc. accelerates the revisionist debacle, since the bases surpass them on a daily basis, and actively fight from the bases to generate their own proletarian leadership.
The proletariat along with other workers in general, face great difficulties throughout the years with their militant struggles, and therefore, this is proof of how the advanced are the class consciousness among the working class that is undoubtedly ingrained in their hearts and minds.
It suffices to mention, for example, the heroic fighting and resistance of the workers at the factory CARBOLAN, who showed that if the proletariat wants to conquer rights, it must wrest them away from their oppressors by hard struggle, and never by bending their knees. Thus, after taking over the factory located in Lima's district, Ate Vitarte, they faced the police forces who were able to remove them only with the use of heavy weaponry, but not before the repressive forces felt in their flesh the wrath and class hatred of the strikers. In retaliation, the exploiters fired more than 100 workers, among them pregnant women. These actions once again prove
that the only solution to unemployment, hunger, and oppression is through revolutionary violence carried out by the steeled alliance of workers, peasants, and the most progressive layers of people in our society.
Another important struggle was the one led by the construction workers. They fought for the continuation of all construction projects halted by the regime due to the ongoing recession, and as a result, produced the most impressive rallies and demonstrations in the capital. Understanding the correct meaning of revolutionary violence, the construction workers did not retreat in the face of the bloody police repression, but made their struggle bolder with the explosion of powerful dynamite charges against legitimate targets such as the house of Hurtado Miller (former Ministry of Economy) or the Peruvian Chamber of Commerce (CAPECO).
The miners waged another important struggle, in which several local bases mobilized and carried out actions stopping the production in large mining centers of the country, causing the big comprador bourgeoisie and the old State a great headache and loss in earnings.
Lima saw again the arrival of the miners from the sierra with their militant demonstrations, shaking up the city (and those who still are not aware of their class force) with their revolutionary slogans and actions. The textile workers from Textile Union, Hilados Tren, Cadenas and others also set multiple protest actions, some for wage increases and others against forced vacations and the reneging of the implementation of collective pacts and agreements.
Other working class sectors fought alongside the proletariat, who, upholding proletarian ideology, was a protagonist of the most beautiful days of struggle in the last years.
The struggles of teachers, municipal workers, and State employees (bases) for living wages as well as various demands benefitting the people, were outstanding. Therefore, they turned their economic (vindications) struggle into a political struggle.
There were many sudden and successful take overs (occupations) of government buildings by the workers, such as the Ministries of Health, Transportation, Agriculture, and the acts of sabotage that go with them.
Contrary to what revisionism preaches, that the class is in retreat, the actions described above show a new stage in the development of the workers' movement, in which the class is going through an era of advancement and development.
The understanding of the validity of the proletarian ideology and its application determines that, as a historical necessity of the working masses, new organizations emerge guided by the ideology of the proletariat and follows its political ideology.
In our country this process has been going on for several years, but beginning in 1990, it has developed further as a result of the development of the People's War, led by the PCP, the organized vanguard of the Peruvian proletariat.
Thus, many coordinating committees and blocks of classist workers representing a large sector of the work force in the country, are the genuine organizations who fight for their interests as well as for the people as a whole.
Proof of this is seen in the class strikes organized by different sectors, as Lima's municipal workers and the SUTEP (teachers) bases have done, and where the links between these struggles and the People's War are evident.
In summary, we can conclude that the struggles in the 1990's have been successful. The working class movement empowered its struggle upholding its historical role to transform society. We can see today that the struggle for economic demands, which is being carried out in function and link to the conquest power, is more developed and is advancing.
In the 90s the immense masses of the neighborhoods and young towns elevated their powerful struggles in function of the seizure of power, which was reflected in the detriment and bankruptcy of reaction and revisionists of all kinds. The stunning armed strikes and guerrilla actions were carried out under the correct leadership of the People's Revolutionary Defense Movement (MRDP), an organization generated by the PCP for the struggle in the cities. By the use of revolutionary violence, to the consternation of counter-revolutionaries, the masses developed further the political struggle, that is, the struggle for power.
As soon as the last "democratic election" ended and Fujimori was enthroned as imperialist lackey, the poorest sectors of Peru felt in their own flesh the effects of the class hatred by the reactionary politicians. More than 12 million Peruvians were forced into oppression and misery, while they (the hacks in power such as ministers, congressmen, senators, mayors, regents, generals, and other bureaucrats) fill their pockets with large amounts of money.
As a result of the Fujimori's criminal cut backs and price hikes of basic foodstuffs, many diseases like tuberculosis (TB) have reached epidemic proportions affecting humble dwellers of large neighborhoods and shanty towns. In the District of Comas (Lima), 200 thousand children and youth whose ages range from 10-25, have been infected. In Villa el Salvador 150,000 people are registered to have TB, and the same thing has happened in the port of El Callao. In metropolitan Lima, TB has spread in the Districts of El Agustino, Independencia, San Juan de Miraflores, Villa Maria del Triunfo, San Juan de Lurigancho, Villa el Salvador. Ironically, some of these districts have "socialist mayors."
These traitors, grouped together under various labels, among them PUM, IU, Patria Roja, UDP, IS, BPR, UDP, MDP, ID, UNIDAD, MRTA, etc. do their best to traffick and enrich themselves at the expense of the people's poverty!
Many of them are in the discredited non-governmental organizations or the "promotion centers" as agents of the imperialist powers and superpowers. The case of trafficker Jorge Quintanilla Alarco'n (PUM) is notorious: after being the mayor of El Agustino, for more than ten years, he was taken in a tour through Europe, doing fund raising of thousands of dollars supposedly "for the people" that he then pocketed himself. In the District of Independence, the "people's poverty campaign" helped to enrich the traffickers Esther Moreno, Jesús Cáceres and others. In Comas, former Mayor Humberto Paredes Vargas (PUM) and his accomplice Antonieta Flores, stole 250,000 dollars from the account received, supposedly as "donations for the hungry population." Furthermore, in Villa el Salvador, the activities of the corrupt self-proclaimed "socialist Mayor" Michel Azcueta, are well known. He is not only a thief, but a close collaborator with the police in "Counterinsurgency activities." Azcueta was a close partner of Maria Elena Moyano, the nefarious "mother courage" of imperialism and counterinsurgency in Peru.
The masses know that all of these traitors get close to the old State to sack it and enrich themselves, while hiring their cronies in key posts of the "people's municipalities." That's why a local base of the People's Army of Liberation had smashed the buildings of this bogus "people's power" during the armed strikes.
To the consternation of the reactionaries and revisionists, hundreds of struggle committees, led by the Revolutionary Movement in Defense of the People (MRDP), carried out stunning Armed Strikes, each deploying hundreds of fighters.
Just as rivers make up the sea, the people create their own fighting tools, forging new leaders in the People's War. It is not a coincidence that populations such as those in the young towns of Huaycan, Bocanegra, Laderas de Chillon, Javier Heraud, and in many others, the masses have been rejecting these revisionist hacks who were trying to deceive them. Similarly, in Cantogrande the residents elevated the proletarian slogan RESIST AND FIGHT! with greater militancy has confronted the repressive apparatus in each class strike, forcing them to bite the dust!
In the southern Lima districts, the Maoists are waging one of the most intense battles against the counterrevolution headed by revisionists of all types (who are aided by the armed forces and the Church), and who for more than 20 years, have been promoting self aid programs. In order to hide their traffic and betrayal, they organize armed gangs labeled "revolutionary."
Thus, the armed revisionist MRTA and FPL are trying to climb on the crest of the People's War, however, their pretensions have been rejected by the people. Just as in the failed Social Emergency Program (PES), the M-rats wander about in these areas, without definite plans or objectives. They are moved only by their low opportunism.
On August 21-22 the masses confirmed the reactionary and anti-people nature of M-rats, when they tried to deflate the MRDP's call for the ARMED STRIKE. A few days before, the MRTA began bolstering some fictitious "combative 48-hour strike" that not even their cronies (congressmen, mayors, council members and other revisionists) took seriously, much less the people who fiercely fought back the military.
In the new situation, the "misery belts" surrounding Lima are gradually turning themselves into "iron belts," pincers that sooner rather than later, will strangle reaction as a whole. We notice the tenacious militancy of the population at the large human settlement "Domingo Guzman Santander" (District Los Olivos) that even though then the APRA and today Fujimori chieftains tried to manipulate it for their ends, they have learned how to fight to confront reaction, with arms in their hands.
Eighteen years after the People's War began, the proletariat has entered a new stage of combating revisionism and reaction. It is the forging of the New Power that shines its lights on the world. This is the way the people in the relentless struggle in Peru sow their own glorious victory!
¡Viva la Guerra Popular!
¡Viva el Presidente Gonzalo!
¡Viva el Partido Comunista del Perú!
¡Viva el Ejército Popular de Liberación!
¡Viva el 18th Aniversario de la Guerra Popular!
¡Proletarios del Mundo, Uníos,!
Published by The New Flag Magazine.
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