CAMPAIGN FOR HUGO BLANCO IN INDIA
Bombay
The Socialist Workers party of India has sent a protest to President Fernando % Belatinde Terry of Peru, demanding that Hugo Blanco, the imprisoned Peruvian peasant leader now threatened with a possible death sentence, be unconditionally released forthwith. Several leading academicians of West Bengal, trade-union and political leaders in. Bihar and other parts of the country have sent similar protests to the Peruvian government and its ambassador in New Delhi.
The position of the SWPI was stated by Murlidhar Parija, general secretary of * the party, in a letter dated December 6.
"We in India," he wrote, "learn with grave concern the move of your Government to ask the death penalty on Comrade Hugo Blanco, the valiant peasant leader who has been already sentenced to 25 years imprisonment by the military tribunal at Tacna. We wish to register the strongest protest of the workers' movement in India against this inhuman move by your Government. We urge upon you to use your special powers to grant clemency to Comrade Hugo Blanco and order his release immediately.
"Comrade Hugo Blanco's only 'crime' as far as we know is that he tried to organise the workers and peasants of your country with the noblest object of bringing about a social change in Peru. He was not a military man and should have been tried by a civil court as is done in most of the civilised countries. It is plain to us that the move to execute Comrade Hugo Blanco will not halt the socialist movement in Peru but in fact brand his executioners as men bereft of humanity and sanity.
"We therefore urge you not to allow Peru to be disgraced by the wanton murder of a man who has desired only that justice be done to the people of Peru. We demand that you should free Comrade Hugo Blanco and his companions."
More than 50 academicians, including the professors and teachers of West Bengal, have sent a petition to the Peruvian ambassador in New Delhi and the government of Peru demanding that Hugo Blanco and his colleagues should be set at liberty. The initiative in the campaign was taken by Professor Chitta Mitra of Kalna (West Bengal).
On behalf of various trade-union organizations in Bihar, Somendra Kumar, president of the Samastipur Central Sugar Factory Labour Union, has also sent similar protests
to President Fernando Belatinde Terry of Peru.
- The other trade unions that have associated themselves with the campaign are the Bihar State Electric Supply::Workers. Union, Rameshwar Jute ‘Mills. Labour Union and the Municipal Employees Union of Samastipur . : :