THEIR TERRORISTS,
OUR FREEDOM FIGHTERS
Imagine that what happened in Peru had taken place in Cuba -- 15 Cuban dissidents taking over a large social gathering and holding a few hundred people hostage, including Castro's brother Raul, and other prominent officials, as well as foreign ambassadors and businessmen. Imagine that the Cuban rebels made demands similar to those of the MRTA in Peru -- raising the standard of living of the masses, bettering prison conditions, freeing a number of political prisoners, and improving the state of civil liberties.
Imagine the reaction of the American media. The MRTA "terrorists", through an arcane ideological alchemy, would be transformed into anti-communist "freedom fighters". Their demands would be reported fully, seriously, and regularly, not confined to the great media black hole behind the printing press. The condemnation of the action -- what had been seen as an appalling, illegitimate way to achieve social change would give way effortlessly to a heartfelt understanding that under intolerable conditions, desperate people can be reduced to reckless measures.
We now know that in Lima, Peruvian commandos, under orders to take no prisoners, executed all the rebels who survived the initial onslaught. Only President Fujimori still denies this. Two male rebels were captured alive in a room, told to stand against a wall, and shot with separate bursts of gunfire, one after the other. Two teen-age rebel girls were also shot to death despite one of them yelling "We surrender! We surrender!"
Agriculture Minister Rodolfo Munante, one of the hostages, said that "One rebel surrendered in the room where the judges were ... he told the judges he surrendered, but then (a soldier) entered and machine-gunned (the rebels) in the room."
Each rebel was given a final "coup de grace" shot in the forehead to make sure he were dead.
Munante had a further story to tell. He said he could not sleep for thinking about a young rebel who spared his life. "I've hardly slept. I went to bed late and was thinking all the time ... I've remembered and remembered the attitude of that youngster." Moments after the Peruvian troops burst into the building to rescue the hostages, one of the teenage rebels came into the room where high-ranking captives were held and pointed his rifle straight at the Agriculture Minister.
"I don't know what happened," said Munante, "I don't know if he doubted, but I saw sadness in his eyes, maybe because of the order to kill us, or maybe because he saw his life slipping away. Then, in a matter of seconds, he turned straight around and closed the door."
The young man, who was shot dead within seconds, may have had second thoughts due to the close ties that had formed between captors and captives after 18 weeks inside the residence, said Munante. "After so many days of talking and talking an emotional bond had been established."
"I feel a lot for the youngsters, who were humble people from the Peruvian jungle," said Jorge Gumucio, the Bolivian ambassador, who was also a hostage. "But we knew from the start that it was either us or them."
It would have been a lot more of "us", but "them" released more than 80 percent of the hostages within a week; then, as time went by, released others who had become ill, never killed a single hostage, never hurt any of them. They were rewarded by a complete refusal by Fujimori to make even the slightest concession, all the while planning their summary execution.
Imagine again that Cuba had been the stage for this tragedy. The halls of Congress would have been filled with operatic wails and forehead smiting over the cold-blooded execution of the freedom fighters, with Jesse Helms waving a sword and pleading to lead the invasion of Cuba. Ol' Bill, at his heartfelt best, would have told the families of the slain rebels: "I feel your pain!". Flags would have flown at half-mast in Miami, and any one there who dared to question the prevailing wisdom or the prevailing emotion would risk premature death.
But inasmuch as these idealistic young people were not seeking to overthrow a socialist government, their lives have been accorded scant value in the American media. An editorial in The Washington Post remarked upon the "successful rescue in which there were amazingly small losses of life: One hostage and two attackers died." Then, quite parenthetically: "The guerrillas, who had claimed a revolutionary cause but found few takers among Peru's terrorism-weary population, lost all 14 of their own."
Obscured also in this statement is the idea that fear of a lifetime of torture and imprisonment in one of Peru's infamous hellholes might just be responsible for discouraging people from publicly expressing support for the MRTA, let alone joining them. Not to mention social indoctrination. One of the saddest sights to observe in the TV coverage of the events, was the sight of the many Peruvian soldiers celebrating their victory. These indigena-looking young men, finding in military service perhaps their only way to escape poverty, hunger and unemployment, shouting for joy, back-slapping, high-fiving, burning an MRTA flag, all because they had killed a number of other poverty- stricken young indigenas who were struggling to wrench a concession or two from the government to lighten the load of the poor and the imprisoned.
A "terrorist" -- the Nazi's term for WW II resistance fighters -- fights for what he believes in; a soldier fights for what someone else believes in -- in this case the wealthy coercing the poor to kill the poor to keep the wealthy in power. So it always was.
It should come as no surprise that the commando units were trained in part for the operation by the United States, Great Britain, and Israel. Each has long experience in suppressing social and political change amongst colonial subjects. Support of the Peruvian government in such circumstances is regarded as the most natural and good thing in the world. No one stops to think -- If these governments felt compelled to intervene in Peru in a purely internal matter, why didn't they take the side of the rebels, rather than abetting state terrorism? Of course, if Cuba had done so, there would have been world-wide denunciation of Fidel Castro for subversion and violation of international law.
If the Soviet Union still existed, the rebel action in Peru would have been branded as part of the International Communist Conspiracy. Which conspiracy do the anti-communists blame now? Could it be that the "terrorist" actions of the cold war were all home grown, springing from indigenous roots?
*
William Blum is the author of _Killing Hope: U.S. Military
and CIA Interventions Since World War II_, Common Courage
Press, 1995, Monroe, Maine
E-mail: BBlum6@aol.com
http://members.aol.com/bblum6/American_holocaust.htm
*
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