Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 01:08:32 GMT
From: hariette-AT-easynet.co.uk (Hariette Spierings)
Subject: 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