Audacity is the watchword of a revolutionary movement, Che Guevara once remarked, and unquestionably the guerrillas of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) have been supremely audacious.
It is uncertain for how much longer the MRTA commandos in the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima can hold out and whether the Peruvian Government of Alberto Fujimori can be trusted not to kill them even if they do release all their remaining hostages and lay down their arms as he demands.
B. Skanthakumar reports. THE MRTA usually operate hundreds of kilometres from the capital, in the forested regions of Chanchamayo province. Their occasional forays into Lima and other cities have been for high profile actions like kidnappings and bank robberies.
Within Peru they are less well known than the larger and morc feared Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path movement whose ruthiess and nihilistic methods propelled it fame in the 1980s.
Sendero Luminoso's base are the poor indigenous peasantry of the rural provinces but its leadership have drawn on students and intelectuals recruited by the movement's leader Abimael Guzman, a former university professor. His unique ideology claimed to be based on Marxism-Leninism of the Macist variety but included heavy doses of his own 'thought".
The Tupac Amaru Revolutionrecosmisaosy closer to une classic guerrilla movements in Latin America of the 1960s and 1970s, drawing inspiration from the Cuban revolution and with an internaIt would seem that many years after Regis Debray abandoned focoism (and in his case socialism), the MRiA has pursued its loneiv course of struggle even after the end duction of clections in 1980. sion reflect a revised strategy, of focustok on a soccinic and narrow demand, the freedom of 400 MRTA members held in Peruvian jails in return for the freedom of the 47 hostages left of the 500 it had initially captured. (Figures are current as wel go to press).
While the international media called them "terrorists", fuming international press. over their invasion of diplomatic property and making protestations over the safety and health of the hostages, Nestor Cerpa of the MRTA drew paralleis berween the fears and trauma of the families of the hostages and that of families of political prisoners languishing in Peruvian iails.
He contrasted the fact that they have treated their hostages more humanely than the prison authorities do MRTA militants. In fact Mrs. Otilia Polay, mother of jailed MRTA leader Victor Polay, described her son's cell as "more like a comb™.
The cell is only 6 feet by 6 feet in dimension with a small bole in the ground for a toiler. The prisoners are only allowed out of the cell for a mere half hour every day and are deprived of telephone contact or even rotular visitors. Mrs. Polay Is only permitted to visit Victor once a month and that too for halt an hour.
These outragcous and unbearable conditions violate interna tional human rights standards and ernments which turn a blind eye to the human rights records and ourright democratic abuses of pro-capicalist regimes like that of Fujimori.
In an unconfirmed report by the Isaac Velazco claimed that MRTA prisoners in Peruvian jails have been on hunger strike since December 16, and have been joined by other prisoncis in tacir protess against prison conditions.
ais nas te bech investigatca O) the international press. Neither bas it been widely reported that it is the Peruvian government that poses the greatest threat to the lives of the hostages.
The authorities have cut electric. ity and water supplies to the resiacnce compound ano cyca cul telephone links which permitted the hostages to communicate with the outside world. Even the supply of food is irregular and in inadequate quantities. Without fresh water, toilets were unavailable for use until the Red Cross brought into portable toilets.
Without electricity the hostages, now mainly business people, politicians and military figures associated with the administration and more accustomed to easy living and sleeping, must be in discomfort.
The MRTA has planned and executed this operation brilliantly, even if the odds are stacked against them achieving their ends. For a start Choosing the lapanese diplo. mat's home made the point well that il as tac reruvian Prestacht, wao is of Japanese descent, above all whom Incy blame for the situation, and their target for occupation was second best to the Presidential palace rujimon nas tracco on nis japanese immigrant roots using it within Peru to portray bimscil as an outsider in politics and not benolden to the traditional political system and the rich white elite it has scryed so well.
Outside the country he has used his ethnic roots both to attract Japanese inward investment to Peru on "proof' that he has the cultural actributes and work ethic to transform the country into a Latin American tiger economy like Chile.
A related message he has also peddied within the country comes in his admonishments to the poor to work naroch, be more schl-renant, save more, develop entrepreneurial skills, and rely less on the state while making the free market their friend in this enterprise.
This message is music to the cars of the new right idcologues. In 1989 Peruvian businessman Hernando de Soto published his influential neo-liberal tract The Other Path in which he characterised the 20th century Peruvian (indeed Latin American) economy as 'mercantilist', and gushed with enthusiasm for the virtues of a true market econ omy liberated from the fetters offegal 78404401 intervention.
In 1991 Alberto Fujimori was clected to the Presidency, populariy perceived as the social candidate agast mis rival tae noveist and candidate of the right, Mario Vargas Llosa.
IMF medicine
However Fujimori embraced his cransauon and privatisauon, and made Peruvians swallow the bitter micaicine of the international Monetary Fund and the World Bank in return for resuming loans and credit to Peru and sanctioning foreign investment in that country.
in 1992, in a one-man coup. he dissolved Congress, dismissed the judiciary, and appropriated greater powers for the Presidency. So much tor tac outen asscrica craim that lice markets are associated with freedom and democracy.
"Fujishock" — as this policy was dubbed — tested out the claims of the neo-liberal right, and was found wanting not only on social criteria COrs. labour standards, and introduced large scale redundancies by halving the public sector payroll. It has privatised most of the state owned assets and reduced tarilis for import• and removed foreign exchange restrictions.
Foreign debt
The proportion of annual income spent on debt servicing bas been increasing, without any overall decrease in the size of the foreign debr. The resources for this drain come form reduced health and education birdeets as pay user fees to have access to these private insurance, loans and self-help schemes are touted as alternatives to state fundConsequently 14 out of 22 million Peruvians live below the pov. erty line, a factor singled out by Nestor Cerpa, "The MRTA entered this country's political life to fight a system that deprives the majority of