considerable.
Socialist Unity conference the following main speaker at each was to have been Trotskyist and peasant leader Hugo Blanco.
going ahead with substitute speakers.
REPRESSION in Peru today is not the same as in Argentina, Chile Uruguay, massacres have taken place afterthe working class had been decisively defeated.
Blanco says that a race has begun. The ruling class is trying to win time by combining talk about democracy with hard selective repression.
The working masses and REPRESSION in Peru has taken its toll. The military regime arrested 2,000 trade unionists and socialists in an attempt to stop the recent general strike. Although it has now released all but 27 the threat to the left is still One of the possible casualties will be the Rally Against Imperialism in London on 2 February and the It now looks increasingly unlikely that Blanco will be able to come, though of course both events will be revolutionaries on the other side are building up their independent self organisation.
The granting of the Constituent Assembly has not held back mass activity as the generals had hoped.
General strikes have taken with increasing larity. Miners, peasants, teachers, public sector workers and school students have all been involved in bitter struggles.
The demand reinstatement victimised trade union militants from the famous July 1977 strike against IMF measures has unified many of the struggles.
and their imperialist backers most of all has been the growth day. The of popular assemblies in many Peruvian areas and the strengthening of the class struggle current (led largely by revolutionaries) in the trade unions.
The generals bargain for a dozen revolutionary MPs in the These MPs have said quite openly to the masses: we will use this institution' partly won by our struggles. Don't put your confidence assembly problems, struggles and mignt regu- workers and peasants' government.
It is still too early to say whether the failure general sunke marks a retreat In for the the mass movement.
of the 2000 austerity will be substitution What has scared the generals also didn't Ramirez is a Assembly.
ionaria the your continue your for Out ol une as of 19 January.
of the THE Latin American aspect of the Rally against Imperialism maintained by the of socorre Ramirez for Hugo Blanco.
She was vice president of the teachers union in Colombia and presidential candidate for the class struggle slate UNIOS in the recent elections- with the only manifesto to carry a specific section on the struggle against womens oppression.
well-known figure in the abortion campaign in Colombia. She is a leader of the Partide Socialista RevolucColombian sympathising organisation of the Fourth International.
Repression remains selective.
serious detained only 27 remain inside They include Herrea Montalvo, general secretary of the sanors umon, and tne genera secretary of the print union. MAN of God: Muzorewa (centre) clutches AK47, surrounded by private army. The two prisoners in the most danger are and Guillermo Bolanos, both journalists on a Trotskyist paper called Revolucion Proletaria.
The government is using Decree law 22339 against these prisoners. It provides for the code of military justice to be applicable to civilians and establishes a crime 'besmirching the image of the armed forces".
Although Blanco is unlikely to come this week we should still keep our attention on Peru.
statement on Latin Americar repression and solidarity which was to have been released at a press conference for Blanco has already won the support of the the Chile entommitee for, Chile Committee Human Rights, Big Flame. International Marxist Group, Stan Newens MP and Alan Christie of the National Union of Students.
It is hoped that a statement Seccals Conne need to defend the Peruvian militants will be added to this and be released this week. (Copies of the statements available from Socialist Challenge).