SOCIALIST WOMAN has been asked to publicise the visit to Britain of Ana Bejar, wife of Hector Bejar who has been held in prison 3 years without triel in Peru, Senora Bejar, a TV actress and revolutionary, hopes by arousing world opinion to gain Hector's freedom, Hector studied at the oldest university on the American continent, San Marcos, the "dissident" university of Latin America. As a poet, editor of Unidad, anti-Nixon demonstrator and guerrilla leader he practised what he. preached, In 1963 the poor peasants realised thet President Beleunde Terry's promises of agrarian reform were empty and they started to take, and to HOLD land by force. In central Peru, pacifists and their families walked on to land and bared their chests to met the inevitable hail of punfire which crippled or killed them all, The ELN, | the National Liberation Army of Peru, started training Aymara and Quechua peasants | for a Fidel Castro type force in the mountains end forest of Maldonado, in the forests which border Bolivia and Brazil, when seasoned troops came up the Madre de Dios river and with: superior ‘arms butchered the freedom fiphters including the young distinguished poet Javier. Heraud. In 1965 Hector Bejar sppelled at the cruel oppression which swept his land, rsised the standard of the ELN with the slogan "Land or Death' at Ayacucho, To the east, Hugo Blanco had held the land under the revo-=
lutionary banner of the MIR but had been crushed by repressive forces, Three other fronts also took up arms, directed by the MIR, the revolutionary movement of the Left, The young lawyer Luis de la Puente Uceda lead the Mesa Pelada" front near Cuzco. Luis was killed, In central Peru the Junin front was led by William Loboton and Max Velando, they were.killed, The northern front collapsed under a hail of napalm, dissention and mistakes. Thousands of starving ill-clad men rallied to Hector Bejar's banner and joined his "Javier Heraud" column of the ELN. Landowners were punished and expelled. The government. forces moved whole communities to isolate the ELN and napalm bombed them from the air. Hector held out for two months, living on little more than grass, until bitten by the huge white flies which carry the Uta germ, This, second cousin to leprosy caused great gangerous festering sores to burn holes in his right leg and he was obliged to seek medical aid. He was captured and his movement collapsed, Humanitarians everywhere will wish to help Ana Bejar gain her husband's freedom: write to [resident Juan Valesco, Palacio de Gobierno, Lima, Peru and: Rosa Alarco Committee de Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, Apartado LOLUS, Lima, Peru, Senora Bejar ia available to speak on the revolutionary struggle in Peru, please contact: ‘ohn Edumds, Sec., Committee for Solidarity with the Victims of Repression in Peru, 17, Norland Square, London W.11,
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