BLANCO'S COMRADES SENT TO THE SUPREME COUNCIL
[World Outlook reported December 9 that seven codefendants of Hugo Blanco, who were given various terms when he was sentenced to 25 years in El Frontén, had sent a letter to the Supreme Council of Military Justice asking to share his fate if he should be sentenced to death. The text of the letter has been translated below. It will be noted that only six signatures appear. It is probable that the seventh, Pedro Candela, who was sentenced to 22 years in El Frontén is held under such conditions that he could not add his name.]
El Front6én Prison
November 5, 1966
To the Honorable President of the Supreme Council of Military Justice
We, the undersigned, codefendants of Hugo Blanco Galdés, have learned that the prosecuting attorney Don Vargas Ruiz de Somocurcio has demanded the death penalty against Hugo Blanco. We are addressing you in order to ask ~-- in case the Council should actually inflict the death sentence against our leader, who is also the leader of all the peasants -- that we likewise be executed because we believe that the responsibility in the happenings that occasioned the trial does not belong to one individual.
We fought with Comrade Hugo Blanco for the national and social liberation, not only of the peasants but of all the exploited classes in general and we want to bear with him the consequences of this historic combat.
In our opinion the demand of the prosecuting attorney and the sinister objective it seeks reflect the sinister vengeance of the "gamonales" [local foremen tied in with the military] whose social base we had begun to undermine in Peru in order to enable the Peruvian peasants -~ the base of the country's economic, political and cultural development -- to open a road toward their emancipation.
If this hated handful of privileged persons want to spill our blood in a vain attempt to slow down the inevitable insurrection of the workers of the cities and countryside and of all conscious Peruvians, let them try it.
The time is near when accounts will be settled before revolutionary tribunals of the people.
"Land or death!"
"We will win!"
Gerardo Carpio Molina
José Zuniga Letona
Lucio Bengolea Torres
Humberto Carazas Moscoso
Aniceto Munoz Pinares
Emiliano Cernades Ojeda
GLASGOW TRADES COUNCIL DEMANDS RELEASE OF HUGO BLANCO
The December 10 issue of The Newsletter, the weekly organ of the Central Committee of the Socialist Labour League, reported that the