DEFIANT THROUGHOUT TRIAL
_. {The following is a translation of an article, "The Alternative of the Bearded Ones," which appeared in the September 11-23 Caretas, a Lima biweekly. ]
. a x ok Ox
In Tacna the chapter called Hugo Blanco has been closed. The military tribunal, disregarding the petition of the Auditor, Colonel Jesus Fernandez, calling for the death penalty, sentenced the leader to 25 years in prison, to be served in El Frontén. Blanco, who had been detained for three years following the disintegration of the guerrilla movement which he commanded in Cuzco, admitted having organized the assault. at Pucyura and the ambush at Mesacancha. In the two skirmishes, three civil guards were killed.
The Tacna trial, in which Blanco, his lieutenant Pedro Candela and others exhibited continual defiance -~ each session ended. with the cry of "Tierra o Muerte, Venceremos!" (Land or Death, we will win! ] -- and at times something like impudence, was closely followed by the national and foreign press. The ex~student, who returned from Argentina a Trotskyist, enjoyed publicity out of all proportions from the time he entered the valley of La Convencion. The campaign conducted particularly by "La Prensa," as well as a public relations organization that was the envy of the other leftists, contributed to his notoriety in Peru and abroad. In the very scene of his operations, the conditions he found greatly helped him. Proof of this is that a youth who organized a union converted himself within a few months into a supposed "Fidel Castro of Peru."
Twenty-five years -- and 160,000 soles in civil damages to be paid by all those found guilty -- ended the bloody chapter of Hugo Blanco. The announcement that the sentence is being appealed will not alter this fact. The only thing that could alter it would be tragic blindness, a stubborn lack of understanding: among those who confuse the closing of a chapter with the ending of the problem in general. As if after Hugo Blanco there had not occurred the much more serious outbreaks of the MIR guerrillas!
No, the threat of violence will not disappear until the tremendous social problems of Peruvian agriculture are eliminated.