Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 12:55:24 -0800
Subject: M-G: Re:  MRTA 



=====================================================================<---- Begin Forwarded Message ---->
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 01:08:56 GMT
From: hariette spierings <hariette-AT-easynet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-I: MRTA

>     Most of what Adolfo Olaechea has to say about the MRTA 
>seems pretty reasonable, even if I find his venue of 
>presentation somewhat offputting.  However, one point 
>occurs to me.
>     In one respect, irrespective of the ultimate outcome 
>of the embassy siege, the MRTA actions have given the 
>regime a serious blackeye and probably actually damaged it. 
>That is that the regime had widely announced that the MRTA 
>was completely dead and non-functional.  I completely agree 
>that the PCP is a much more serious threat to the regime 
>in the longer run than is the clearly very weak MRTA.  But 
>the sudden re-appearance of a guerrilla group that was 
>supposedly completely eliminated has dealt a severe blow to 
>the credibility of the regime around the world.  
>Furthermore, I suspect that it has damaged the willingness 
>of foreign capitalists to invest there and probably has 
>raised the "riskiness" rating for Peru that various 
>international agencies apply to countries, thus probably 
>raising the interest rates the regime must pay to borrow 
>internationally.  
>     In short, the MRTA has damaged the regime on net in 
>the short run, if not necessarily much in the longer run.
>Barkley Rosser
>
>-- 
>Rosser Jr, John Barkley
>rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu
>


You are perfectly right Rosser.  The regime has been damaged in the short
run.  But that is merely a consequence of the equally reactionary policy on
the part of Fujimori of concentrating power in the hands of its clique and
applying the fascist policy of persecuting other equally reactionary forces
with vesanic cruelty.  Hitler, Mussolini and Franco acted likewise.  Do not
forget that the MRTA is acting on behalf of other forces.  They are only the
political football, the battering ram for an attempted comeback on the part
of the bourgeois reactionary opposition, from Perez de Cuellar, thru the
Apra, Belaunde and the IU. 

This is a case of both reactionaries wings of the big bourgeosie impaling
themselves in their own swords, or as Chairman Mao put it, "reactionaries
lifting up stones in order to drop them in their own feet".

But the action of the MRTA itself has undeniable reactionary,
pro-imperialist and anti-communist OBJECTIVES - the slander of the leaders
of the PCP, both the imprisoned and heroic Chairman Gonzalo, as well as the
Central Committee leading the People's War, among other similar aims such as
serving directly the imperialists plans for "peace agreements" in the
region, and generating confusion among revolutionary people at the
international level.

I see that the most flatfooted among the "spokespeople" for the Fujimori
mouthpiece "Kisspee", has attempted to deny their role as MRTA apologists in
the malecki list.  However - covering up the fact in order to fool people a
little longer - even in their document they do actually speak of the MRTA
action plainly as "anti-imperialist". However I see elsewhere, they also
want to juggle around with forests of words and speak of an "objectively
anti-imperialist action":

Here is what the Kisspees said:

>While some of the MRTA's actions, such as today's at the Japanese
>Embassy, have an ANTI-IMPERIALIST CHARACTER, they are not part of  the
>struggle for socialism or for the true liberation of the people from
>imperialism as is the People's War led by the PCP.

(the above was earlier reproduced by The American Inspector Clouzot (Matt D.)

However, an Anti-imperialist character is precisely what this action does
not have in the slightest. The central objectives of the MRTA in the seizure
of the embassy are very clear:  "lasting peace with social justice" under
Fujimori AND under IMPERIALIST conditions, and to be enrolled as
paramilitary squads "to fight against the murderous Shining Path" on behalf
of IMPERIALISM AND REACTION.

Just to say that these actions are not part of the "struggle for socialism
or for the true liberation of the people from imperialism as is the People's
War in Peru" is just a cheap tautology that does not mean anything concrete,
being simply just another way to say the same thing the MRTA has been saying
all along:  

That they, the MRTA, do not want at all to be confused in anyone's mind with
the PCP.  Saying that, the kisspees only make a highfallutin re-statement of
the obvious, and that is a mere courtesan veil they shamelessly wear and
behind which they give real praise and real succour to imperialism, to
Fujimori's "peace plot plans", and to the MRTA anti-communist slanderers.    

Even if these impostors had said "subjectively anti-imperialist" they would
still have been wrong by a mile, as far as the corrupt and parasitic leaders
of the MRTA are concerned, people who know well - (subjectively)- what they
are doing, being inveterate anti-communists from their very inception and
Apra party origin, and, moreover, people who are little better than run of
the mill common gangsters in their political behaviour.  

The kisspees, with their lucrative impostors act, are evidently of the same
school,  No wonder these "jail birds of a feather" are sending each other
lovey dovey smoke signals and very moving and romantic "anti-imperialist"
Valentine cards  

Had our "Honey Trap Kisspee boys in blue" spoken of "a subjectively
anti-imperialist action", they may have been closer to the mark as far as
some of the MRTA foot soldiers holed up in the embassy itself may be
concerned.  I am sure some of them, being young fighters recruited with
honeyed words and demagogic phrases and promises by cinical shysters,
actually could indeed SUBJECTIVELY believe that what they are doing is for
the "revolution and social justice and against imperialist domination of
Peru".  

But objectively, precisely, there is no question whatsoever that the action
of the MRTA is intended to serve imperialism and reaction, as we have more
than demonstrated.  

For all practical purposes, the MRTA has already dropped their phoney
pretence to a "sine-qua-non" condition in relation to freeing their OWN
prisoners and are RIGHT NOW involved in direct face to face negotiations
with the fascist Fujimori regime.  As time goes by, events will prove us
right, and it it will become even more crystal clear than today who are the
intended beneficiaries of this action: US imperialism and the Fujimori regime. 

That the actions of both, Fujimori and US imperialism and those of the MRTA,
would end up by serving the interests of the revolution, has nothing to do
with any "anti-imperialist character" they may have, but with the
dialectical law of "reactionaries picking up stones to drop them in their
own feet". 

It will, of course, be the actions of the PCP and the People's War the
demolishing force which, at the right moment, will raze down to the ground
this counter-revolutionary plot like a pack of cards.  

Currently, the PCP is already well advanced in carrying out mass education,
mobilisation and agitation in Peru pointing out the OBJECTIVELY AND
SUBJECTIVELY counter-revolutionary and pro-imperialist character of this
plot.  The People's War will come out strenghtened DESPITE and AGAINST THE
WISHES and the exertions (the subjective and objective actions) of the MRTA,
Fujimori, US imperialism, and their "Kisspee" apologists.

Adolfo Olaechea

==========================================================================

     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---