Save Hugo Blanco

tditorial note: we have had requests for a fuller statement about the Hugo Blanco case, Mr, Van Gelderen kindly agreed to write this article for us. On September 8th, 1966, Hugo Blance, the outstanding leader of the Peruvian peasants, was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment, to be spent in the grim island fortress of El Frenton, The defence appealed against the savage sentence, passed by a military tribunal in Tacna, This appeal is now before the Supreme Council of Military Justice (Consejo de Justicia Militar) - a body consisting of army officers, which was to review the Tacna court record between November 7 and 12, and then consider its verdict. The date for this was not pronounced, The prosecution is demanding the death penalty for Hugo Blanco, alleging that he was guilty of "premediated murder" (homicidio calificado). At the time of the Tacna trial, the prosecuting attorney did not dare to demand Hugo Blanco's death, because of the wide-spread international interest in the case, Now there is a very real danger that the Belaunde Government will take the opportunity of the appeal to rid themselves of a dangerous political enemy, Under a revised military code, enacted last year during a McCarthy-type witch-hunt, there can be no appeal against a decision handed down by the Supreme Council, Only vigorous international activity can now prevent sentence of death being passed. Student organisations in Peru, and sectors of the labour movement are doing what they can on @ national scale, but they have to campaign within the context of a witchhunt atmosphere, In addition, the defence is seriously hampered by lack of funds, The National Executive of the Frente de Izquierde Revolucionario (Left Revolutionary Front), the organisation headed by Hugo Blanco, has appealed for demonstrations of international solidarity, Protests against the new threat to his life and demands for an immediate amesty should be cabled to CONSEJO SUPREMO DE JUSTICA, LIMA, PERU. Similar cables should be sent to Presidente Fernando Belaunde Terry, Lima Peru, and to the Peruvian Em bassy, 26, Sloan St,, London S.W. 1,, and copies airmailed to Hugo Blanco's attorney, Mr, Alfredo Battilana, Av, Nicola se Pierola, 966; Officina 215, Lima, Peru, Hugo Blanco occupies a unique position in the Peruvian peasant movement, This emerges clearly from a comprehensive report of the situation in the Cuzco valley by Hugo Neira, former correspondent of the Lima TESSO, This report, put out under the tifle: Cuzco; Tierre Y Muerta eomey Land or Death), published in Lima in 1964, It covers a period of six to nine months after the arrest of Hugo Blanco, Despite this Hugo Blanco, whose name appears almost everywhere on the walls of the houses in Cuzco, and is even painted on Inca ruins, to the astonishment of American tourists, dominates the scene everywhere as the main inspirer, the genuine leader of the revolutionary peasant movement, The Indians acclaim him in their meetings/are waiting for him to resume his place, In the Cuzco prison, prisoners told a journalist who was questioning them:"He is our leader, he is the leader of the peasants," Extracts from the report read: "Fought by the right, his image distorted by prestige due to erroneous reports about him being a guerilla fighter, injured by the silence, if not sabotage, of the traditional, bureaucratic groups of communism, extolled by the FIR, feared and hated by the unorganiced Vanaconas (Indians bound to personal service to the Landlords and the hacendados, admired by the