Revolutionary Worker #909, June 1, 1997
We received this statement from the Information Bureau of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement:
Once again Peru's Fujimori regime has gorged itself on blood. That blood has also spattered all over the U.S. and other governments which made possible this cold-blooded murder of all the MRTA members involved in the embassy takeover.
Right after the Japanese Ambassador's residence was seized last December, several waves of special Peruvian armed forces and police units were sent to the U.S. to be trained for a specific mission: the one they now have finally carried out with such thorough brutality. Can anyone doubt that from the moment this plan was conceived the intention--indeed, the point, in order to send the message they wanted--was to take no prisoners?
Afterwards, President Clinton's office praised Fujimori for "acting in the interests of his government and his people." Would they have said that if this barbaric deed were not in the interests of U.S. imperialism? Asked if they played any part in this raid, American officials all but winked and would only say that they had no "formal" prior notice. Fujimori himself told the press that his right-hand man Vladimiro Montesinos, publicly identified as a CIA "asset," played a central role in it. Few facts have come out yet, but the media is hardly bothering to deny that this was one more U.S. operation.
Fujimori himself is a U.S. operation. On the eve of taking office in 1990, he was called to Washington and told to implement an economic programme totally opposite to the one on which he had just run his campaign. In 1992 when he had more than 50 imprisoned leaders and members of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) shot in cold blood, the U.S. stepped up its financial and military support. The U.S. Ambassador nodded approvingly when later that year, faced with ruling-class squabbling that was weakening the regime's war-fighting ability, Fujimori sent tanks to dissolve Peru's parliament and took everything into his own hands. He likes to play the feathered peacock and strut like a "strongman," but his only real role is doing the U.S.'s dirty work.
The Japanese Ambassador's residence was a copy of the slaveowner's mansion in the movie Gone With the Wind. But the target of the MRTA members who seized it was not the system that enslaves Peru--run by foreign capital, local flunky capitalists and feudalistic tyrants--even though their hostages were leading representatives of it. In return for releasing them, the MRTA demanded freedom for its members (almost 500 of the 4,200 men and women officially considered political prisoners) and a "dialogue" through which they could practice in a peaceful "political process" of the electoral type.
But the MRTA's wishes did not mean that the reactionaries treated them as gently as they treated the reactionaries. From the start of the negotiations, tunnels were being dug and plans prepared to kill each and every one of them as soon as possible. Of the three-man committee "guaranteeing" the negotiations, the deputy head of the Red Cross was expelled from Peru on the eve of the assault. The Archbishop of Ayacucho, who often blessed the regime's armed forces and their holy trinity of rape, torture and murder, oddly chose this day to take a vacation. The Canadian Ambassador, according to press accounts, may have used his visit inside just before the attack to help prepare it.
We Maoists do not reject all negotiations. Whether or not to engage in any particular negotiations at any particular point is a tactical question to be judged according to the revolutionary interests of the people. But a strategy of fighting in order to force the other side to negotiate can only be a deathtrap. As Mao Tsetung said and Fujimori once again proved, the imperialists and their henchmen will never lay down their knives and cease to be bloodthirsty butchers. And as Mao also said and as once again has been proven, without a people's army, the people have nothing. At a terrible price, the reactionary alliance of the Peruvian ruling class and imperialism has repeated the lesson that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Since 1980, the PCP (called "Shining Path" by the media), a participating party of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, has been leading the masses of people, above all poor peasants, in building revolutionary base areas in the countryside. There the people who were once the most downtrodden enjoy political power and are beginning to build a completely different society. The plan is to gather strength over a protracted period of time and surround the cities from the countryside until the armed people constitute a revolutionary army strong enough to seize power throughout Peru and transform the country in the service of the world revolution. These base areas--the organized and armed support of the people--are the "secret" that has allowed the PCP to resist constant attacks and difficult situations. Without the base areas and the PCP-led People's Liberation Army, the Armed Forces would surely rampage everywhere and take revenge on the people and the Party would be destroyed. This People's War, with much support on every continent, is more clearly than ever the only hope for the Peruvian people and a great source of inspiration for the people of the world.
Right now Fujimori and his masters are drunk with blood. But they will have to face reality in the morning. People everywhere are denouncing this crime and those responsible for it and drawing the lessons.
Information Bureau of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement
23 April 1997
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