Even knowing in advance that its puppet government has executed labor leader Pedro Huillca, the U.S. Department of State (Dispatch "Peru's Brutal Insurgency: SL, 1992-1993) still accused the Communist Party of Perú (PCP) of having carried out this crime. According to this CIA dispatch, the PCP's People's Guerrilla Army has also executed "hundreds of workers," among them miner leader Saul Cantoral, textile worker Enrique Castilla, and others. This deception and lie, which has been part of the psychological operations (a component of the U.S. Low Intensity Warfare tactic against the people of Perú), was quickly disseminated "as fact" by the outlets of imperialism and world revisionism. In the United States, the campaign was promoted by the U.S. government's Human Rights Branch (Right's Watch/American), and by a sinister Trotskyte sect known as the Socialist Workers's Party (SWP), who trying to smear the international prestige of the PCP, even toured a couple of discredited Peruvian "leftist Congressmen" (Hugo Blanco and Diez Canseco) in U.S. cities to slander the Peruvian revolution. Today, the evidence is clear and convincing that the union leaders and workers listed in that report, were publicly murdered by the regime's death squads run by the intelligence services (SIN and/or SIE) under orders of Yankee imperialism.Pedro Huillca, the Secretary General of the Labor Confederation of Peru (CGTP), was murdered on December 18, 1992. But, it is only in September 1995 that the truth came to light when two former agents of the Army Intelligence Services (SIE) broke their wall of silence. Agents Mesmer Carlos Talledo, and Clemente Alayo Calderon charged that Huillca was murdered by the infamous Colina Group death squad, whose activities are controlled and authorized by the National Intelligence Services (SIN). The regime quickly retaliated by putting both men before the hooded military tribunals, and gave them life sentences in the Yanamayo prison for "treason to the fatherland." According to Carlos and Alayo the motive for the killing was because Huillca had become "a pebble inside Fujimori's shoe" after he threatened to break his collusion with the regime, and carry out a series of strikes and work stoppages. At the time, Huillca was under intense pressure from the bases of the workers' federation who were exposing his collusion with the government. In November 1997, under intenational pressure the regime pardoned Mesmer Carlos Talledo for having been "wrongly convicted of terrorism," and the Public Defender (headed by the SIN Agent José Santisteban Noriega) has compelled him to submit to a psychiatric examination.
Huillca's murder is connected to the March 23, 1997- murder of 28-year-old army intelligence agent Mariela Barreto, former girlfriend of Colina Group Chief, Army Major Santiago Martin Rivas (a decorated graduate of the U.S. School of the Americas). Barreto's body was found dismembered and decapitated. To cover up this crime (as is usual for crimes of the regime) then Defense Minister Tomas Castillo Meza announced that the military courts would assert jurisdiction over the Barreto case. Thus, the same murderers become into prosecutors and judges.
A few days later, Leonor La Rosa, another female SIE agent and partner of Barreto was tortured in the basement of the office of the high military command. In an April 6, 1997-interview by Peru's Channel 2 (Frecuencia Latina) La Rosa had revealed in detail that her superiors and fellow SIE intelligence officers had tortured her. Speaking from a military hospital ward, she displayed burn marks from electric shocks in her body. According to La Rosa's account she was first tortured in January 1997, following a SIN investigation of some press leaks and then in February she was tortured again after refusing to participate in an undercover task linked to a sting operation against Air Force General Waldo Richter. For publishing this interview and other similar ones, the regime retaliated against the owner of the TV, the Israeli Born Baruch Ivcher Bronstein (himself a former crony of Fujimori and SIN) with the loss of ownership of his TV station, and his Peruvian citizenship.
On June 5, 1997, La Rosa was released from the military hospital, transferred to a private clinic, and then fled to Mexico to save her life. Unable to deny the overwhelming evidence of the widespread use of torture against political prisoners, even against army dissidents, puppet Fujimori admitted that in his "direct democracy" (referring to his fascist regime) torture takes place and death squads exist. But at the same time, a hooded judge, Army General Guido Guevara Guerra (head of military justice), announced the possibility of disloyalty charges against La Rosa for leaking "internal activities of the army " to the press. It is interesting to note here that for years, La Rosa and other intelligence agents were the conduits of the misinformation leaked by SIN to the yellow press (e.g., La Republica, Channel 2, etc.) against the PCP in the late 1980's and early 1990's. They were parts of the close coordination between SIN and the official press, who later distanced themselves from the fascist faction in the armed forces led by Hermoza Rios.
What ties the Barreto murder and the La Rosa torture had to the murder of Pedro Huillca is that Huillca's widow, Martha Flores, recognized Barreto when her photo was published in the press as the woman who, a few days before Huillca's gunning down, had knocked on her door looking for a job as a maid in the Huillca's home. Huillca's family, his daughter, Flor de Maria, his son Julio Cesar, and his wife, who were with Huillca in the car at the time of the attack, vigorously point the finger to the regime.
It must be highlighted that the late Pedro Huillca was far from being a PCP collaborator or a sympathizer with the People's War. Several times, Huillca, as well as other revisionist leaders of the labor federation (CGTP) such as Isidoro Gamarra, Valentin Pacho, Herrera, Gorriti, and others have been rightfully and correctly criticized in the official publications of the Communist Party of Perú, even by supporters of the revolution such as the paper El Diario-Lima. Huillca was a collaborator of the APRA and the Fujimori regimes, who always tried to sabotage the revolutionary storm of the workers during the armed strikes and guerrilla offensives. His middle of the road stand in the face of the vicious and brutal attacks Peruvian workers suffer at the hands of the genocidal economic policies of the regime, deserved El Diario's criticisms, which at the same time, enabled the cynical Fujimori, his advisor Montesinos (head of SIN, CIA pawn and drug baron) to order the killing of Huillca and "blame it on Sendero as soon as it happened." Surprisingly, even supporters of the Peruvian revolution thought that the People's Army did it: El Diario-Lima published an article titled "Head of Don Pedro Rolls Over." But officially, the PCP in its public documents never acknowledged this execution as they did the others.
The question that arises then is not that the Colina Group death squad as other appendages of the Fujimori regime, can "run out of control," as some in the old State may clamor just to deviate scrutiny, but indeed, these instruments of death and repression are being purposely used to settle accounts extrajudicially (even judicially because the regime controls the legal system) among bourgeois individuals who, like Huillca, support the old State and are opposed to its violent overthrow. A troubling question for individuals who have contradictions with the regime like Ivcher, retired Generals Rodolfo Robles and Salinas, journalists Rospigliosi, Hildebrand, and Mirko Lauer, disgraced senderologist Gustavo Gorriti, the writer Vargas Llosa, or the heads of the labor bureaucracy like Pacho, Espinoza, the perennial Congressmen Diez Canseco, Alberto Moreno, Breña Pantoja, and Olivera, even the senile (pelele) Perez de Cuellar and his UP, is that whenever it suits the regime, and the factional contradictions within the two factions of the big bourgeoisie intensify, the genocidal fascist regime headed by Hermoza Rios and his puppet Fujimori, will not hesitate a minute to order their annihilation by the Colina Group or by other similar groups of the intelligence services (headed by the killer Montesinos), with the regime claiming that "Sendero did it."
On its June 27, 1997 issue, the sewer Expreso tried to gloss over those accusations by Huillca's family by publishing a press release from the Supreme Council of Military Justice, labeling the accusations against the Colina Group as "preposterous," and alleging that at the time of the murder, the Huillca family had identified two alleged "senderistas," Margot Cecilia Dominguez and Mario Rafael Uscata, as the perpetrators. However, Huillca's family firmly rejects those allegations, stating that they have never said that they were the culprits, nor have ever recognized them as being the authors. These two innocent individuals were picked up by the police as the authors to foul public opinion, especially the Huillca family, and close the case. The family, however, recognized the faces of some of the members of the Colina Group whose photos were shown to them by the Caretas magazine, and they indeed resembled those who committed the crime. The identity of some members of the death squad, Grupo Colina was fully exposed as part of the investigations on the genocide of La Cantuta University (disappearance and murder of nine students and a professor) and the Barrios Altos massacre in central Lima. The book of General Robles Espinoza clearly reveals the identities of some members of the Colina Group and describes the activities of its members, and also includes a personal commendation signed by Fujimori himself, rewarding the members of the Colina Group for their "special tasks." So, a plausible denial of the death's squad existence was therefore shot down.
From the photos shown by Caretas, Martha, and Julio Cesar the two individuals who pulled the trigger were quickly recognized. They were Army Special Agents Carlos Pichilingue and Juan Sosa Saavedra (both killers are also reportedly graduates of the School of the Americas). Martha Flores identified Captain Santiago Martin Rivas, as a passerby who once stopped and approached Pedro Huillca while he was working in his garden, to inquire about a nearby empty lot, but quickly walked away when he saw her come to the front door. These three Grupo Colina individuals also participated in the Cantuta crime. Martha Flores recalls that two weeks before Huillca's assassination ( on or about the first week of December 1992) a retired general attending the closing of the CADE-92 Conference (meeting of Peruvian big businessmen), in which Huillca took part as a conference speaker, warned him to be careful, and that his life was in imminent danger (Huillca had good contacts in the army since the Velasco government when the CGTP supported his military regime). "When Pedro returned home from CADE-92, he was very scared and worried," stated Martha Flores. He even spoke to me about leaving the country with all of the family, but I told him that the time called for staying here to fight, and not for running away. Besides, we could not disrupt the children's studies since the school year was about to conclude. In Peru the school year ends in December. Sometimes I think that perhaps, if he had left the country alone, he would still be among us today. Neighbors testify that Huillca's attackers fled in two vehicles: an orange Nissan pick up, and a green light truck Toyota, which corroborates what agent Mesmer Carlos said, that "these vehicles were assigned to DINTE" (a special Branch of SIE from which Grupo Colina originated). Also, Martha Flores stated in an interview published in Spain, that neighbors told that her home had been under surveillance day and night.
This case cannot be closed while the murderers who organized and ordered the killing (Fujimori-Montesinos-Hermoza) are in power, and enjoy the support of their master, that is, the enemy of humanity: Yankee imperialism.
Cesar Hildebrand (CH): "I was in Spain when Pedro Huillca, who was an exemplary labor leader, was murdered. I interviewed him many times, and he openly debated various entrepreneurial groups, and invariably, he did it with dignity and on a high level defending the rights of workers, without demonizing capital. This horrid murder has particularly horrified me, like all murders generally, but this one even more so. And today I find myself interviewing Marta Flores, the widow of Pedro Huillca. Why? Because just a few days ago, General Robles [a dissident military man] read the documents of Army technician Mesmer Carlos Talledo, imprisoned in Yanamayo, Puno for life. He is accused of belonging to the Sendero Luminoso band. He was charged for treason to the fatherland, and after the regime learned he passed on the documents it remanded an earlier sentence of 15 years, to make it a life sentence. Thus, they got rid of him cavalierly. Mesmer Carlos Talledo had formulated the first denunciations for theft and embezzlement against the infamous Army Major Martin Rivas, who heads the Grupo Colina death squad. Madam, I am sorry to resurrect all of this, but I consider it important because you are not only the widow of Pedro Huillca, but an eyewitness of his assassination."
INTERVIEW WITH MARTA FLORES, THE WIDOW OF MURDERED LABOR LEADER PEDRO HUILLCA BY BOURGEOIS JOURNALIST, CESAR HILDEBRAND Marta Flores (MF): "I think what General Robles said is true. From the time of the crime on December 18, 1992, when the government blamed it on Sendero Luminoso, It was very clear to me that the subversive group had not been involved in any shape or form in this crime. From the outset, I believed that the government itself murdered my husband."
CH: "Why did you assume this even before the documents were released by Agent Mesmer Carlos Talledo?"
MF: "First, because my husband was tipped off about this assassination few weeks before it happened. Everything began in the conference CADE-92, when Pedro received an invitation to go to Ica, where `President' Alberto Fujimori also attended the conference. That was a meeting that Mr. Fujimori did not like at all, especially the manner in which Pedro spoke against the government. I have the transcript of Pedro's speech, in which he stated that governing should not be done arrogantly, and that workers' interests come first . . . privatization was wrong . . . oh well . . . "CH: "And what type of harassment began after that?"
MF: "Undercover police began following us in motorcycles and pick up trucks. That same night, after CADE's closure on December 4, my husband returned at 11:30PM, which was also his birthday. He returned sad and told me: `A retired general, I can't tell you his name, asked me if I was Pedro Huillca, shook my hands and told me `Pedro, be careful they are going to hit you.'" After that I was very scared, and he said that it may be better for us to leave Lima. I told him, for my children, no. My house is located in a working class neighborhood, but across the street there are wealthy homes and the people who live there knew who we were. One of them who was a housewife, told me after the death of my husband that one day when she was watering her plants, she had to throw three policemen out of her property. The cops told her that they were conducting routine surveillance. She said she did not know who was the target otherwise she would have alerted me. Likewise, the woman doctor working in the medical post across the street where I live, had sent word of three men, who were stationed there daily watching the Huillca home."CH: "That's it. They were doing surveillance and Huillca did not take any precautionary measures!"
MF: "He did not protect himself. That was ten days before it happened. He used to do housework like cleaning the house and gardening. One day while I was inside the house, two individuals approached him and started to talk with him. I became suspicious and went outside to see. They asked me who was building a house in the lot behind ours, and after that event, we constantly got phone calls around noon asking whether Pedro Huillca would be home for lunch. I used to tell them if they want to know they should call the Offices of the Labor Federation (CGTP)."CH: "I understand that. . . Here's something important: in his testimony Mesmer Talledo mentioned an orange pick up and a green Toyota that took part in the murder operative."
MF: "Yes, it is very possible. I can corroborate it. My husband left home at 7AM to go to the parking lot to pick up the CGTP's car. When he arrived there, he was frustrated that his car was blocked by other cars. I went to present my deposition to DINCOTE (counter terrorist police) on my own because they did not call me. At the time, Mr. Ketin Vidal was in charge, but suspiciously after what had happened, the regime sent him to the United States as a `reward.' So, he was not in charge of the investigations [or he knew about the crime and was covering himself]. And after the investigations of the crime were closed, Mr. Ketin Vidal returned to Peru. I think that is a suspicious coincidence. I would like to add something I haven't said before: A week before the murder, a woman came to my home and told me, "madam, I am seeking employment as a maid." That person was not a humble or a peasant woman, but a well- dressed person, whom I now recognize as being Miss Barreto [the agent murdered by her colleagues of Grupo Colina].CH: "Are you sure of what are you saying?"
MF: "Yes. The DINCOTE Agent conducting the investigation told me: "Lady, you are mistaken. Here is the photo of the terrorist who fired the grace shot on your husband." I told him that there was no grace shot and she was not the woman I saw."
CH: "So, the agent who was later murdered went to visit you?"
MF: "Yes, she knocked my door and asked if I wanted to hire her as a maid."
CH: "And were you able to recognize her?"
MF: "Yes, now that she is dead. I recognized her published photos. I always remembered her, because that woman came to ask for employment. And how did they know that I needed a maid? [from the telephone wire tapes] the whole truth is going to be known. It is time for all the people to realize that we were fully deceived by a government that is highly immoral. Already, all of us are saying that it is Mr. Montesinos who does everything in the country. I think this was a vendetta, because besides doing his trade union duties, Pedro has done some investigation on the killing of labor leader Andahua who died in August. Furthermore, Pedro had some talks about it with Mr. Ketin Vidal. Even Pedro Huillca had had an appointment with Ketin Vidal on the same morning that he was murdered!"
Source: Transcripts of the "En Persona" TV Program by journalist Hildebrand, Lima-Peru.
US State Department Human Rights Report, Peru, years 1992, 1993, and 1997.
The New Flag, Vol. 4. No. 2, August 1997.
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