A CALL:
DEFEND THE LIFE AND INTEGRITY OF DEMOCRATIC LAWYERS IN PERU!

Peru People's Movement

December 1997

An appeal to world public opinion.

Once more the genocidal, sell-out and fascist dictatorship of Fujimori, following his genocidal plans against the Peruvian people, in a desperate attempt to stop the unstoppable and powerful advance of the People’s War, is violating its own laws to strike out at the Peruvian people and their best sons and daughters.

Between the 18th and 21st of November, agents of DINCOTE (National Counter Terrorist Directorate) detained four lawyers who were members of the Association of Democratic Lawyers. These were Ernesto Messa Delgado, Carlos Gamero Quispe, Luis Ramon Landauri and Teodoro Bendezu Montes, victims of arbitrary and illegal detention (because the old state does not respect its own laws). To date, neither the genocidal, sell-out and fascist dictatorship of Fujimori nor the armed forces nor police have made official statements about the arrests and the reasons for them. They have only confirmed that the arrests have taken place.

The members of the Association of Democratic Lawyers are those who for years have taken up the defense of political prisoners, prisoners of war and those accused of "terrorism, apology for terrorism and/or treason to the fatherland," for which reason they have been victims of constant, systematic threats, scare tactics, assaults, assassination and disappearances. Their offices and homes have been raided repeatedly by the armed forces, police, and their various agents and paramilitary groups with the consequential loss of documents, materials, records, etc. The democratic lawyers are also known and respected for not profiting from their services, on the contrary often they don’t receive any remuneration at all. It was also two democratic lawyers who took up the legal defense of Chairman Gonzalo after his arrest and who later were condemned to life in prison for the sole act of having exercised their professional duties by taking up the defense of Chairman Gonzalo.

These arrests, along with the fact that they have announced the existence of "a list of 200 lawyers who are currently under investigation for probable links with terrorism and who may be arrested in the following months," according to the lawyer Diego Obr?gon Palacios, are clear signs of the systematic repression and the genocidal plans which are being carried out by the puppet Fujimori and his genocidal armed forces against the heroic Peruvian people rising up in People’s War. These genocidal plans make up part of their so-called strategy of Low Intensity Warfare, designed and directly led by imperialism, principally Yankee imperialism. This is one aspect; another is that it clearly shows their desperation in the face of the unstoppable advance of the People’s War which has developed and has crushed their dark dreams and those of their masters and sidekicks: imperialism and the revisionist capitulators of the right opportunist line (ROL) who have been reduced to a handful. It shows their dread and impotence in the face of the sharpening and the polarization of the class struggle in Peru which is being stirred up by the People’s War, which is passing the bend in the road, and the brilliant success of the present campaign of the plan Overcome the Bend in the Road, Developing the People’s War!

This attack against the democratic lawyers is also a direct attack against the political prisoners and prisoners of war, an attempt to deprive them of any type of defense and legal assistance, thereby seeking to isolate them totally. That is to say, it forms part of their specific plans to develop and apply a major massacre against the political prisoners and prisoners of war, in a vain attempt to annihilate the People’s War and the Communist Party of Peru. It is necessary to recall that all the massacres against the political prisoners and prisoners of war that the old state have carried out to date have been preceded by similar measures.

The MPP (Peru People’s Movement) rejects and condemns these attacks against the democratic lawyers in the strongest manner and calls upon world public opinion to unite around this condemnation and rejection and to defend the life and integrity of the democratic lawyers.