HUGO BLANCO GOES ON HUNGER STRIKE
The Uruguayan Committee for the Defense of Human Rights reported May 11 that it had learned from its sources in Lima that Hugo Blanco, at present in the prison hospital, is convalescing from "physical torture inflicted on him" and that as his "only means of self-defense" he has gone on a hunger strike.
As previously reported by World Qutlook [May 5, p. aso), Hugo Blanco was brutally beaten by prison guards early in April. The authorities at the notorious "El Front6n" fortress-prison told the press that the famous revolutionary peasant leader had been taken to the hospital suffering from a "grave lung ailment. :
The Uruguayan Committee for the Defense of Human Rights reports that Hugo Blanco's friends in Lima are appealing for strong public protests in behalf of the victim. They fear that the Peruvian authorities have decided to do away with Hugo Blanco and that public protest is the only way he can be saved from the "slow death" which they appear to have decided to inflict on the prisoner.
Hugo Blanco was sentenced last September to 25 years in El Frontén because of his Trotskyist political views and the leadership he provided to the peasant masses seeking land and other improvements in their status.
; The sentence was handed down by a military tribunal in an illegal trial held in the remote town of Tacna.
When Hugo Blanco appealed the savage sentence, the prosecution demanded that the Supreme Council of Military Justice apply the death sentence. Under new legislation passed by parliament under witch-hunt conditions, this body has the power to make such a decision without right of appeal and the sentence can be carried out at once.
A worldwide campaign to save Hugo Blanco's life followed. It has received the support of such prominent figures as Jean-Paul Sartre and Bertrand Russell. Hundreds of outstanding intellectuals in many countries have joined in. Labor or-
ganizations have added their voice. Thousands of signatures have been obtained and demonstrations have been staged in many cities in front of Peruvian consulates.
The campaign has proved so embarrassing to the Peruvian government that it now appears reluctant to have the Supreme Council of Military Justice accede to the demand of the prosecution that Hugo Blanco be placed before a firing squad. A decision was scheduled to be handed down in April. It was evidently postponed.
The Peruvian embassy even told Jean-Paul Sartre that Hugo Blanco's life would be spared. The eminent French philosopher reported this to a mass meeting in Paris on April 10.
How little dependence can be placed in the assurances of the Peruvian ambassador to France can be judged from the fact that the dispatch from Lima reporting that Hugo Blanco had been taken to the hospital was dated April 7.
The beating inflicted on Blanco, coupled with the official lie that he was taken to the hospital because of a "grave lung ailment" led to the conclusion that the political representatives of the Peruvian oligarchy have decided to use surreptitious means to liquidate Blanco.
Demands should be sent to President Fernando Belatinde Terry to grant an immediate amnesty to Hugo Blanco. Belaande's address is Lima, Peru.
Similar demands should be sent to the Supreme Council of Military Justice. These can be addressed to the president of this body as follows:
Gen. Néstor Mendoza Rodriguez
Ministerio de Guerra
Departmento Legal
291 Ave. de Arequipa
Lima, Peru.
Copies of the appeals should be sent to Hugo Blanco's attorney. His address is as follows:
Dr. Alfredo Batillano Maggiolo
_ Oficina 215
Avenida Nicola de Pierola 966
Lima, Peru