Communique #4
Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru
Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA)
Someplace in the Central Jungle, December 1996
The National Leadership of the MRTA directs itself to our dear
people and to all the international community:
The military occupation of the residence of the Japanese
Ambassador in Lima has converted Peru into the center of world
attention where an unequal battle is being fought: On the one side,
the Commando "Edgar Sanchez" prepared to obtain the liberation of
our brother prisoners; and on the other side, a government that
shows little interest in the lives of hundreds of thousands of
Peruvians whom it has plunged into absolute poverty by the brutal
application of the neo-liberal model. The Commando "Edgar Sanchez"
has acted decisively and firmly, but at the same time
has given proofs of flexibility in order to find a political
solution.
The Peruvian government, in the face of the proposal of the
MRTA, has responded with arrogance and with unconcern for the
lives of those who are in the residence of the Japanese
Ambassador. Among the prisoners of war are members of the
Executive Power, of Congress, of the Judicial Power, of the armed
forces and the police. All of these supported the regime
unconditionally and the payment that they receive today for
services rendered is the threat of a military intervention that
puts their lives at risk.
The MRTA has respected and will respect the Geneva
Convention on internal conflicts; in that sense the persons who
are inside the residence are treated with the respect appropriate
to their situation as human beings and prisoners of war. They
don't recive the same treatment that the Peruvian government
gives to the political prisoners, who are subjected to a slow
extermination in the prisons of Peru. To justify this irrational
action, the government has labelled the social fighters as
terrorists. And it has proclaimed publicly that "one can't speak
of peace while one utilizes terror as argument", and "the
liberation of the perpetrators of assassinations and terrorist
acts is unacceptable in the framework of the prevailing Peruvian
laws and by criteria of national security". Mr. Fujimori forgets
that peace is a result of social justice and that in Peru today
such justice does not exist but rather a practice of terror that
the state has implemented as a method of liquidating any
opposition to the regime.
In the last four years, the number of political prisoners has
increased by more than 9,000, all accused of belonging to
subversive groups and presented to the media in striped clothing,
subjected to a summary trial by military tribunals with "faceless
judges", sentenced to imprisonment for 25, 30 years or life
without the least respect for judicial proceedings. All those
persons, after having suffered humiliations and degrading
treatment, have had to demonstrate their innocence from prison.
Thus there are still thousands of innocent persons detained in
the prisons, to the point that the government has had to form a
Commission of Pardons to free them, but wihout repairing the
enormous damage that it has caused in thousands of Peruvian
families and homes. The disappearances, the extrajudicial
executions, the death by torture of those detained, the mass
murder of presumed "subversive delinquents" give an account of
the policy of terror that the state and government have
practiced, not to speak of the terror that is generated in the
population by the economic measures that strike pitiless blows at
the population, causing hunger and misery in the immense majority
of our people.
On the other hand, officers and subordinate personnel of the
armed forces and police accused and sentenced for murder, rape,
torture and genocide have been amnestied by this government under
the pretext of contributing to national pacification, thus
violating its own laws as well as international conventions for
the protection of human rights.
For all that, we ask progressive women and men everywhere to
continue demanding of the government of Peru a political solution
that brings with it the freedom of the political prisoners and of
the prisoners of war captured by the Commando "Edgar Sanchez". It
is thanks to this expression of solidarity that a violent outcome
has been avoided so far. It is the turn of the Peruvian
government to speak.
Tupac Amaru ... Lives ... And Will Win!!
National Direction of the Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA)
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