CONTINUES IN PERU
Although the censorship operating under the "state of siege" proclaimed by the Belatinde government has cut off news from the side of the guerrilla forces, it is clear from the official reports issued by the government itself that Tighting is continuing on a considerable scale in Peru. 7
On August 3 an army communiqué reported that three police had been killed and three wounded in an engagement in the Pucuta region. The communiqué claimed that three guerrilla fighters had been killed.
The Peruvian government alleged that the "Soviet Union, Cuba and Communist China" were inciting the Indian population in the central Andes to revolt. The descendants of the Incas were said to be in possession of radios on which they listened to broadcasts of a subversive nature,
A similar communiqué August 9 claimed that infantry units were attacking the guerrilla fighters from the east in the Huancayo region while commandos and parachute troops were hitting them from . the west. At the same time, bombers were dumping napalm on their supposed positions,
It was claimed, in addition, that troops at Rosario Pampa had arrested Jaime Martinez who was accused of heading an ambush in which the police were caught near Pucuta at the end of June.
On August 9 government forces were ambushed in the Satipo area, a communiqué admitted. An engineer, a sergeant and a second lieutenant were killed. The. column was on its way to relieve a patrol of twenty-five police encircled by "rebels" at the Cuyhatia
hacienda near Huancayo when they ran into the trap.
In the province of Acombama the police arrested fourteen persons after a combat close to the farm of Apurhuay. A group of about 100 guerrillas had descended on the farm, They wounded three employees, took the son of the owner as a hostage and drove off twenty-four head of cattle.
In the province of Convencién, the police arrested eight people, accusing them of having attacked a police post at Santa Anna,
The government opened a "vast counteroffensive" on August 11 against the group that had ambushed the armed forces in the Satipo area, according to an official dispatch.
At the same time the Belatinde regime had a new worry. Government employees launched a strike to enforce their demand for a wage increase needed to catch up with the rising cost of living. Top officials asked the strikers to go back to their jobs. They gave as their reason for the request that the strike had been fomented by "anti-Peruvian" elements.
The government claimed several successes in its antiguerrilla efforts, On August 11 the armed forces captured one of the main camps of the guerrilla fighters. This was at Intiyal Hamuy. The victory was scored as troops reached Kiatari in pursuit of :the rebels near Satipo. On the following day they claimed that twenty-one guerrilla fighters were killed in a pitched battle. Two hundred and fifty rebels armed with light machine guns were "dispersed" and the government forces, according to the communiqué, did not suffer a single casualty.
The conservative Lima newspaper La Prensa claimed that it had learned from the father of one of the victims that fifteen guerrilla fighters out of a group captured at Huancayo had been "executed" in that town,
Octavio Mongrup, minister of the interior, denied this August 13. He also denied that 100 rebels had been killed in a bombing raid at Satipo. It should be recalled, however, that the army was given official instructions to take no prisoners.
According to La Prensa and the other Lima papers, 100 people were killed when planes carried out the massive bombing at Satipo. Five-hundred-pound bombs, "made in the USA," were used in the operation, being dropped on a presumed position of the guerrilla fighters.
Meanwhile the strike of government employees failed to collapse. In fact it appeared on the road to becoming a general strike. The government hastily granted a wage increase of 300 soles ($11) a month August 15 and accompanied this with an order to return to work the next day under threat of immediate dismissal. The employees
had demanded 1,000 soles.
The Chamber of Deputies passed a law August 15 calling for all guerrilla fighters caught arms in hand to be shot. The law also called for ten-years imprisonment for any Peruvian involved in "common crimes" to help the guerrilla fighters. «The death penalty was specified for foreigners involved in such actions. The Chamber also passed a law authorizing the government to issue bonds amounting to $7,400,000 to cover the costs of the antiguerrilla operation.
The Senate proposed to set up a Committee on Anti-Peruvian Activities to ferret out pro-Communist elements infiltrating into the country.
The Aprista and Odrillaista parties in the opposition sup~ ported all these ultrareactionary measures, Said a deputy of the APRA [Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana]: ."It has nothing to do with fighting ideas, it's a matter of facing a Communist aggression directed from Moscow and Peking."