During the last few weeks more than 200 workers" maders, socilists and student nove been ronded up, Imprisoned and tortured by the Velaseo regime in Peru. Despite the attempts of the regime to suppress any: newe of this wave of repression, information about many of those arrested has been smuggled out, The regime wes forced to release three of the students after students throughout the country had threatened to occupy the universities. But the rest of the prisoners are being subjected to brutal torture by electric shocks, Many are being held outside Lima in the Lurigancho prison for ordinary riminals: They have no meens of contacting their families and little hape of being brought to trial. an te coup 0 cit, у то в con си поувинь in the mining areas against government attempts to bring the unions under State control and to raise the pensionable age, leading to a general strike in the province of Arequipe and solidarity strikes thraughout the south of the country.
Velasco's military government originaliy won support because of its promises to redress the balanos in favour of the oppressed merses, release political prisoners, etc. But it never broke with the Peruvian capitalists, and after some early anti-imperialist messures hat now been foroed to grant substantial concessions to British, US and Japanese firma in verlous fielde, With ins support now disappearing, it in tacking between open repression and trying to cajole the union leaders into dissolving the independent trade unions into the safe confines of Sinamos - the corporate state union. What is at stake here is not just the release of the prisoners but the defente of the immediate struggle of the Peruvian workers and prasants to maintain their independent organisations. Letters and resclutions of protest should be sent to the Peruvian Embessy, 62 Slone Street, London S.W.1. There will also be a picket organised by the LPYS this Saturday. 2 June, outside the Embassy from 2 to 6 pm The following statement was issued on 15 May by the United Secretariat of the Fourth Intenational.
The March 11 elections marked a turning point in the political situation in Argentina. The Peronist ground swell undermined the attempt of the Lanusse regime to put across the Gran Acuerdo Nacional and compelled the Argentine bourgeoisie to accept i neo-Peronist goverment. The incoming Campora administration will seck to exploit inter-imperialist con tradictions and to gain mass support through populist demagogy.
In the final analysis, the turn in Argentina came as a consequénce of the powerful mobilisations of the masses and the courageous actions of the van guard. The resulting new situation will serve to stepup the militancy of the working cluss and other exploited layers still further. Sectors of the army have not yet renounced at tempts ut a reactionary coup d'etat even before the inauguration of Campora. This is because they fear that the new government will be swept aside in the near future. Nonetheless, a coup appears unlikely inasmuch as the decisive sectors of the ruling class are aware that it could provoke a very sharp response from the masses and the outbreuk of'a civi war, the outcome of which would be in doubt. In the new stage now opening up, the Argentine revolutionists will take their place in the front ranks of the coming mass mobilisations with the perspective of a major confrontation and a strugele for power. Their objective will be to influence and to organise the vanguard layers that are slipping out of the control of the union bureaucracy and the demagogic ideology of Peronism. They will at the same time call Hector Compons, new Argentinion prenident Tor vigilance against any military coup d'etal and propose the development of workers" self delence. They wil warn against any illusios in parlamentarism and gradualism. While not excluding critical support for possible anti-imperialist measures that might be enacied by the Campora government, they will maintain an attitude of unconditional political opposition to this new bourgeois government. They will carry on an unccasing struggle for the emancipation of the working class from the influence of bour geois ideology, the bourgeois political organisations, and the grip of the super-burcaucratised union apparatus. They will fight for the independent organisation of the proletariat and other exploited layers with the perspective of establishing popular commit lees. They will battle for the building of a mass revolutionary Leninist party.