REPORTED KILLED
Luis de la Puente, head of one of the guerrilla fronts in Peru, was killed October 23, according to a press release issued by the general staff of the Peruvian army. The communiqué said that the guerrilla leader, together with seven others, attacked a small ranch in the department of Cuzco, killing three peasants.
All eight freedom fighters were then killed by government troops as "they sought to flee."
In view of the decree passed by the Fernando Belatinde Terry government last August providing the death penalty for anyone caught with arms in his possession, it may well be that the eight guerrilla fighters were captured and then simply butchered by the government troops. “Shot while trying to flee" is the standard Latin-American formula used to cover up the cold-blooded execution of prisoners,
The government claimed that the death of Luis de la Puente signifies the end of guerrilla fighting in the eastern part of Peru. Similar claims have been made repeatedly by government officials since last spring when the guerrilla struggle again took on fresh
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life after dying down for several years.
The Paris daily Le Monde [October 26], for instance, while agreeing that the death of Luis de la Puente "dealt a heavy blow to the insurrection," held that this did not necessarily mean the end of “extremist subversive activities," as claimed by the government, "It is not known if one of his lieutenants is now able to take the leadership in the maquis in the department of Cuzco."
"But,'' continues Le Monde, “three other guerrilla groups of the MIR [Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria] are continuing their revolutionary activities in any case. This includes the one in Junfn, headed by Guillermo Lobatén, and in Huancavelica headed by J. Paredes, both of them between Lima and Cuzco, and the maquis of Ayabaca, led by E. Portocarrero, in the north of the country, near the Ecuador border,"
Le Monde also notes that guerrilla activities increased to such an extent over the summer months that the Peruvian government not only decreed the death sentence for carrying arms, but resorted to the use of napalm,
Small items have continually appeared in the press in the past month concerning the indiscriminate dumping of napalm in the areas where guerrilla fighting has been going on.
De la Puente has been variously reported as 35 years old and | 40 years old. He was a leading figure in the APRA [Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana] of Haya de la Torre, a former anti-imperialist movement that at one time came close to Communism,
With the victory of the Cuban Revolution, there was big pressure among the rank and file of the APRA to follow Cuba's example, Haya de la Torre, now an ageing figure, decided against it, turning sharply to the right and becoming a more and more open supporter of U.S. imperialism,
The left wing of the APRA thereupon split away to form "APRA Rebelde." De la Puente was one of its leading figures. This grouping eventually formed the MIR. It sought to bring the various groupe ings in the Peruvian left together on the basis of a revolutionary program committed to following the Cuban example. The MIR was parti-~ cularly friendly with the Peruvian Trotskyists and they worked closely together on some issues,
The Peruvian Trotskyists, headed by Hugo Blanco, the well= known peasant leader, had differences with the MIR on the question of guerrilla warfare as well as party building. The Trotskyists main= tain that guerrilla warfare cannot be substituted for solid organiza~ tion of the peasants into unions around the slogan of "Land to those who till it,"
Conflicting reports make it difficult to get a clear picture
of the various guerrilla fronts in Peru. The one in Cuzco was cone» sidered to be the most dangerous by the Belatinde government because of the size and militancy of the peasant movement in this region,
The Junin front was reported by the Santiago, Chile, El Mercurio [September 4] to be headed by Guillermo Lobatén, whom it described as a 30-year-old student of law, "married to a French girl, a former student. of the Sorbonne." Lobatén, said El Mercurio, visited "Russia, Algeria, Vietnam and Red China." He was "a member of the Fourth International (and of the Communist party) before joining the MIR....His lieutenant, Mdximo Lazo, is a Huancayo journalist without any known militant past." .
The “Piura front in the north is headed by Gonzalo Fernandez Gasco, a 25-year-old lawyer, according to the same source. He is "second in importance in -the MIR and his political history is closely linked to that of De la Puente."
Due to the censorship existing in Peru under successive exten~sions of a "state. of siege," the fighters in the Andes face exceptional difficulties in counteracting the lying propaganda of the reactionary Peruvian government. However, their movement appears to be attracting sympathy.among the peasants despite grievous losses in the fighting. At least that would seem the logical conclusion to be drawn from the fact that the Lima papers continue to devote headlines week after week to the strenuous efforts of the general staff to burn out “extremist subversion". in Peru, if necessary with napalm made in the USA.
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