By Hugo Blanco ian movement.
Ortiz Morales, and others.
children, his brother, revives him.
must speak with their families in groups each other's faces.
dren - after having come so far, suffering hunger and deprivation, return to their hovels in tears without even
From his prison cell in El Frontón, Hugo Blanco, Peru's well-known peasant leader, who is serving a sentence of twenty-five years for his revolutionary activities, wrote the following appeal in behalf of peasants jailed for participating in the agrar-
(The appeal is addressed: "To the students of Huancayo, to the fathers and mothers, to all the inhabitants."]
Imprisoned in Huancayo are men whom the Peru of the future will recognize as heroes: Cirilo Campos Alanya, Pablo Torres Flores, Valentin Seguil Pastrana, Pablo Flores Martinez, Simeón Flores Martinez, Nicolás De la Cruz Flores, Leonardo
These men are fed worse than dogs. Many of them lack even a mattress. Some of them are ill, like Ortiz, Flores, and De la Cruz. They are not being treated nor permitted to use self-medication. They want to work in order to make a few pennies for their families. They have no tools.
When a man is in prison, one of his greatest needs is visitors. He feels an urgency to see his mother, his his wife. He needs to talk with them; he needs them like water, like air. Every look, every word, gives life to a prisoner,
This is forbidden to the prisoners in Huancayo. The hangmen have installed mesh gratings to separate them from their visitors, so that they cannot touch hands. The hangmen have decreed that the prisoners of ten, for five minutes, through a small grill covered with mesh. They cannot chat; they cannot even see
And the mother, the wife, the chil-
There joy today.
having been able to see the prisoner, without having been able to talk with him, without having been able to touch him. The hangmen are satisfied; they feel in good humor over what they have done.
are wives who have left their imprisoned husbands; there are mothers who have died; there are children whose whereabouts are unknown. The hangmen are in all the better humor over these achievements.
Why Are They in Prison?
Because they wanted their children never to have to go without a glass of milk or a toy. Because they knew that all Peruvian children would be happy if none of them went hungry, barefoot, or illiterate.
These brothers of ours, with so little to eat themselves, struggled so that all of us might have food. With rags on their bodies, their feet bloody, they struggled to clothe us and give us shoes. They, who do not know how to read, struggled so that our children might have the educational opportunities that only the children of the rich en-
They love the children of Huancayo, of Junin, of Peru. They do not know how to express their feelings with fine words, but they have shown it by what they did, these prisoners now in Huancayo jail, who have had to leave the families they love so dearly, for the sake of all of us.
Here are their own children, scattered to the four winds, because of the love they displayed for all our children - their hungry children, their barefoot children, their sick children.
What Is Huancayo Doing for Them? Nothing!
There were those who wanted to help them, but the hangmen's investigators threatened them and this was enough to frighten them off.
We know that the hangmen are especially rough with women. We know that if anyone brings fruit to the prishe is threatened with prison oners, himself. We know that these hangmen are capable of jailing people who shelter the children of the prisoners.
Nothing in this surprises us; that is the way hangmen are. They feed on human blood, on the tears of mothers, the terror of children. They are not people but monsters.
We know the Peruvian breed well. They are the ones who kick to the ground, peasants with their hands tied behind them and laugh at this feat. They are the ones who burn down poor hovels and rape the women. They are the ones who speak humbly to their bosses and yell at women. They are the ones who threaten the imprisoned peasants in Huancayo by firing at them point-blank and telling them they will never get out alive.
From these hangmen, no brutality surprises us. They are made for this.
But what about the people of Huancayo? How can the people of Huancayo cringe at this intimidation and abandon our beloved brothers?
What will you parents tell your children when they ask questions? Because, you can be sure, your children are going to ask a lot of questions. They will ask how many times a month you visited the prisoners. They will ask what honorable wrongs you suffered for the sake of helping the imprisoned peasants. They will ask why you did not tell them to share their bread and toys with the children of the imprisoned peasants.
And if you answer: "We had to look out for you, for your future," they
"The peasants were imwill answer, prisoned because they looked out for us and our future."
And if you tell them, "We were concerned about your education," they
"You do not educate by will answer, teaching ingratitude, selfishness, and cowardice."
And you will not even be able to tell them, "The Peruvians in those days were like that." Because that is false.
That was evident to us thirty prisoners from Cuzco, who were tried in Tacna. How Tacna loved us! The entire people received us with affection know writs of milk although they did not know us.
They gave us fourteen quarts of milk a day, fruit, and other kinds of food- October 27, 1969
plenty of it; clothing, everything they could. The people of Tacna waited in the street until midnight for them to bring us out of the courtroom so they could greet us. On the only visiting day, they formed a line two blocks long so they could press our hands.
How could we fail to remember Tacna with the deepest emotion!
How could we forget after Tacna showed us what the love of a people is! How could we not remember after the way Tacna increased our faith in the Peruvian people!
It might be that you, students, fathers, and mothers of Huancayo, have not heard up to now about the heroes imprisoned in your city and what they stand for.
We appeal to you to do your duty. Help these imprisoned peasants and their families. Protect them. Strengthen and support the Comité de Derechos Humanos (Human Rights Committee), which has a representative in your city, the self-sacrificing student Ranulfo Peña.
Out of your duty as human beings,
Out of your duty as Peruvians,
Out of respect for your country,
Out of love for your children and regard for their future,
Help the peasants imprisoned in Huancayo!
Hugo Blanco Galdos
El Frontón Prison September 1969.
Fish Can't Take It
France's lucrative fishing industry may soon be doomed, to believe M. Bonnassies, the general secretary of the Confederation of Mutual Maritime Credit Associations. He is quoted in the October 15 Le Monde as having warned at a recent conference of his organization:
"Our spawning grounds have been placed under deadly danger by the creation of industrial zones on our coasts, the influx of tourists, the use of larger and larger tankers, the almost total absence of cleaning stations or even simple settling basins. We call on the public authorities to take immediate action."
France is not the only country where the capitalist principle of free enterprise in the use of powerful poisons and in the disposition of wastes is leading to disastrous consequences to marine life.
A few months ago, virtually all the fish in the lower reaches of the Rhine were killed when several hundred pounds of pesticide were accidentally dumped into the river.
Now a new case has been reported. On October 12 a poison wave was noted moving down the Elbe, leaving thousands of dead fish in its wake.
Pending identification of the chemical, the West German news agency DPA sought to put the blame on East Germany, suggesting it could be waste from a sugar factory across the farmers to border. Police warned keep their cattle well away from their drinking places along the normal river.
The United States appears to be holding its own in this field despite the competition from abroad.
The Interior Department said October 14 that on the basis of reports from forty-two states some 15,236,000 fish were killed by water pollution last year.
This is up 31 percent from 1967 and is the highest figure since 1964, when effluents killed 18,387,000 fish.
David D. Dominick, commissioner of the Federal Water Pollution Control Commission, offered the following comment:
While improved reporting prac ices, variations in weather and othe factors could be partially responsible for the increase, the report is a macabre reminder that our rivers, lakes and streams are being poisoned by many highly toxic and dangerous substances."
Nixon's Answer to Moratorium?
A nationwide "Student Fast for Peace," organized by a variety of right-wing groups in support of Washington's war drew four people to a in Vietnam, scheduled demonstration in front of the White House October 10.