THERE WAS never any doubt that the storming of the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima could have only one conclusion: the death of the Tupac Amaru militants within April 22 was the day we had feared and hoped would never The Peruvian President, Alberto Fu mori, sensitive to his oninion ool ratings and his pro-miltary and anti-terrorist image had made it clear that the lives of the torer sanchez commando would not be spared.
"The order was to leave no one alive", said one soldier after the massacre, referring to the fourteen miliants of the MRTA led by Commandante Nestor Cerpa Carto Ini.
Fujimori, never one to lose an op-. age, twice visited the scene sporting a bullet-proof flak jacket. It was the next best thing to pulling the trigger himself.
The 71 hostages were never harmed by their captors even in the final moments. The Peruvian military was nose foot They gunned down those who surrendered, and then shot the dead again for good measure.
two hundred years ago an Inca chief named Tupac Amaru led a popular rebellion for dignicy eedom against the Spanish coloniWhen he was finally captured, his tongue was cut out and his arms and legs tied to four horses and quar tered. Then his limbs were sent to four different parts of the country and the rest of his body burned.
It wasn't enough to kil him. They had to destroy his corpse and then A major publication racy (Ireland). The most extensive Marxist analysis of Ireland since the 1940s. Available from Socialist Outlook for just £5.50. Send Cheque payable to Socialist Outlook Fund to PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU.
very existence.
The MRTA action on December 17 was a blow against the security forces and their criminal acts of daly terror on the campesinos, workers and students of Peru.
It was a beacon of hope and faith across the Andes and the continent to all those who struggle unheard and unnoticed against the violence of the state and the neo-liberal model.
The ruling class could not arrive at a peaceful solution with the Edgar Sanchez commando regardless of the lives of the hostages.
State terror
They feared that compromise might encourage other revolts and rebellions and weaken their terrorist strategy sometimes knowm as "counter-insurgency"
Their allies in the United States.
ritain and Japan knew it too, anc ushed them technical expertise and military advisors. Fujimori was never Koing to concede on the only demand: not their own lives or safe assage for them but the freedom of 00 of their comrades who rot in • us to whom each one of the lives lost is so precious and so wasteful, we scream out in pain and anger that they acted recklessly in their occupation of the ambassador's residence.
Those who planned and then executed this operation would reply that they had ittle choice.
The MRTA and the notorious Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) recent years with their top leadership imprisoned.
The popular movements which were the only progressive dynamic against the terror and countercertor or the state and sendero Luminoso have also been debilitated by the International Monetary Fund economic policies which consign seventy percent of the population to poverty and hunter Meanwhile the legal left is paralysed into inaction stunned by the bravado of the candidate they once backed as President and strait-jacketed by their parliamentarist approach.
Guerrilla action was supposed to substitute for the decline in mass struggle. Yet Che Guevera himself once warned sainst the Implications of this idea.
He rejected any opposition between the two, cautoning: guerrilla warfare is a people's war; to attempt to carry out this type of war without the population's sup. port is the prelude to inevitable disaster."
And therein Bes the bitter truth. There should have been protests and movements within Peru in solidarity with the MRTA which prevented Fujimori from even contemplating such a response. There was none.
Some of us abroad picketed the diplomatic missions and demonstrated - but we were too few and too distant to be effective.
Our efforts must now be to fo. cus attention on conditions within those giant prisons where their comrades are tortured and There must be an international campain of so darity with Peruvian political prisoners and their familes who are persecuted by he covermen We salute the memory of those brave militants who confronted with the choice of passive acceptance of poverty, degradation and inustice or armed stude gle for freedom from want and oppression and for socialism We failed to protect your lives but we will never forget your sacrifice.
Thousands of Callfornia
nurses at 45 Kalser hospitals and clinies walked out on a one-day strike on April 16, warning that the company's ruthless drive for increased profits were putting the health of its subscribers at risk.
Its rationalisation of services has included the closure of intensire Care units, restricting the use of Emergency Rooms (A&E), limits on fests, specialIst care, hospital admissions and patient stays, and the axIng of 15% of quailfied nursing while more potential patients are signed up as Profits over the last three years are see outton dollars, despite a 700% Increase in Kalser's marketing budget and spending over $100m on management consultants.
But nurses are even more angry at the threat of further closures coupled with calls for a 15% pay cut for Registered Nurses.
Having flouted federal safety standards in several states including Texas, Kaiser also faces the possible termination of its lucrative federal Medicare and Medicald contracts, worth a massive $2.9 blllion in 1996 out of the corporation's total revenue of $13.2 billion.
The Texas Attorney General has warned that Kaiser's violations are serious enough to revoke Its llcense to operate in the state.
A Department of Insurance report, which Kalser has tried to suppress, has alleged that the company disallowed Emergency Room treatment. It is also facing a growing number of wrongful death lawsults.
The stakes are high: clearly the 'tree market' in health can cost you more than an arm and a leg.
PEATURES IZ