Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 17:15:02 GMT
From: hariette-AT-easynet.co.uk (Hariette Spierings)
Subject: M-I: HISTORY OF THE MRTA'S LEADER



>We present this important contribution from the Editor of El Diario
>Internacional in order to help to clarify well the current political
>situation in Peru. This article continues from the previous (Revolutionaries
>or Vulgar Shysters), already published.  
>
>Committee Sol Peru - London
>Press Commission
>
>What is the background of Victor Polay Campos?.
>
>HISTORY OF THE MRTA "LEADER"
>
>
>
>By: Luis Arce Borja
>
>In the first part of our article we had strictly analysed the MRTA's action
>at the Japanese embassy in Lima. IN synthesis, we asserted that such action
>was aimed at butressing the political and anti-insurgency plans of the
>Fujimori regime and US imperialism.
>
>Now, in this part of the article, so that the reader can acquire greater
>information about the MRTA, we propose to give a brief analysis of the
>political background of Victor Polay Campos and the Movimiento Revolucionario
>Tupac Amaru (MRTA).
>
>
>History of Polay, the Apra party member
>
>What is the political origen of the MRTA leader?. Where does he come from?.
>The media portrays him as a radical "marxist-leninist" and a follower of Che
>Guevara.
>
>Victor Polay Campos, known as "comandante Rolando", is a man who was formed
>and shaped ideologically inside the so called Alianza Popular
>Revolucionaria Americana (the APRA Party). He was induced into this party at
>the age of 7, and he remained a member until the end of 1980. Polay held
>important office in the intermediate layer of leadership of Apra and was one
>of the favourites of Apra founder Victor Raul Haya de la Torre.
>
>The Apra is a party of the Peruvian right. It was founded on December 1924
>by Victor Raul Haya de la Torre. This personage, made of anti-communism one
>of his principal political activities. Haya de la Torre, known as the
>"Leader" acumulate a thick curriculum of betrayals, reactionary alliances
>and obscure political deals with military tyrants and civilian satraps alike.
>
>The Apra, from its foundation, tried to pass itself as part of the people's
>camp, making abundant use of a baroque rethoric and adopting
>"anti-imperialist" poses and gestures. In its doctrine, Apra, is a mixture
>of bogus populism framed within a neo-fascist praxis.
>
>Apra was never a democratic force, not even from the standpoint of bourgeois
>politics. Throughout its history APRA acted as the enemy of the peasants,
>workers and all oppressed classes. It entered into pacts with the
>landwoners, the big bourgeois, and foreign imperialists, particularly the USA.
>
>Haya de la Torre lived in Berlin around the mid twenties.  At that time the
>Nazi's began their march to power. From them he copied their organisational
>schemes, their criminal methods and the fascist fanfare that has always been
>an APRA characteristic.  Even the "salute to the leader" - arm high with
>extended palm whenever the "leader" would review his "troops" was copied
>directly from the Hitler gang.  De ellos copio los esquemas
>organizativos, 
>
>The Apra characterised itself - and still does - for having the closest
>links with organisms which imperialism uses for its penetration. By means of
>their bogus workers' union (Confederacion de Trabajadores del Peru-CTP)
>which this party has manipulated for over 50 years, Apra mantains close
>relations with CIA controlled labour organisations.
>
>Julio Antonio Mella, the noted Cuban communist militant who was assassinated
>in 1928, characterised then the Apra of being a new edition of "fascism"
>hidding behind a mask of pretended "anti-imperialism", and that its
>fundamental objective was to struggle against Marxist influence in Latin
>America. 
>
>Haya de la Torre was an intolerant and rabid enemy of the Soviet Republic -
>then under Lenin and Stalin's leadership.  He entered into pacts with the
>most rabid anti-communist forces in the Americas in order to fight against
>the forces and parties of the communist Third International. It was Apra who
>coined the phrase "Neither Washington nor Moscow, Only Apra will Save Peru".
>At the end of the Second World War, Apra came out in support of the Truman
>Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. Apra negated the need for a party of the
>working class and advocated a party of "manual and intellectual workers"
>under the leadership of the latter.
>
>Polay Campos enroled himself very early in the ranks of Apra.  His parents,
>Apra members, registered him in the CHAP (the Apra Children Organisation)
>when he was 7 years old in 1958. CHAP is part of the organic structure of
>the Apra and is dedicated to moulding and shaping the future members of Apra
>from childhood. It is some sort of "creche cum ideological indoctrination". 
>
>When Victor Raul Haya de la Torre was still alive, the CHAP children were
>put in charge of giving the Nazi-Cherubs touch for the public celebrations
>that Party staged for the "leader's birthday".  Polay, as a CHAP leader, was
>in charge of carrying and delivering floral arrangements for Victor Raul
>Haya de la Torre.
>
>In 1968 Polay Campos was External Relations Secretary of the "Apra
>University Command" (CUA). This sinister organism, feared and hated by
>students, had a 30 years long reign of obscurantist terror in the Peruvian
>universities. Many students paid with their lives for having stood up to the
>murderous Apra thugs.
>
>The members of the "University Command" were organised and functioned as a
>para-military militia.  Their political line and their actions was - and is
>to this day - imbued of the most rabid anti-communist ethos. In all their
>crimes, this "Command" always sought and received police support.
>
>The 60s, Polay's "Golden Era" is rememebered in Peru as the most violent era
>in the Universities. The Apra, by means of their brutal "buffalos" - that is
>what their "fascios di combattimento" are called -, were able to impose
>themselves as a sinister presence in Peru's main universities. 
>
>It is then that the famous "Buffalo Pacheco" makes his name. This case
>hardened common criminal had charge of a "commando" of 40 to 50 Apra thugs
>who armed to the teeth with guns, sub-machine guns, chains, coshes, etc,
>established a state of terror in the Universities.
>
>Beginning in 1985 (during the Apra regime of Alan Garcia), "Buffalo Pacheco"
>supported by police forces,  widened the scope of his vandalism taking on
>the popular masses. Many poor citizens were assassinated by the squads under
>the command of this Apra thug.  Finally, in 1990, "Buffalo Pacheco", Polay
>Campos's former comrade, was ambushed and executed by a guerilla platoon of
>the Communist Party of Peru (PCP).
>
>In 1970, Polay went from the "University Command" to the "Bureau for
>Conjunctions" (the Apra cadre school).  This Apra party organ has charge of
>"selecting" and "preparing" their future leaders.  To be chosen for this
>privilege, youths had to be favourites of Haya de la Torre.  To the "Bureau
>for Conjuctions" only those enjoying the trust of the Apra party leaders,
>and specially those who had played a signal role in anti-communist
>activities.  It was from this bureau that Alan Garcia Perez, who in 1985
>became President of Peru, first came out.  Polay Campos, today's "comandante
>Rolando", was then an avowed and fervent devotee of Victor Raul Haya de la
>Torre.
>
>In 1972, Polay Campos goes from the "Bureau for Conjunctions" to be General
>Secretary of the Apra Executive Committee in Callao (Peru's principal port).
>The same year, Polay is arrested and accussed of having taken part in the
>bloody events that took place in Lima on February 1970.  More than 200
>people were then killed in vandalic actions.  Apra then negotiates with the
>military regime to obtain Polay's release, as well as other Apristas
>implicated.  Victor Polay is taken out of jail and sent to a golden exile.
>In 1973, Polay Campos
>travels to Europe equipped with an "scholarship". He comes first to Madrid
>(Spain), and later goes to France, where he set-up a folk music duo together
>with Alan Garcia, the future Apra president of Peru.
>
>"Comrade Rolando", after a lenghty stay in Europe, returns to peru in
>1978. It is the time of the "co-habitation" between Apra and the military
>dictatorship of General Morales Bermudez.  Apra turns into the main prop for
>the elections to the military sponsored elections for a "Constituent
>Assembly".  Apra achieves a plurality in that Assembly and Victor Raul Haya
>de la Torre is elected as its president. This Apra victory was the dining
>room bell that Apristas in golden exile were awaiting to make their come
>back. That is how Polay, Alan Garcia and others, return to Peru.
>
>At the end of 1980, Victor Polay Campos, "officially" takes distance from
>Apra. The main factor for influencing Polay to resign from the Apra ranks,
>was the political decline of Victor Raul Haya de la Torre. The Apra leader,
>now over 84 years old, was at the end of his life. Having lost his mental
>faculties, he lost control of his party.
>
>Polay Campos, felt he had no longer a mentor, and abandoned to his fate he
>felt left behind in the Apra rat race.  He could not challenge the rising
>stars of Alan Garcia Perez, Carlos Roca, Barba Caballero, Abel salinas, Luis
>Negreiros, Javier Valle Riestra and others who became known as the "new Apra
>generation".  
>
>In one occassion, an old Apra member said of Polay: "Polay is earnest, but
>he lacks political nous and talent, he is only good for street fighting".
>
>In Peru no one has any knowledge of any documents or texts in which the
>"leader" of the MRTA has broken either ideologically or political with his
>former party.
>
>On the contrary, there is abundant evidence that Polay never ceased to be
>drawn towards the party founded by Haya de la Torre. Here some quotations
>from Polay himself that leave no room to doubt of the ideological afinity
>between the Apra and the MRTA leader:
>
>"The history of the Apra party is full of a history of consistency,
>struggle, martyrdom .... Apra has an historical opportunity.  It is either a
>party that would be consistent with itself, or it would be a party that
>would end by capitulating". (Victor Polay, "Interview while in Hiding",
>August 1985).
>
>"I cannot deny that in the struggle to change the country, hundreds and
>thousands of Apra party members have dedicated the best part of their lives
>to the cause of freedom ... We stand by the example of "Buffalo" Barreto, a
>man of the thirties.  We believe that this is but one struggle. They were
>Apra members, we are Tupacamaristas. It is all the same, however. We have
>the same ideals of justice, the same thirst for change, for democracy".
>(Victor Polay, La
>Republica, 9 July 1992).
>
>The praise that Polay has for his old party shows the disguised Apra member
>lurking behind the "marxist-leninist guerilla" mask.  The Apra in 1930, and
>the Apra today, is the same old pro-imperialist, treacherous,
>anti-communist, brutal, anti-working class, the ally of the rich and
>powerful it always was.
>
>The Apra of Haya de la Torre is the same corrupt, criminal and fascist party
>that Alan Garcia Perez led into power. Apra, for more than 70 years has kept
>its same "ideological basis" and its same reactionary programme - both
>elaborated by Haya de la Torre - without the slightest change.
>
>The Murky Origens of the MRTA
>
>In 1978 Victor Polay Campos comes into contact with one of the many groups
>that in Peru called themselves by the name of "Movimiento de Izquierda
>Revolucionaria" (MIR) - Movement of the Revolutionary Left.
>
>Polay joins up with the miniscule faction of MIR-"Militant",  led by Hugo
>Avellaneda Valdes, a lonely geezer completely unknown in Peruvian politics.
>Currently, Avellaneda lives as a political refugee in France.
>
>Polay and Avellaneda make an odd couple frequenting the venues of the legal
>left with very little success. For many militants of the left, "chino Polay"
>was still regarded as an Apra thug. In 1980, Polay becomes friendly with
>Luis Varesse Scotto, a leader of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (M-L),
>and president of an important non-guvernmental organisation (ONG) in Peru.
>
>Varesse had just returned from Nicaragua where he had witnessed the fall of
>Anastasio Somoza. Together with other leaders of the SRP-ML, they underwent
>their guerilla experience in the Sandinista Southern Front and had been
>close to Eden Pastora, "Comandante Cero", a man who later would work for the
>American CIA.
>
>The SRP-ML, emerged from a split of the "Socialist Revolutionary Party"(PSR)
>founded in 1977 by General Leonidas Rodriguez Figueroa.  This General had
>been one of the head honchos of the military dictatorship of Velasco
>Alvarado. General Rodriguez Figueroa was chief of the sinister and
>corporative organisation created in June 1971 as a fascist tool of the
>Velasco regime, the National System for Social Mobilisation (SINAMOS).
>SINAMOS aimed at becoming the "political party" of the dictatorship. Its
>main aim was to incorporate and control the workers and popular movement.
>Luis Varesse Scotto worked as a functionary in this organism and was General
>Leonidas Rodriguez right hand man. Both Leonidas Rodriguez, as well as
>Varesse left SINAMOS in 1975,  when General Morales Bermudez overthrew
>General Velasco Alvarado.
>
>In October 1982, the SRP-ML and MIR-Militant give birth to the Movimiento
>Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA). At the beginning, the party leadership
>partidaria is composed of a triumvirate including Luis Varesse, Polay Campos
>and Hugo Avellaneda.  The seed money for the organisation comes initially
>from Varesse's ONG. Later, in 1984, Varesse and Polay fell out in a struggle
>for supremacy in their organisation. Polay wins out and is recognised as
>"comandante". Varesse is kicked out accussed of cowardice and dessertion.
>With a threat hanging over his life, Varesse prefers to give himself up to
>the police, and is thrown in jail.  Later the Alan Garcia regime would give
>him amnesty and he goes to live in Mexico. later, he goes to Nicaragua where
>he currently lives working as a United Nations (UN) official.
>
>
>Brussels, February 6 1997
>
>
>
>
>
>



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