Date: Wed, 23 Apr 97 13:37:35    
Subject: M-G: Peruvian crisis


The massacre of the Lima’s Japanese residence
By Juan Ponce (member of Poder Obrero Peru)

On Tuesday 22 April bat 3:17 p.m., Roberto Fujimori, Peruvian president, 
ordered the assault on the residence of the Japanese ambassador in Lima. In 
approximately 35 minutes the 140-man military-police team where able to 
rescue all except one of the 72 hostages. In the action all the 14 MRTA 
guerrilla fighters, two soldiers and one judge which was a hostage were 
killed. 
Three days before the action the Minister of Interior, General Juan Carlos 
Briones, and the police commander, Lt. General Antonio Ket’in Vidal, 
resigned. The latest was the person in charge of the capture of the great 
leader of the PCP-Sendero Luminoso, Dr. Abimael Guzm’an, which conducted to 
the beginning of the downfall of the guerrillas more than four years ago. 
Ket’in Vidal was apparently against an armed solution. For him the path to 
be follow have to be a political one. 
The operation was a technical and military success. It was very well 
prepared by foreign "anti-terrorist" specialist. The Israeli army, which had 
the most sophisticated and "third generation" electronic devises trained a 
special commando for more than four months. According to "La Repóblica" 
(Lima, 23 April)  the troops entered like moles from three tunnels. An AP 
cable said that they "poured through the compound’s front gate and blasted 
open the mansion's front door. Others
attacked from the rear, and a third unit climbed to the rooftop and 
shepherded hostages down to the ground."
The attack was made in a clear day  and the MRTA commando was completely 
took by surprise. N’estor Cerpa, the commander in chief, was playing 
football with some hostages, when it happened. Despite that they where 
heavily armed, they where incapable of confronting with so advance 
technologies and training. 
Until the moment the official version is claiming that only one hostage was 
killed. Fujimori said 25 other captives were injured in the gunfire and 
explosions that rocked the compound. The Peruvian chancellor, Tudela, and 
few other hostages received some bullets and are hospitalised. Their are no 
more information about that and it could not be annulled the possibility 
that in some more hours more wounded people would not survive.

Fujimori employed a pure military solution to finish the 127 days guerrilla occupation of the Japanese diplomatic house. It begun on 17 December 1996 when more than 500 VIP where celebrating the anniversary of the Japanese emperor in the house of the ambassador. 
The MRTA action differed from other guerrilla operation. They didn’t kill any hostage. In the first day of the occupation they liberated all the 200 women (including Fujimori’s mother and sister) trying to show that they are a Macho Latino gentlemen. Some days later they also liberated all the US 
hostages and all the diplomats from Europe, Canada and Asia. They only kept 72 hostages which included high Peruvian figures, two tens of Japanese businessmen and diplomats, and the ambassadors of Japan and Bolivia. In a gesture of "pacifist" will the MRTA freed on the 26 January, general Jos’e Ri
vas, a top police repressive figure, because he was very ill.
The MRTA tried to demonstrate to the ruling class and imperialism that they where not "savage" terrorists, and that they wanted to open a road to a pacific solution which would contemplate the re-integration of the Castroite MRTA into the system as it happen with its brother organisations in Colom
bia and Central America. 
The MRTA didn’t appeal to the working class to make mass demonstrations. Despite the fact that they said that they want a change in the political economic programme, they didn’t strength that point. All the debate was around the situation of the MRTA’s 400-500 prisoners. They even didn’t want to a
sk for the liberation of the other 5,000 prisoners which belong to other forces, mainly to the rival guerrilla organisation, the PCP-SL. 
The MRTA was founded in 1982 under the influence of the Sandinista’s revolution. At that time in Peru the PCP-SL was already two years in "popular war". The strategy of both organisations where very different. The PCP-SL had a Mao-Stalinist one which consisted in surrounding the cities from the co
untryside and establishing fierce four-class dictatorships in their liberated zones. For the Maoists the rest of the political parties where the same thing and they kill tens of left-wingers and trade-unionists. They where in favour of the physical destruction of all the workers and peasants organ
isations and unions which they would not be able to control. 
The MRTA wanted to appear as a force which was willing to have alliances with the United Left, a mass popular front, and the APRA, the bourgeois nationalist party which won the 1985 elections, and sections of the army, the church and the ruling class. They used uniforms and had better weapons and 
military sophistication than the Maoists who where mainly poor peasant and shanty-towns activists. Their most spectacular action was when in 1990, few days before Fujimori became president, they liberated all their prisoners from a new jail of maximum security in Lima. 
In 1990 Fujimori decided to crush the militants unions and the guerrilla. His anti-terrorist measures served to destroy all working class resistance. The guerrillas become isolated. After the April 92 self-coup in which Fujimori dissolved the parliament, the PCP-SL launched a premature adventure w
hich tried to produce the capture of Lima. They over-estimate their forces and their main leader was captured. One year later Guzm’an decided to radically change his strategy and called all his comrades to abandon the "people’s war" and to enter in a "peace agreement" process with the regime. This
 lead to the demoralisation and division of this former powerful guerrilla movement.
At the same time the MRTAs nearly destroyed. In 1995 Fujimori was re-elected with the majority of the votes. The guerrilla was extremely weak., and the workers movement and the left where heavily disorganised. 
Some months before the MRTA assault on the Japanese diplomatic house, the situation in Peru was slowly change. Fujimori started to make concessions when he tried to privatise all the petroleum company and when he tried to cancel some weeks of the holiday period of every worker.  Some sections of t
he bourgeoisie, which supported all his repressive measures, where beginning to ask for a more open society, to moderate the extreme power of the repressive forces, and to make some economic changes from an extreme neo-liberal programme. 
The MRTA occupation of the Japanese residence divided the ruling class into two main camps. The neo-liberals wanted a military solution which could allow more privatisation and measures against the organised workers movement. The moderate opposition wanted a peaceful solution which would weak Fuji
mori, could incorporate the guerrillas into the system and could allow the development of an internal market.
Peru have one of the worst human rights conditions. The political prisoners are judge by faceless military courts and could be sentenced to survive until their deaths in, what Fujimori call, "living tombs". They could not have access to the media, could only see the sun in weeks and to receive onl
y one half an hour visit per month. The bourgeois opposition accepted that rule because for them the "terrorists" are sub-humans. However, they started to realise that so much harsh conditions would affect the future of any stable society. 

In his latest declarations, Fujimori said that the MRTA dropped its original demands in favour of the liberation of all their more than 400 political prisoners to only 20. In Easter a solution was very close to be achieve. Japan was pressing for a deal in which the MRTA commando will be able to tr
avel to Cuba and would receive in exchange some money, the freedom of some minor prisoners (including the partner of N’estor Cerpa, the MRTA commander in chief of the occupation) and to improve the situation of the rest of the MRTA prisoners with the aim to prepare a peace process like in Guatemal
a.
The latest move indicates that Fujimori decided to implement a hawk 
decision. Some days before a recent opinion poll showed that Fujimori’s 
level of popularity where in its lowest rate ever since he became president 
of Peru on 28 July 1990. After having for many years a rate of support of 
around 60 to 75% in the opinion polls he had some days ago only 37%. In the 
last months many Peruvians moved to express more dissatisfaction than 
support for his administration. The man that organised a self-coup d’etat in 
April 92 and forced the change of the constitution to be re-elected in 1995, 
want to break the laws another time and to be re-elect in the year 2000 for 
another five years more. However, he was behind the Lima’s major in some 
last opinion polls.
Fujimori wanted to recover his popularity showing that he is a strong man, a 
way of operating that he imitates from Thatcher. There is another reason why 
he ordered an invasion of the residence. In the last months there was a 
growing discontent in the population against his most loyal collaborators 
and he was being undermined inside the army. A TV station and two prominent 
high politicians (an ex-Minister of the former APRA government and the 
national leader of the United Left) where attacked by para-military in the 
recent weeks.  Several denunciations on corruption where being made against 
high repressive figures including Vladimiro Montesinos, the man in charge of 
the all-powerful National Intelligence System and the real "Rasputin" behind 
Fujimori. Four out of five Peruvians demanded that Montesinos have to 
explain the reasons of his fortune. Former general Sinesio Jarama, declared 
that the Peruvian army was unhappy of the situation and that it could 
produce a new situation of military coup or Fujimori’s self-coup.  
 During the five months hostage crisis Fujimori had two foreign pressures. 
The USA was pushing him into a more intransigent solution to avoid other 
groups in the world to follow the example of the MRTA. Japan was pushing for 
moderate and pacific concessions. At the end the son of Japanese decided to 
accept the recommendations of the real bosses of Peru: the USA. The 
operation was realised in a diplomatic territory which by international laws 
is part of Japanese sovereignty. In Tokyo, Japan's prime minister called it 
a ''splendid rescue,'' but also said it was ''regrettable'' that Peru had 
not forewarned his government. 

When the hostage crisis started Poder Obrero Peru published a very well 
known international statement in which we criticised the guerrilla operation 
while we said that we will critically defend them against the repression and 
that we are unconditionally in favour of the liberation of all the political 
prisoners.
The failure of the occupation show how wrong are the guerrillerist methods. 
They are made outside the workers movement and at the end only want to push 
the system into reforms. The two guerrilla groups in Peru attacked workers 
organisations and workers democracy, had an strategy in favour of a popular 
front and a "democratic" regime with and behind the "progressive" 
bourgeoisie, and help the reaction to isolate and defeat toilers mass 
struggles.
It is not possible to defeat the US-trained army with very well armed elite. 
Only a mass uprising could do that. We work in that perspective. At the 
present low level of class struggles in Peru we are in favour of organising 
the workers and poor people from the shanty towns and the countryside for 
fighting around their more minimum demands and to advance in them through 
direct action. We fight for eight-hour work, for a minimum living wage, for 
the elimination of all anti-terrorist laws, for stopping and reversing the 
privatisation,  for the cancellation of the foreign debt and for the 
reorganisation of the union and popular organisations. We need to unite all 
the sectors in conflict into an struggle committee which would organise mass 
actions. In the recent months different workers sectors went into mass 
action (construction, oil, etc.) and we need to avoid the isolation of that 
struggles.
Our strategy is for a mass insurrection led by workers and peasants councils 
and militias which should establish a socialist republic as part of a 
voluntary Latin American federation. Our small forces are in discussions 
with other militants trying to create a nucleus for a revolutionary workers 
party which could be the vanguard that struggle. Unfortunately most of the 
Peruvian left are in favour of popular front strategies. They want to create 
common governments with wings of the bourgeoisie. They disagree on the 
different electoral or armed methods to pressurise them. 



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