Proletarians of all countries, unite!

Central Committee
Communist Party of Peru
1986

[Prepared for the Internet by the magazine Red Sun]

DEVELOP THE PEOPLE'S WAR, SERVING THE WORLD REVOLUTION

CONTEXT OF THE SIXTH YEAR.

May 17 mark the sixth anniversary of the launching of the People's War in Peru. Six years ago the Communist Party took up arms to carry out the democratic revolution by overthrowing the exploitation and oppression of imperialism, mainly Yankee imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism and the subsisting semi feudalism, in order to conquer power for the proletariat and the people, within the context and at the service of the world revolution. Since then, under the invincible banners of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and Guiding Thought, we have march along the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside, and have been waging a revolutionary war taking the countryside and city as a single unit with the countryside the principal theater of armed action and the complementary but necessary. In synthesis, a People's War, in essence a peasant war led by the Communist Party, whose core is the generation of revolutionary base areas.

These years of armed struggle can be summarized as follows: 1980 was the beginning of the armed struggle, of guerrilla warfare; 1981 and 1982 saw the unfolding of a guerilla struggle and the birth of the People's Committees, the new political power of workers, peasants and petite bourgeoisie, a joint dictatorship based on the worker-peasant alliance led by the proletariat through its Party; 1983 and 1984 were years of struggle focusing on restoration and counter restoration, that is, of counterrevolutionary war that try to smash the new political power and restore the old order, and revolutionary war to defend, develop and build the newly arising people's power, a hard-fought struggle waged between the reactionary Armed Forces and the People's Guerrilla Army; from 1985 through today there have been a continuing defense, development and building to preserve the base areas and expand the People's War throughout our mountains from North to South.

Since 1983 the Peruvian revolution evolves under the great political strategic conception of "Building Base Areas" and in military terms of developing People's War, which means principally guerrilla warfare complemented by guerrilla actions such as sabotage, selective annihilation and propaganda and agitation, so as to carry out the central task of building, preserving and developing base areas and spreading the People's War throughout the country, taking into account the variability that the fluidity of guerrilla warfare imposes not just on the new state power but on all forms of revolutionary construction and work. This basic plan of "Building Bases" forms the context for the present "Plan for the Great Leap," based on the specific political strategy of "two republics, two roads, two poles," that is, the Republic of the old reactionary Peruvian state vs. the New Democratic People's Republic in formation; the old dead-end road of votes which only serves to preserve the old exploiting order vs. the new road of arms which is transforming Peruvian society to serve the people. These are two poles, one of the big bourgeoisie heading up the dictatorship of the ruling classes in the service of imperialism, bureaucrat capitalism and semi feudalism, the black and odious past which is being destroyed, versus the proletarian pole, represented by its Communist Party in the leadership of the democratic revolution whose victory will open the way to socialism and through the course of repeated cultural revolutions, fused with the great epic of the world revolution, someday will lead to communism, humanity's sole, necessary and an inevitable goal that can never be abandoned. Through the military strategy of generalizing People's War, this strategy has taken the concrete form of four campaigns, each with its specific content.

ON THE COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY WAR.

Since every war is a struggle between two camps, the development of the People's War inevitably led to the unleashing of counterrevolutionary war. The Peruvian state, the dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie and landlords under the protection of imperialism, principally Yankee imperialism, defended their threatened existence. At first they tried to minimize the problem in order to preserve their phony democratic image and not endanger the influx of capital in the form of loans and investment. They sent in their police forces, which despite their abuses, outrages and crimes suffered humiliating defeat and were forced to withdraw from the countryside in the disputed areas and seek refuge in the provincial or departmental capitals. Thus, all the police operations, launched with such loud and confusing propaganda, were soundly defeated and the first People's Committees arose. In the face of the advance of the new state power, the Belaunde government abandoned its reservations to send in the reactionary Armed Forces; the class necessity of the exploiters and oppressors carried the day and the task of restoring public order was handed over to the Armed Forces (the Army, Navy and Air Force), the backbone of the state, supported by the police forces (the Civil Guard, Republican Guard, and Investigative Police).

In December 1982, a state of emergency was declared in the region of Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurimac, and it was placed under the Armed Forces' political-military command. This status was later extended to other areas in the departments of Pasco, Huanuco and San Martin; it is still in force essentially despite some variations. Military control reached a new and important phase with the imposition of a state of emergency and curfew in Lima and Callao beginning in February 1986, which subjected the capital of the Republic and its more than six million inhabitants to military rule. As a result of these moves, seven and a half of Peru's 20 million people are under military authority: a million and half people live under the absolute andunrestrained political-military authority of the Armed Forces, the new lords over their lives and property, revived feudal tyrants decked out with noose and knife; while six million people in the very capital of this much-touted democracy live without any guarantees or rights, subject to overbearing brutality and disguised murder under a martial law which goes so far as to give itself the right to ban one or another specific artistic performance even in public gathering previously authorized by the military.

How have the Armed Forces carried out the counterrevolutionary war? Basically they have followed the doctrines of their master, Yankee imperialism, with its theories of counterrevolutionary war based on its own experiences, especially in Vietnam, and particularly the lessons it has drawn from its fight against the armed struggle in Latin America, especially Central America. To this fundamental theoretical basis they have added the "antiterrorist" experience of Israel and their chums in Argentina, as well as advice from West Germany, Taiwan, Spain, Britain, etc. On top of all this they throw in their few months of experience in the 1965 anti guerrilla struggle and the more limited experience of La Convencion. Operations are under the leadership of the Armed Forces Joint Command, acting according to the instructions of the National Defense Council headed by the President of the Republic, whether it is Belaunde or Alan Garcia, who have been directly and undeniably responsible for every measure carried out, as well as for the war's overall political leadership, which means they bear the main responsibility for the conduct of the counterrevolutionary war. In short, they have applied world counterrevolutions' well-known strategy against revolutionary struggle, armed subversion and People's War, a strategy which has been defeated many times, smashed and thoroughly and completely beaten by the theory of People's War, time and again demonstrating to the world the superiority of the proletariat strategy over that of imperialism.

Masses Against Masses.

When the Armed Forces came in they had already been studying the revolutionary war for three years as well as advising and planning the police actions, so they had certain advantages from the beginning, and obviously they had more and better human and technical resources than the police. They immediately began to implement their plan of setting masses against masses, following the old imperialist doctrine of using natives to fight against natives. First the used pre trained units made up hand-picked army veterans and peasants linked to local tyrants and livestock rustlers, whom they had employed as agents and infiltrators among the peasants, and hooked to the refurbished intelligence network they had begun to set up years before in the 1970s. Based on these agents, infiltrators, spies and stool pigeons, aided by the authorities local tyrants and petty tyrants and their flunkies, they formed vigilante bands under military authority take part in joint actions with police and Armed Forces (who they often acted disguised as peasants or police), unleashing white terror in the countryside assassinating Party members, fighters, mass leaders and peasants carrying out real witch hunts against revolutionaries and the advanced as well as robbery, rape, torture, looting, arson and slaughter. This is how they carried out the sinister policy of burning all, looting all, and killing all.

Later, they used the white terror and death threats to subjugate a part of the masses, and in this way masses under direct vigilante coercion and control were forced to aid the counterrevolutionary war. These coerced people drafted from among the masses acted as guards, arrested and murdered guerrillas, carried out razing operations against neighboring communities or towns and even more distant ones, and took part in search and pursuit operations against the guerrillas. Later these people were regrouped along with people from neighboring areas into strategic hamlets under direct military rule. Then, in addition to being forbidden to come and go freely, since they are not allowed to go anywhere without the military, even to work, and subject to constant control, they were militarized and organized into "patrols" and "defense committees," forced to take up rudimentary weapons, and, sunk in starvation and poverty, obligated to take part militarily in the white terror and the counterrevolutionary war. In conclusion, while the police forces were also used as cannon fodder by the Armed Forces, as even the soldiers, sailors and aviators have always been, these coerced masses have been the main and real cannon fodder in this sinister plan of pitting masses against masses, of using natives to fight natives.

These coerced masses have been and still are used to spearhead all the reactionary attacks and operations or to surround the repressive forces like a human shield. These coerced masses have suffered 2,600 losses (including vigilantes), almost five times more than the number of uniformed soldiers and police killed (without taking into account the hundreds of infiltrators, agents and informers.)

Genocide.

When their policy of masses against masses proved unable to contain the People's War, the reactionary Armed Forces resorted to the most evil, perverted and criminal genocide, one of the greatest infamies in the history of the Republic of Peru. The military showed its genocidal tendencies from the beginning, in Huambo, Iquicha, Huaychao, etc. Belaunde cynically saluted and approved of these incidents as "the Ayacucho peasant's gallant answer to terrorism." It should be made clear that he himself had approved and authorized such actions and not only publicly praised but called for genocide: this is the self-proclaimed democrat, humanist and Christian "President" full of respect for the Constitution and the law, covered forever in the blood of the people which began to flow in torrents. Among the victims were the journalists cowardly murdered in Uchuraccay.

They began to wipe out the peasants and their communities and small towns in 1983 in the department of Ayacucho. In June of that year, in Espite, in the province of Cangallo, they used helicopters to strife the masses with gun fire, and throw grenades at villagers who were trying to flee through the mountains. In July, in the towns of Occopeja and Uchuraccay, in the province of Huanta, again they used helicopters to strife the masses with bullets, and wiped them out with grenades. In Paccha, a town in Vinchos, in the province of Huamanga, the majority of the population was murdered and the rest carried away to Lima. In July, the first monstrously tortured bodies began to turn up in the streets of the city of Ayacucho and the surrounding areas; during the two months leading up to the November elections, the bodies of more than 800 people were found, people who had been brutally murdered after bestial tortures and their bodies left to rot. In November, in Silvia, in the province of La Mar, in a reprisal for an ambush against the Army, they arrested 60 people and indiscriminately killed 20 of them. A month before, in Sillco, in the province of Huanta, they threw grenades and fired directly on the masses for the first time. Culminating this slaughter, on election day, in Socos, in the province of Huamanga, the local police detachment tortured and murdered more than 50 people who had been taking part in a wedding party. Officially, 37 people were reported dead.

Along with all this reactionary white terror, they began to set up concentration camps in the department of Ayacucho, massive and evil torture centers, under the control of the Army in the "Los Cabitos" barracks in the city of Ayacucho, in Totos (Cangallo) and Qoisa and Pichari (La Mar), and under the control of the Navy in Huanta. In the Totos camp, as of July 1983 they had secretly buried more than a hundred people; more than 20 of them had their throats cut, the prisoners were tortured and buried alive, new prisoners were forced to dig graves more than three meters deep and then were shoved in, while others were thrown in with their hands and feet tied. In Totos the torture is especially brutal and sadistic. To terrify the people, they cut off heads and impale them on stakes.

But the genocide was not confined to Ayacucho. In October 1983, it spread to the department of Pasco, the country's mining center; there, in Chinche, a hamlet of the province of Alcides Carrion, 45 peasants were wiped out. On November 13, the day of the municipal elections, three helicopters were used to strife with machine-gun the population in Parabama, in Tauacaja province in the department of Huancavelica, killing more than 50 people in retaliation for an ambush that guerrillas had carried out against an Army patrol that day.

During 1984 the genocide became macabre, reaching the heights of horror. The Armed Forces, mainly, as well as the police, unleashed their evil, rotten, inflamed, blind and rabid hatred against the people, in their frustrated efforts to stop the revolutionary war by isolating the guerrillas from the masses of peasants, particularly the poor peasants. Once again, in their own tradition, the armed reaction fed upon the flesh and blood of the unarmed people. Let's look at some of the "heroism" that serves to prop up their false glory and unfounded pride.

The genocidal slaughters.

In the department of Ayacucho at the end of June they killed 150 people in the San Francisco area. July 5th, they killed 30 peasants in Chiara; on the 8th, they killed 40 after an operation in the village Rosario; the 12th, they wiped out 30 people in Pomabamba; on the 15th, in a reprisal for an action at Apacheta they killed 17; the 16th, 25 tortured bodies were found along the highway to Huamanguilla. August 3rd, the tortured bodies of 37 people were found in Puramanta; on the 18th the corpses of 17 tortured children and adolescents were found in Cocahuichun, in Via de los Libertadores, and 8 bodies, two of them children, in Leonpata; the 27th, 19 people were found murdered in Sajrarumi and 21 in San Francisco. September 1st, 23 peasants were killed in Churrubamba and Misiquibamba. The same month, in Paraiso, in Mariscal Caceres province in the department of San Martin, they killed 22 peasants. In the department of Huancavelica, between the 15th and 23rd of October, an Army operation killed 75 peasants in Milpo and 15 in Pillo-Pachamarca. November 19th, once again in Ayacucho, they wiped out 50 peasants in Putis and Chullay; in Lucmahuaico, Vilcabamba, in the department of Cusco, soldiers and vigilantes from Andahuaylas killed 22 peasants on the 23rd and 20 more on the 26th. Once again in Huancavelica, December 6th the police killed 38 peasants in Cuni, near Marcas in the province of Acobamba; the same month 16 bodies were found in Ayahuarcuna, in Ayacucho.

Some actions that took place in June and July in Ayacucho as part of this sinister wave of genocide in 1984 should be specifically mentioned. In Vinchos, they killed 40 commissioners of various people's committees. In Remillapata they shot a child nine yeas old and another of 11 together with their mother and their father who was the Security Commissioner; in Mayopampa they threw a commissioner into a burning building. These vile murders, so merciless and ferocious that children are shot because they happen to be the children of members of the new political power, is a monstrous expression of the hate and fear with which this new political power fills them. In Balcon 70 Marines came in and murdered 18 peasants, among them six children whose bodies they dumped in their trucks. A third of the dead were children, this murder of children is a constant policy to terrorize and break the parents, as well as a disgusting and often-used way of punishing revolutionaries especially. Nevertheless, the Marines came back again the next day, sarcastically and contemptuously offering their victims food, trying to buy them off. The people quite justly became enraged and drove them away. After an ambush in Pichari, the "glorious" Civil Guard came in and stopped a truck carrying passengers, who were taken off and killed. Local forces of the People's Guerrilla Army (PGA) buried these 20 people, but in shameless cynicism the murder was attributed to the PGA. This is another common trick used by the reactionary forces who often disguise themselves in peasant clothes in order to commit atrocities, loot, rape, arson, razing and the most frightful crimes, especially against children, and then blame the guerrillas so as to turn the masses against them. One example of this is the murder of 50 peasants by the Marines in a place called Azangaro, 20 minutes from Luricocha, during this same period.

Another example of their terror tactics took place in San Francisco, when peasants going down to the jungle to harvest were indiscriminately wiped out, without even being asked for their identification papers. In Huamanguilla they killed nine peasants, burning one peasant alive. That is one of their usual ways of terrifying people by showing their mercilessness toward anyone considered a communist or a guerrilla.

A similar example happened in Chuschi, January 10, 1983, where they tied dynamite to a peasant and blew him up while shouting, "This is how terrorists die! " This barbaric policy has been implemented since the beginning of the Armed Forces' intervention and continues today. In this black wave of death razing became widespread. A small example is the operation in Incaraqay, where after stealing everything they burned down 500 houses. The extermination made whole towns disappear; July 15, the Armed Forces backed by vigilantes killed the entire population of Quinua and completely wiped the town off the face of the earth. But even this was not enough for them. The white terror continued fattening on the people's flesh. On August 22, 1984, in a reprisal for an ambush, a Marine unit in Silvia arrested 50 youth at random and shot them at the spotlight; emulating the German fascists who set Europe aflame during World War II, they murdered 10 sons and daughters of the people for every Marine who fell in combat. November 10th, Marines aided by the Republican Guard finished off 40 peasants in Quimbiri, after having savagely tortured them in Luisiana, a telling example of their ongoing policy of covering their tracks and hiding their crimes by exterminating the victims.

Discoveries of common graves.

Another shocking proof of the genocide perpetrated by the Armed Forces has been the discovery of common graves, a macabre and disgusting sight. The inextinguishable death cries of men, women and children shook the national conscience. The broken lives of the people have fueled history's enraged clamor for class justice, a justice that only the advancing armed revolution can and will bring about, as well as the constant and unsilenceable exposure of the barbarism with which the Peruvian state defends itself, using its Armed Forces, under the leadership of whatever government happens to be on duty, whether it is the Popular Action party of Belaunde or Alan Garcia's APRA, because what is at stake is their class dictatorship, their very order of exploitation and oppression. In the department of Ayacucho on August 19, 1984, a grave with 10 bodies was found in Via de Los Libertadores, and on the 22nd, a grave with 30 corpses along the Huanta-Mayo road, 30 kilometers from Huanta. On the 23rd seven common graves with a total of 89 bodies in an advanced state of decomposition were found in Pucayacu, a discovery which profoundly shook public opinion and unleashed the masses' condemnation and repudiation of the Armed Forces and the Belaunde government then in power. The political military command of the region was in the hands of General Adrian Huaman and the officer directly responsible for the massacre was Naval Captain Alvaro Artaza. Garcia tried to reappoint Huaman as the chief of Ayacucho, and Barrantes used to call him "the peasant general." The trial of Captain Alvaro took place within the Navy itself, and the present APRA government gave him a promotion, closed his case and sent him to Spain for his own protection.

The same day a common grave with 30 bodies was found in Ayahuarcuna (Macacharca); on the 25th other bodies were found in Quinua and Muyuri; and the 28th a grave with 12 people whose throats had been cut was found in Cocahuischaca, Via de Los Libertadores. In September peasants exposed the existence of common graves in Toldorumi, Zamatapampa and Usutapampa in the province of Victor Fajardo, and in Pichuyrumi and Qarpaqasa in Cangallo. The authorities and the daily newspapers paid little attention to these exposures by the peasants, just as they ignored many others in order to hide the real extent of the genocide. September 13th, three new common graves with 50 dead were discovered in Iribamba; on the 14th a grave with five bodies was found in Luricocha and another in Qasa-Orqo with 10 tortured corpses. On the 18th, a grave with five bodies in Yanaorqo. October 18th a grave with 25 bodies in Vado Chico (Huanta); on the 20th, one with eight dead in Capitanpampa, another with three in Ayahuarcuna and a third with five corpses in Iribamba; the 25th, four new graves with 41 bodies in Vado Chico; the 28th, a grave with four dead bodies in Laurente (Huanta). November 13th a grave with 15 bodies in Huamanguilla; the l9th, three graves containing 45 murder victims were found in Las Vegas, at kilometer 25 of the Ayacucho-Huanta road; and the 22nd, three graves with 10 bodies were found in Neque.

The genocide continued in 1985, though not with the same intensity. Right up until Belaunde left office, common graves continued to be discovered in Ayacucho: January 11th a grave was found in Paquec (Huanta) with four bodies; January 16th four graves were uncovered one in Huamanguilla with 11 bodies, a second in Qanqana (Huanta) with five, and in the province of Huamanga, a third in Pava with three bodies and a fourth in Pacha with 16. Two graves with 3 bodies were found March 10th near Huanta. The massacres continue in this region, as these statistic show: February 23rd, in Canaire they killed 50 peasants; on June 26 in Miopata-Suco (Huanta) they annihilated 12. July 9th in Manzanayoq (Cangallo) they cut the throats of eight peasants and cut their bodies into pieces, and did the same to another eight in Pacomarca, also in the province of Cangallo. July 12th they killed 12 peasants and sacked and burned homes Waracayoq; five were killed in Chacari. This genocide also began to spread throughout the department of Huanuco: February 21st, a grave with five bodies was found in Alto Pacae; the 22nd they killed peasants in La Soledad; another grave with seven dead was found the 28th in Aucayacu. In March, they killed 30 people in Arancay. On June 27th a grave with 11 bodies was found in Yanajanja (Nuevo Progreso). Thus, the Action Popular government which had plunged the country into a bloodbath ended its term in office completely soaked in it, covering ex-president Belaunde with the indelible shame of genocide, and leaving us a valuable lesson: the more the various governments, which by turn head the old state, talks about "democracy," "human rights" and "peace" more hunger, poverty, repression, terror, murder and even genocide they furiously unleash against the Peruvian people.

How has the counterrevolutionary war gone since Garcia's government took office, especially regarding the questions we have been referring to? In political-military zone number five, a principal center of operation in the department of Ayacucho, once again on August 2nd they began an operation that razed villages Huambalpa, Carhuanca, Vilcashuaman, Vischongo and Cangallo; the 10th they razed Huamanmarca and murdered seven peasants. The genocide at Aqomarca August 14th shook all of Peru: in a place called Llocllapampa eight graves were found, containing a total of 69 corpses; in addition two people were murdered in Piteq, one in Yuraqera, one in Mayopampa, two in Ahuacpampa and three in Qeuqeqata, all savagely killed by the Army, which would surround the village, round up the peasants, separate the men from the women and children, and rape, pillage, shoot, finish them off, then cover some of the bodies with Iye, burn the rest and bury the unidentifiable bits and pieces of bodies in pits. In the midst of all the fanfare and demagogic bluster of Garcia about "revolution," "a national, democratic and people's state," "democracy," "respect for human rights, "not answering barbarism with barbarism, " " reconciliation, " "fighting while upholding the law" and other cheap phrases thrown to the wind by the APRA government, the exposure of Aqomarca tore apart their lies and revealed their double-dealing, shattered illusions and once again unmasked their opportunism.

Then came a great hustle and bustle in parliament, a farce of gestures and so-called presidential measures, while the "opposition" rent their clothes and made easy deals, and the people repudiated and condemned all this and advanced further toward becoming clear about the highest ruling circles. Almost a year has gone by since then. Commands have been reshuffled; Lieutenants Hurtado, Paz and Rondon have been held responsible; the various commissions have presented their reports, etc., etc. Today Hurtado has been given a promotion and sent abroad for further training, in the United States or somewhere under U.S. control; Paz also got a promotion and Rivera will undoubtedly get one in 1987. What happened to the investigation, the indictments the Army was preparing? Buried under silence. The sentence of 10 days hard labor the military investigators proposed for Lieutenant Hurtado, has it been carried out? How about justice? Just as in the case of Pucayacu, only the triumphant revolution will bring about justice.

But this smokescreen of "fighting while upholding the Constitution and the law" continued. Between August 28th and September 4th, 60 peasants were murdered in Huambalpa; in Pucayacu on August 28th a new grave containing seven bodies came to light. The "democratic" application of the principle "fighting while upholding the Constitution and the law" went on. The villages of Aqomarca, Umaru, Incaraqay, Patin, Tankiwa, Cochapata, Mayopamba and Manallasaq were razed between the first and the 25th of September. A new genocide took place September 2rd and 3rd: Umaru and Bellavista, 66 dead, 29 murdered in Bellavista on the 2nd. Immediately afterwards, on the 3rd, 37 peasants wiped out, among them 11 children less than nine years old. September 13th they killed seven eyewitnesses to the Llocllapampa massacre, including a child of nine. The 28th four graves were found with more than 80 bodies, in Totora, near Sachabamba.

In the department of Huanuco, four graves with 14 bodies were found in Huancar (province of Ambo), and in the department of San Martin a grave with the bodies of seven murdered people was uncovered in Situyi (province of Mariscal Cáceres).

On October 4th Peruvian society was once again shaken by another genocide, this time in the very capital of the Republic, in Lurigancho prison where 30 prisoners of war were murdered and 23 wounded, before the eyes of seven thousand prisoners. Following a preestablished plan meant to break the will of the prisoners of war and deal a blow to the revolution, the Llapan Atic, the Republican Guard's anti subversive troops, armed to the teeth, were unleashed against the British Pavilion where those convicted of "terrorism" were being held. When instead of surrender they were met with heroic resistance, they used dynamite and explosive charges to open a breach in the walls, then threw dynamite into the cellblock, along with teargas and incendiary bombs. After the assault, they finished off the wounded, burned alive and brutally beat the survivors and finally burned down the cellblock to hide the evidence of their monstrous criminal genocide. But despite their cynical efforts to cover up their crime and silence all witnesses, the truth got out, further unmasking the APRA government and its undeniable guilt for this new, cold-blooded barbarism.

November 2nd in Uchuyunga, in n the province of La Mar in the department of Ayacucho, they killed 19 peasants; at the end of the year, peasants in San Martin exposed the massacres in Aucayacu, Campo Grande, Venenillo, Madre Mia and Palo de Acero. As 1986 began, this situation continued, as the following facts are enough to show: January 21st in Churrupampa, near Huanta, seven bodies were found; in Uchiza, Huanuco department, 30 people were killed in February; and in the department of Pasco, in the hamlets "Ocho de Diciembre" and "Independencia" five peasants were shot dead on their own doorsteps in retaliation for a guerrilla raid. In short, Garcia's APRA government is continuing the same genocide the Belaunde government started.

The Disappeared.

The policy of making people "disappear" has been part of the regime's genocide since the Armed Forces came in; it intensified greatly at the beginning of 1984 and has continued through today. Now, especially in the last few months, once again there have been more and more reports of people turning it up "missing." The "missing" amount to thousands of people but the exposures and protests bounce up against the official silence which denies or ignores the suits brought against it and stonewalls everything. This perverse policy, long practiced by reaction, has become especially intensified lately. Its immediate precedent was the sinister policy of "disappearances" carried out by the 1970s Argentine military government that bathed its people in blood and even more ignominiously made tens of thousands "disappear." A similar policy is being carried out here, also targeting on the poorest masses, above all peasants, who are not reported missing because of lack of any documentation or because of the restrictions and persecutions their families face, but who undoubtedly make up the bulk of the thousands never found. They lie wrapped in the shadow of as yet undiscovered graves or in clandestine cemeteries in the many concentration camps, together with the remains of other exemplary sons and daughters of the people, of the class and of the revolution. These thousands of "missing" makes up yet another historically implacable accusation that will dig the ground out from under the reactionary Armed Forces and, along with the devastating blows of the armed people, bring about their destruction and so prepare the end of the rotten order of the Peruvian state they hold up.

What has been the result of this genocide? The evil and shameful murder of 8,700 Peruvians, 8,700 sons and daughters of the people, including 4,700 murdered from among the masses, the poorest and most exploited, especially from among the peasants as well as from the neighborhoods and shantytowns of the cities, and 4,000 disappeared, of the same classes, flesh of the same flesh. The policy of genocide carried out by the Armed Forces has cost the people, the proletariat, the peasantry and the petite bourgeoisie 8,700 of its children, who have fallen murdered, and not at all in the way claimed by phony and inconsistent revolutionaries, or those opportunists who pretend to be revolutionaries while preaching the evolution of the existing social order, or those hacks who openly or secretly scribble in defense of the system, or those such as the reaction and its flunkies who claim that the genocide is a result of the People's War. No! The genocide is clearly and specifically a policy approved and ordered by the government of the Peruvian state, proposed and implemented by the Armed Forces with the help of the police, an evil and barbarous practice begun in 1,983, cruelly and bloodily intensified in 1,984 and systematically carried out through today, and now being worsened and once again intensified by Garcia and his reactionary APRA government whose responsibility must be resoundingly exposed. But what has been the purpose of this genocide? It is to try to contain the People's War, which by the end of 1982 had begun to establish the new political power in the form of People's Committees; to smash the guerrilla war, to separate the masses from the revolutionary war, to destroy the new political power and hold back its development, to hold back the development of the People's War; to achieve the reactionary political objectives of the Armed Forces, the Army, Navy and Air Force, institutions which together and through a division of genocidal labor among them killed 1,767 sons and daughters of the people in 1983 and "disappeared" 730, until that year there was only 14 losses among the masses and no "missing," a total of 2,497 people among the masses murdered in 1983. How about in 1984? The spiraling political genocide against the masses reached 2,522 dead and 2,881 disappeared; a total of 5,403 sons and daughters of the masses murdered, the highest peak of the genocide perpetuated so far by the Armed Forces.

Did they succeed in their objective of smashing the People's War of putting an end to it? No, because the People's War, corresponding its class character, has shown its superiority; it has proven itself capable of confronting persistent cruel violent offensives and genocide of tremendous proportion, and is more tempered, of continuing to develop and grow. In these hard times of forging our steeled heroism the turbulent trumpets of the new state are beginning to be born, pregnant with the future, the masses are showing themselves ready and willing to change our society and they are doing it; the Party, the Communist Party of Peru, leading the People's War, is fully demonstrating that is the vanguard of the proletariat and that it adheres strictly to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and its accurate and correct application to the specific concrete conditions of the democratic revolution and further, with firm resolution the Party is holding the course of the People's War, a war that is and will continue to be marching unwaveringly toward the foundation of the People's Republic of Peru, opening the door to socialism and the final goal.

The People's War has not been smashed, stopped or held back; rather, as the regime's chieftains have been forced to admit even while continually trying to minimize it, and as their fears, frantic maneuvers and measures especially demonstrate, the People's War is expanding, developing, delivering resounding blows. Thus, the genocidal plans and the genocide itself have failed, as their policy of using masses against masses failed and as their whole reactionary strategy is failing. What has come of using masses against masses, of their genocide, of their reactionary strategy? It has once again covered the Armed Forces of the Peruvian state with the blood of the people, to an extent never before known in the history of the Republic; the genocide they have perpetrated will turn more and more against them and spur on the concentrated class hatred with which their criminal barbarity has filled the masses.

Their new heights of infamy have been registered forever in the memories of countless masses who will mete out crushing punishment to those who are politically and militarily responsible, no matter how long it may take. This blood which has been cynically and perversely spilt today has become a thundering and powerful public accusation against the Peruvian state and its Armed Forces and police, its political leaders and chieftains of crimes against humanity, and it will more and more become the unfurled banner at the center of the revolutionary storm, waving and gleaming as the victorious People's War carries out the complete and thorough justice denied it today.

What we have seen and experienced in the People's War in Peru has reaffirmed even more deeply for us the ineluctable law established by Chairman Mao Tsetung: "All reactionaries try to eliminate the revolution through mass slaughter, and they think the more people they kill the more it will weaken the revolution. But despite the reaction's subjective wishes, facts show that the more people they kill the stronger the revolution becomes and the closer the reactionaries come to their doom. This is an ineluctable law of history."

THE SIXTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PEOPLE'S WAR.

The application of Marxism Leninism-Maoism to the concrete conditions of Peruvian society leads to the conclusion that revolutionary violence or violent revolution, the only way to seize state power and transform the world, must take the form of People's War and more specifically a peasant war led by the Communist Party of Peru as the representative of the proletariat, a war which develops as a single unit waged principally in the countryside and complementarily in cities, following the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside whose essence is the establishment of base areas, so that the democratic revolution, culminates in the establishment of People's Republic, a great victory which must be followed by continuing the revolution through socialism and cultural revolutions, under the dictatorship of the proletariat with the firm exercise of its class violence, until achieving, together with all humanity, glorious communism, the realm of true freedom. Based on the above, there are four fundamental questions that arise and must be taken into account: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the ideology of the proletariat; the Party as the leader of the revolution, the People's War, which in our case is specified as a peasant war which follows the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside; and revolutionary base areas or the New Power. Let us examine the sixth year now completed on the light of these relevant points.

On Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

We take the stand of the international proletariat, the last class in history, with its own class interests different from and antagonistic to those of other classes, and with an aim that only the proletariat leading the people's of the world can attain, communism, the only unsurpassable new society, without exploited or exploiters, without oppressed or oppressors, without classes, without a state, without parties, without democracy, without weapons and wars, the society of "great harmony," the radical and definitive new society toward which 15 billion years of matter in motion, that part of eternal matter which we know, and humanity has been inevitably and irresistibly heading, but only by propelling the class struggle forward until it reaches the epic heights of People's War, with gun in the hands of the armed class and masses of people, and counterrevolutionary war is destroyed forever, imperialism and reaction are overthrown and swept off the face of the earth, and in the shadow of the guns of invincible People's War upon which the dictatorship of the proletariat rests, society is transformed in all spheres, destroying and eliminating all class differences and private ownership of the means of production that gives rise to them, ending war forever, and communism radiates for all humankind.

Since we take the stand of the international proletariat, we based ourselves in its ideology today Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, with Maoism principal as its third stage, the highest point of the proletariat's ideology has reached in its historical process of development. It is within this context that we take up the position and class interests of the Peruvian proletariat as part of the international working class, since only on the basis of the universal doctrine of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is it possible to stand with the proletariat and fight for its interests, here or anywhere else. There is only one proletarian ideology; it is applicable to the whole world and development is a single world process. On the other hand, ever since Marx found Marxism and through the advances made by Lenin and Chairman Mao Tse-tung, the basic question has always been the application of this science to the conditions of each revolution; consequently the problem is the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the concrete conditions of the Peruvian revolution, and specifically, the application of the universal law of violence, People's War, to the revolutionary war in this country. From this fusion of Marxism with our concrete reality there arises and develops a Guiding Thought, that is, he application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the concrete conditions of the Peruvian revolution. In short, our starting point is the outlook of the international proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and the Guiding Thought of President Gonzalo. These are the basis of all our political, theoretical and practical action; without this basis it is not possible to serve the class firmly and consistently.

Regarding the Party.

First let's look at the need for a party; then later when we take up its building we'll deal with its present role. Since its very beginnings Marxism has held that there must be a Party to lead the struggle to seize state power; this was reiterated by Leninism and emphatically reaffirmed by Maoism. Without a revolutionary party of a new type, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, there can be no revolution for the proletariat and the people. This is a great truth that no communist can evade without ceasing to be one, a truth we Peruvian communists had to confront. The Communist Party of Peru was founded on October 7th, 1928 on a solid Marxist-Leninist basis by José Carlos Mariátegui, who provided it with basic theses concerning Peruvian society, the land question, imperialist domination, the role of the Peruvian proletariat, as well as programmatic points and a general political line and consequent particular lines. But the founder died in 1930, less than two years afterwards; even a first congress remained pending, so that the Party did not have time to consolidate itself before trends that had already been developing took a leap, Mariátegui and his line were openly put into question, and the line was changed by Ravines. Thus opportunism usurped Party leadership and imposed its authority in the two-line struggle within the Party with the gravest consequences for the class and the revolution.

This road led to the parliamentary cretinism manifested in the 1939 elections, in the service of the comprador bourgeoisie represented by Prado. Later, during World War II, there was a phony "founding congress" which adopted the general political line of "national unity" under the guidance of Browderite revisionism, an expression of capitulation to Yankee imperialism's domination and the domestic rule of the comprador bourgeoisie and the feudal landlords, under the pretext of the struggle against fascism. Subsequently, this situation led to the Party's participation in the 1945elections as part of the "National Democratic Front" with the APRA party, with the excuse of bringing about a democratic opening; this new electoral adventure ended when the balloon the Party had become blew up after Odria's 1948 coup d'etat. In the beginning of the sixties the fraction founded by Chairman Gonzalo began to develop within the Ayacucho Regional Committee. By fraction, what is meant is what Lenin taught: "A section in a party is a group of like-minded persons formed for the purpose primarily influencing the party in a definite direction, for the purpose of securing acceptance for their principles in the party in the purest form. For this, real unanimity of opinion is necessary." The fraction arose as the product of the development of the class struggle on the world level, especially the great struggle between Marxism and revisionism that spread Mao Tsetung Thought, as Chairman Mao's development of Marxism-Leninism was known in the mid-1960s. This was the principal and decisive factor giving rise to the fraction.

At the same time, a substantial basis for it was provided by the development of Peruvian society, the advance of bureaucrat capitalism, the sharpening class struggle of the masses, the intensification of political activity and growing propaganda about armed struggle, and by developments in the region itself where the fraction arose, a region where the decrepitude of semi feudalism was becoming increasingly stark and where the peasantry was beginning to awaken in a particularly militant fashion reflecting a similar process going on throughout the country. Within the Party at that time, the struggle between Marxism and revisionism deepened.

The fraction headed by the Ayacucho Regional Committee fought the revisionism of Del Prado and his followers in the IV National Conference where Del Prado and Company were expelled. From then on the faction developed within the Party nationwide. The development of Marxism-Leninism by Chairman Mao and the great lessons and experiences of the Communist Party of China played a vital and decisive in this initial process. Since then both our initial commitment to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and our application of it to our conditions have developed further.

After the V National Conference in November 1965, in the two-line struggle within the Party the fraction came to fight for building the three magic weapons of the revolution: the party, armed forces and united front, demanding that these tasks are fulfilled in the light of the political line of the Conference which had established the building revolutionary armed forces for armed struggle as the principal task, but in a thousand ways the dead weight of revisionism hindered and opposed the fulfillment of the principal task; under these circumstances the fraction, reaffirming the necessity of an ideologically united and organizationally centralized Party, called for the Reconstruction of the Party" based on "the heroic fighter." This process was carried out in three periods, each with its corresponding political strategy:

1. Defining the problem of Reconstruction, guided by the political strategy of "surrounding the cities from the countryside."

At this point the problem was to build a Party to lead the armed struggle on this road, which meant that the peasant and land question acquired tremendous importance and it was vital to put the Party's center of gravity in the countryside. Further, the decisive question of ideological and political line centered on "basing ourselves on Mao Tsetung Thought," as it was said in those days, and on "reclaiming and developing Mariátegui," with development being the outstanding aspect of this. It was not enough to reclaim him for two key reasons: the development of Marxism-Leninism by Chairman Mao Tsetung, and the development of bureaucrat capitalism in Peru. This phase took place during the struggle against Khrushchevite revisionism and its manifestations in various spheres of Party life and ended with the January 1969 VI Conference which approved "the Reconstruction of the Party" "on the basis of Party unity around Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought (as was said in those days now it is Maoism), Mariategui's Thought and the general political line. "

2. Carrying Out the Reconstruction

This period was guided by the political strategy of "Reconstruct the Party" in accordance with the Party's basis of unity. October 1968 saw the coup d' etat of Velasco, who took on the task of deepening the development of bureaucrat capitalism, carrying out the corporativization of Peruvian society guided by a fascist political outlook and suppressing the rising mass movements. This period divides into two parts: first the struggle against right liquidationism, a form of revisionism which sought to destroy the Party by centering it on open, masses work and pushing it into legalism; on the strictly political level this line put forward expropriating the land instead of confiscating it and above all denied the fascist character of the government. When these liquidationists couldn't take over the Party, they perversely attempted to destroy it and the fraction took up the Party's defense. In February 1970 a split took place and the fraction assumed the leadership of the Party; from then on it led the process of Reconstruction. In the second part there was a struggle against "left" liquidationism, another variant of revisionism that tried to destroy the Party by shutting it up behind four walls, denying the importance of peasant work and the possibility of any mass work because, according to them, mass work and organizations are impossible under fascism. They reduced fascism to simply a question of violence, and worse, to an irresistible violence in the face of which nothing could be done but wait for better times. They put forward the "relative stability of capitalism" and consequently of the social system. They said "the line is enough" and that there was no reason to develop Mariátegui further, and called Maoism into question, bragging about being "pure Bolsheviks." This "left" liquidationism was smashed in 1975 at a Central Committee plenum.

During this period, our-political understanding of Peruvian society deepened, especially our understanding of bureaucrat capitalism, based on Chairman Mao Tsetung's thesis. This question is fundamental for understanding and leading the democratic revolution. In fact this concept slammed the door on the opportunist tendency to tail a faction of the big bourgeoisie while pretending to unite and struggle with the national bourgeoisie, and to support the Velasco's fascist and corporativist plans, "reforms" and measures, and it continues to be extremely useful today. The ideological-political building of the Party also advanced, especially regarding the understanding of Mariátegui's thought and general political line synthesised for the first time in five basic points taken from his works as well as the necessity to develop it further. The relationship between secret and open work was delineated and the latter was developed according to the Leninist criteria of areas of support for the Party's mass work; thus, mass organizations were created by the Party to develop the links between the Party and the masses.

3. The Culmination of the Reconstruction

This period was guided by the political strategy of "Culminate and Lay the Basis," in other words, culminate the reconstruction and lay the basis for launching the armed struggle. With the unfolding of the process the Party was approaching the conclusion of its Reconstruction and so had to sum up what had been achieved, define and sanction the general political line, continue the building of the Party on a national level with its center of gravity in the countryside, define the specifics of the armed struggle and lay the basis to launch it by developing the work among the peasants. The left fought tenaciously to attain these objectives, waging intense and sharp struggle against right ism. This rightism developed into a right opportunist line that first opposed the Culmination and then launched an onslaught against the general political line, labeling it "ultra leftist," and ended up rapidly opposing the initiation of the armed struggle. Nevertheless, with firmness and wisdom the left repeatedly defeated right opportunism, another form of revisionism opposed in the last instance to revolutionary violence, to armed struggle, to people's war, to the Party's fulfillment of its role of fighting to seize power for the proletariat and the people, and to the proletariat's advance in its historic mission. In April 1977 the left defeated the right opportunist opposition to Culminate, with the approval of the national plan to build the Party under the slogan "Build for the purpose of launching the armed struggle"; the left again resoundingly defeated the right in September 1978 with the approval of the "Summation of the Reconstruction, " the sanctioning of "Mariátegui's general political line and its development, " and the drafting of the "Outline of the Armed Struggle." Finally, it thoroughly and completely defeated the right opportunist line at the May 1979 IX Expanded Central Committee Plenum, when under the slogan "Define and Decide" the agreement was taken to "Initiate the Armed Struggle."

A long chapter of the Party's history had closed and another one opened: the Reconstruction had been culminated and a new stage would open, that of the armed struggle. It should be clearly and firmly emphasize that during this period of the Culmination, when Chairman Mao died, the Party pledged to the international proletariat and the revolution that it would always hold high the banners of Marx, Lenin and Mao, and declared that "To be a Marxist today is to be Marxist-Leninist-Mao Tsetung Thought" (now Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) Thus, when the Hua-Deng coup took place, with the latter of course in charge at the end of the day, the Party condemned it as a counterrevolutionary coup against the dictatorship of the proletariat in China, against the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, for the restoration of capitalism and against the world revolution.

In sum, then, the Communist Party of Peru was reconstructed and became a Party of a new type, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, and so once again there existed the organized vanguard of the proletariat, capable of leading it to the seizure of state power. In this way "Define and Decide" can be considered the first milestone of the people's war unfolding today. Later the Party achieved the second milestone, that of Preparation; a period of the auctioning of the Party Programme, the general political line of the Peruvian revolution and the Party statutes whose norms guide us today, the resolution of strategic political questions regarding revolutionary violence, people's war and the Party, the army and the United Front. The following decision was taken: "Forge the First Company in Deeds! Let violence flourish concretized in initiating and developing the armed struggle; let us open up a new chapter with lead and offer our blood to write it, a new chapter in the history of our Party and people, and let us forge the First Company in deeds! Peru, December 3rd,1979." And the Communist Party of Peru began to lead the people's war going on today.

On the People's War.

Taking international experience as its magnificent starting point, so valuable and rich in positive as well as negative lessons, principally taking people's war as the military theory of the proletariat, and taking the concrete conditions of the country into account, the VIII Central Committee Plenum sanctioned the "Outline of the Armed Struggle. " In essence this plan held that people's war in Peru must develop as a single revolutionary war in the countryside and cities, with the countryside the principal theater of armed actions, following the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside. Furthermore, for social and historic reasons and especially their impact on military affairs, it took into account the importance of the mountains, especially the stretch that runs from the central to the southern region, as well as that of the capital city. It also analyzed Peru within the context of Latin America as a whole, particularly South America, and within the context of the international situation and the world revolution. With this outline in mind the Party prepared the armed struggle dealing with two types of questions:

1. Questions of political strategy, which define the content and objectives of the people's war in the long and short run, as well as its necessary directives and military plans and the building of the three instruments the Party, Army and Front and their relation to the new state power.
2. The launching of the armed struggle, which is a key and decisive question, merited the Party leadership's very special attention; it was solved with the "Starting Plan" guided by the slogan "Launch the armed struggle! ", the concretization of the overall politics which were to take military form (every plan has an overall political line which guides it). Its contents included, first, the political tasks to be carried out, which is is, to initiate the armed struggle, boycott the elections, foment the peasant struggle for land arms in a hand-and lay the basis for newborn things, especially political power; second, forms of struggle guerrilla fighting, sabotage, armed propaganda and agitation, selective liquidations; third, forms of military organization armed detachments, with or without modern arms; fourth, timetable, starting date and duration of the plan, specific simultaneous actions on specific dates; fifth, the slogans "Armed Struggle!", "Workers and Peasants Government!" and "Down with the new reactionary government! "

The first two periods of the people's war the periods of defining and preparing its beginning were completed. On May 17th 1980 not May 18th as the reaction claims to confuse it with the date of the elections and which others repeat the people's war in Peru began, entering its third period, that of actually beginning it, lasting all of 1980, through two successfully completed campaigns which laid the basis to go over to the fourth period, "Develop guerrilla warfare," in 1981,a period that continues today. May 17th was a political blow, a defiant and far reaching blow which unfurled rebel red flags and raised hammers and sickles proclaiming "It's right to rebel" and "power grows out of the barrel of a gun," calling on the people, on the peasants (especially the poor), to stand up, arms in hand, to light the bonfire and shake the Andes, to write a new history in the fields and every corner of our tumultuous geography, to tear down the rotten walls of the old oppressive order, to conquer the peaks, to storm the heavens guns in hand and bring about a new dawn. The beginning was modest, almost without modern arms; we fought, advanced and built from small to large, the weak initial fire became the great turbulent and raging flames which are now spreading, throwing off sparks of revolution and exploding the people's war forward.

The Peruvian state launched its counterrevolutionary war and its Armed Forces carried out their infamous genocide and cut down the lives of the people by the thousands; together with this they launched their propaganda, dreaming of smashing the revolutionary war with ink, paper, lies and tricks. Opportunism played its part by snitching, sending in "leaders" to stir up the masses against the revolution, propagandizing and agitating against it and in defense of bourgeois democracy and the vote in pursuit of velvet seats in parliament. World reaction, the superpowers, especially Yankee imperialism as well as the social imperialists, and the other imperialist powers, gave their immediate support and sent the government their advisors; among them an outstanding role was played by the Chinese arch reactionary clique whose black heads Deng, Li Hsien-nien, etc., were among the first to stand up as judges to condemn us. As was to be expected, the reaction opened up its hells and let loose its demons plagues and horsemen of the apocalypse against the People's War; soaked in blood, drunk with arrogance, they bragged of triumphs and victories, crushing defeats, set backs and retreats, withdrawals, and the turning back and defeat of the revolution. But what really has happened? How has the armed struggle and afterwards the genocide unfolded? What has really been the reality of the last two years and of the sixth year of the People's War? The following is the data provided by the Interior Minister:

Year	1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	Total
Actions	219	715	891	1123	1760	2050	6758

These figures show the yearly increase of our actions, as well as those of the Armed Forces and their police assistants; their policy's methods and even their genocide have not held back the growth of the armed struggle, at least as far as quantity is concerned, according to the APRA Minister himself. Nevertheless, the total 6758 is very far from correct, firstly because of the state's rather understandable desire to minimize the dimensions of the people's war, and secondly because they don't take into account all the various forms the revolutionary war takes, such as armed propaganda and agitation, for example, nor do they count actions carried out in distant and isolated areas. Consider that actions carried out even in the department of Lima itself aren't reported for a week, and in general, a cover of silence and lies is used to maintain the so-called public calm and the prestige of the repressive forces. During the six years of People's War 30,000 actions have been carried out in all but two of the country's 24 departments, leaving out only Amazonas and Madre de Dios, while including even the constitutional district of Callao.

These actions developed basically in the Peruvian mountains and principally centered in the region of Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurimac. They also took place in the coastal region, in its cities and especially in the country's capital, and in the jungle highlands and the important cities there; so the revolution is fighting throughout the whole country. Furthermore, these military actions have developed and increased in quality: blows waged against Armed Forces anti guerrilla bases, ambushes, destruction of strategic hamlets, land invasions, devastating sabotage, higher-level elective annihilations and intensified armed propaganda and agitation-all these show a very important and far-reaching qualitative advance. It should be made clear that more than half of the six years'actions were carried out between June 1984 and today, and a third of the 1980-1986 total have been carried out in the last year. This is the clear and concrete reality. What are the great results of the counterrevolutionary war, its genocide and its offensives of '83 -84? Obviously they failed; they haven't even been able to hold back the development of the people's war, let alone put an end to it.

Table 1 below, shows the four forms of struggle through which the People's War in Peru is developing. The principal form is guerrilla warfare and the other three are complementary forms of guerrilla actions: sabotage, selective annihilations and armed propaganda and agitation. It can be seen that 45.9% of the total actions carried out in the country are guerrilla engagement (fought by detachments in the city and in the countryside by platoons and companies), while sabotage only comprises 11.2% and selective liquidations scarcely 8.2%, and armed propaganda and agitations reach 34.1%. These figures clear show that guerrilla warfare is the essence and heart of the People's War in the country; it is significant that the percentage of guerrilla warfare reaches its highest level, 54.4%, in the region of Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurimac predominantly peasant zones, and the aim is to develop it in all regions, even, in a specific form, in Lima.

Clearly, guerrilla warfare is the very center of the armed actions and the other forms only serve to complement it and push it forward, because it is the form that most directly aims to destroy the enemy's military organizations, especially the Armed Forces. It is also notable that armed propaganda and agitation make up more than a third of the actions. This shows the important People's War gives to politically educating and mobilizing the masses; obviously this work is directed principally toward the peasants and in the cities toward the proletariat, and although in the countryside it is mainly carried out in oral form, it is complemented by campaigns with posters and illustrated leaflets. This kind of work is most prominent in new areas, but it is given great importance in all areas, occupying second place overall. Sabotage, for its part, is in third place, with the aim of dealing economic blows to the reaction, especially imperialism and the state economy, big capital and big landlords. In regard to the latter, tearing down the semifeudal relations of production is extremely important to the peasantry. Finally, only 8.2% of the total is made up of selective annihilations of enemies of the people, carried out either against those who have been condemned directly by the masses in people's tribunals or against incorrigible enemies of the revolution who owe blood debts, people who have carried out massacres, torturers, infiltrators, spies, etc. These actions are carried out without any cruelty but rather as simple and expedient justice, and in the majority of cases have been approved by the masses. Nevertheless the media has portrayed them as something monstrous, clumsily distorted them and exaggerated their number. Clearly, we must underline here that the monstrosities imputed to the People's War are crimes cynically carried out by the Armed Forces themselves who then attribute them to the revolution.

In conclusion, the table makes the guerrilla character of all the armed revolutionary actions unmistakably clear and shows that guerrilla warfare, the very substance of People's War, is their principal aspect and essence; thus it completely disproves the absurd accusation that tries to pin the label of "terrorism" on the revolutionary war going on in this country. In fact, as we have been saying since 1980, those who repeat this lie without any proof and there is none are only parroting Reagan and the Peruvian reaction. What is developing in Peru, while the whole world watches, is simply and completely a people's war and nobody with an ounce of brains can deny it.

The region of Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurimac deserves particular attention. This is where the fraction first became active and in a word was its cradle; furthermore, it is where the first actions of war took place, in Chuschi, and where the heroic people and above all the poor peasants have generously spilt their blood to light the flames of the People's War and keep them burning and ceaselessly rising. The masses of this region have suffered the most vile and insatiable genocide; it is where the reaction has concentrated its Armed Forces and carried out its most elaborate plans; it is where the reactionaries have bragged about their anticipated triumph and about how the area is "almost" pacified, only have to eat their words later in the face of the revolution's new offensives, which never stops them from once again crowing victory. What is the present situation in this region and how has the revolutionary war developed there in the last two years?

Tables 2 and 3 below show that in the last two years 63.4% of the total actions in the country were carried out in Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurimac, and that furthermore 75.1 % of the guerrilla actions, 43.3% of the sabotage, 74.0% of the selective annihilations and 52.0% of the armed propaganda and agitation were carried out in this region. So how can it be said that a slackening of the People's War as taken place there? There is no basis whatsoever except the subjective and ever-changing statements of the authorities and military chiefs who have never even given any sort of official report, not the government nor the Joint Command nor the Political-Military Command, despite the fact that the region has been under a state of emergency continuously since March 1982 and sporadically before that during the police operations carried out since the beginning of 1981. Clear and concrete facts show that this region continues to be the main battlefield between the armed revolution and the armed counter-revolution; while the reactionaries dream of sweeping away the people's war it resists all assaults and continues to be like a thunderstorm whose center is Ayacucho. Almost since the beginning of armed action, more persistently since the Armed Forces came in and usually in parallel with the reaction's offensives and campaigns, coffeehouse strategists, scribblers, opportunists, "Senderologists" and mistaken or vacillating revolutionaries have advised or pontificated upon the impossibility of keeping the people's war going in the region of Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurimac, saying that we should abandon the region and retreat to other areas, in order, as they sometimes said, to "preserve" the armed struggle and launch it again under new and better conditions. We should point out that in general these are the same people who have fought against the People's War either openly or covertly in the name of "widening the democratic space" or simply of "defending democracy."

We are convinced of the great truth of what Chairman Mao said about how an area should not be abandoned until it has repeatedly proved impossible to defend; since the most ferocious genocide in the history of the Republic has been met head-on and overcome in this region for several years now, what else needs to be said? Who would the recommended retreat have benefited? Simply and purely the counterrevolution; it would have been a great favor to the enemy to dismantle and dissolve the best and most proven bastions of the people's war. But irrefutable facts prove that whatever may be said against the people's war, it continues to develop defiantly and proudly in Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurimac, firmly linked to the masses, brimming with heroism, daily writing new pages in the armed revolution which is transforming Peruvian society, and which precisely in recent months have been unleashing devastating blows even within the city of Ayacucho itself, blowing up the phony showcase of peace in the country's most militarized city, as was done for example with the car-bombs in the Republican Guard barracks and more recently in the Civil Guard's IX Command headquarters on the occasion of the sixth anniversary of the people's war, a blast which shook the city and threw all the repressive Armed Forces and police into confusion and virtual panic. In conclusion, you can't hide the sun with your finger: Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurimac continue to be the great bonfire of the people's war and the most defiant revolutionary challenge.

Table 1: The Great Leap, Forms of Struggle and Zones

Forms of Struggle of People's War	Countrywide (%)	Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurimac (%)	Central, North, South and Huallaga (%)	Metropolitan Lima (%)	Other (%)
Guerrilla Warfare	45.9	54.4	36.0	12.0	16.8
Sabotage to Economic Targets	11.8	8.0	18.6	23.7	26.9
Selective Annihilations	8.2	9.6	9.2	3.8	1.7
Armed Propaganda and Agitation	34.1	28.0	36.2	60.1	54.6
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0