From the CORIM

Seize the New Opportunities to Break the Isolation of Chairman Gonzalo

Revolutionary Worker #1077, November 6, 2000, posted at http://rwor.org

For eight long years now Chairman Gonzalo, leader of the Communist Party of Peru, has been held in the dungeons of the enemy. During this time he has been held in extreme isolation and even denied visits by his lawyers and six distinguished international delegations. His last public statement was on 24 September 1992, when he called on the Party and the revolutionary people in Peru to continue on the revolutionary road. Since then there has been no verifiable communications from Chairman Gonzalo.

This intolerable situation is a direct result of the Peruvian regime's effort to use psychological warfare to undermine the people's revolutionary struggle. While the imperialists and reactionaries of all countries talk louder and louder about "democratic and human rights," the conditions of Chairman Gonzalo's confinement show the barbaric features behind this mask.

Recent events have focused world attention on the reactionary Peruvian regime. In Peru itself, new waves of popular discontent are growing and the People's War led by the PCP continues to be waged heroically. Now is the time to forcefully raise the demand that Chairman Gonzalo's isolation be broken, that he be allowed to express himself in a live television broadcast and that he be able to receive visits from journalists, lawyers and others from Peru and around the world. He must be given the treatment that is internationally guaranteed to all imprisoned combatants. Similarly, we must raise our voices in defence of Comrade Feliciano and demand that he be guaranteed these same elementary rights.

The Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement calls upon the parties and organisations of RIM as well as all other progressive forces and individuals to take up this fight. We must call upon the revolutionary masses of all countries to defend the life of Chairman Gonzalo because he is an outstanding revolutionary communist leader who developed the line for making proletarian revolution in Peru and led the Party in initiating and developing an heroic People's War and has made important contributions to RIM and the whole international communist movement.

Following the capture of Chairman Gonzalo, the struggle in Peru experienced a "bend in the road." Nevertheless, under the leadership of Comrade Feliciano, the Party carried the People's War forward, rebuffing the Right Opportunist Line that called for abandoning the revolutionary struggle. Although Comrade Feliciano himself was captured in 1999, the Party Central Committee has continued to march forward and defend the line developed by Chairman Gonzalo.

Redoubling our efforts to defend the life and break the isolation of Chairman Gonzalo is an important way the revolutionary masses in different countries can express their support for and aid the People's War in Peru.

Defend the Life of Chairman Gonzalo, Break the Isolation!

24 September 2000--Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement


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