Communique #7
Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru
Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA)
URGENT - URGENT - URGENT
Europe, January 1997
We, the National Council of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, hereby address the men and women of Peru and the international community:
1. Operation "Oscar Torres Condesu" has sucessfully fulfilled, as we have already stated, the objective of breaking the silence, thanks to the scientific and technological progress achieved by humanity. The Incas, in their time, knew an advanced system of communication - the Quipus. We are entering the cybernetic era. We are cybernauts, as some would say. This is the alternative mode of communication for those of us who lack the resources to buy important instruments of communication that would allow us to make our voices heard. Like you, we cybernauts are a very strong element of communication and solidarity with the people who struggle to defeat hunger and to achieve justice.
2. The oppressors attempt to find ways to halt history and the development of free thinking. But we, who love freedom, who are bringing about the end of silence, who search for alternative means of communication, are still in the world. We are the ones who look for alternatives to those accepted through imposition and self-censorship, alternatives to those who play the
pitiful role of communicators who do not wish to communicate, who want to paint a world of roses without thorns amidst a world of hunger, injustice, and war.
3. Neither Tupac Amaru nor MRTA initiated the war in Peru, and even less the violence; rather we have been, and continue to be, its victims. Here we stand refusing to accept that violence be institutionalized. The approach of taking over an embassy might not be right, since it does not correspond to our tradition, but then again, that tradition has been violated a million times
over. There is no other way to be heard in a country where people who operate basic needs programs in the communities, such as soup kitchens and milk-for-the-poor programs, are arrested, where members of the liberal opposition are detained, where there is not the slightest sign of democracy. It was the only way available to us in order to stop an irrational economic policy, to stop the irrational violation of human rights that takes place outside the jails, and worse yet inside them. It was the only way to stop the arrogance and authoritarianism of the dictator.
4. The commando "Edgar Sanchez" has provided sufficient evidence of the willingness on the part of the MRTA to see the embassy crisis resolved in a peaceful and just manner so that a path towards true peace and social justice may be set in motion - not the peace of thousands of persons missing or assassinated by the military irrationality that co-governs the country,
not the peace of the mass burial sites. We are glad that certain achievements for the civil society have taken place and may help see the light at the end of the dark tunnel into which the neo-liberal policies have gotten us. We are glad to see that the parliamentary bureaucracy, which caters to the dictator, has been busy passing laws to improve the prison conditions for the thousands of political prisoners that exist in our country, since the treatment they receive is also truly subhuman. We have seen many of them on television, with their bowels exposed, without medical attention, with no possibility at all of reincorporating themselves into the society that denied them education and work. The haste of the Congress to improve the conditions of the prison system is an accomplishment that will have to be respected, once the crisis is over. And that responsibility rests on the entire society. The impossibility of keeping Blanca Nelida Colan in the National Office of the Public Prosecutor, an institution she had practically taken over by assault, is an achievement of the civil society that can now make its voice heard beyond our boundaries. We will possibly make it a reality that the takeover of the government palace, also conducted in a violent way with the support of a sector of the armed forces, will not continue for another five years; this is possible with the help of all the people. It is possible to avoid that Petroperu, the strategically most important corporation of Peru, be auctioned off and dismantled. It is possible to avoid that IPSS finally be privatized; that salaries and wages be leveled with the basic-needs package. Although these issues don't have anything to do with the occupation of the embassy, they must be resolved now, under the security of the press and the International Red Cross.
This is the hour of the people. Onward! The civil society now has the floor. In spite of the state of emergency, the dictator must be stopped now; we don't have to tolerate him for five more years. Let the world know what is happening in Peru!
Tupac Amaru is freedom!
Tupac Amaru lives and will win!
Isaac Velazco,
MRTA International Representative
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