Peru - August 3rd, 2017

With massive nationwide mobilizations, fierce clashes with Kuczynski's murderous police dogs and denouncing the treacherous Stalinist leaders of “Patria Roja” the teachers do not give up and keep fighting, marking the way for all Peruvian and Latin American workers...

LONG LIVE THE FIGHT OF THE PERUVIAN TEACHERS THAT ARE CONFRONTING WALL STREET, THE FTA FUJIMORIST REGIME AND THE LACKEY KUCZYNSKI!
LET THE REVOLUTIONARY GENERAL STRIKE BEGIN!

Enough of treacherous bureaucrats who sell out our struggles in closed commissions and negotiating tables with Kuczynski’s government, which is at the service of imperialism!
Let’s recover the CEN-SUTEP and the CGTP from the hands of the collaborationist bureaucracy by setting up rank and file organizations that work with direct democracy, in order to put them at the service of all our demands with a single list of claims together with the miners, factory workers, health workers and poor peasants!

To have health, education, housing and bread: Expropriate imperialism and its plunderer transnational companies without payment and place them under workers' control!
The Peruvian magisterium (teachers’ union) came out to fight on June 15th from some regions, mainly Cusco, against the hunger wages and the deprivation of rights that the government wants to impose on all teachers. The engine demands that made the indefinite strike to go nationwide since July 12 are:

- Wage increase to have a basic wage of 4,050 soles. That’s equal to 1000 US dollars (that would cover the typical basket).
-Derogation of the Magisterial Reform Law 29,944 which threatens job stability and creates teachers by contract.
- Annulthe teacher performance evaluation, which seeks to dismiss teachers with job stability. They have already fired 10 thousand teachers and they want to dismiss 70 thousand more.
- Annul the PPA (Private Public Association). Those are privatist measures to give the schools to companies.
- Defend the free public education. For a budget increase of 10% of the GDP.

These demands of Peruvian teachers for wages, work and a decent life are the same demands of all the teachers, students and workers of the continent. In Mexico, because they waged the same fight, they have disappeared, like those 43 high school students of Ayotzinapa, and workers massacred like the teachers of Nochixtlan. The whip of capital and the empty of the states treasures by the imperialist plunder strikes us all the same way. This forces us to make a unified continental response. It is necessary to follow the example of the teachers of the occupied Palestine by the murderous state of Israel who stood in solidarity with the 37-day teacher strike of their Colombian brothers and sisters, which was later sold out by the leadership of FECODE. That is the way to weld the unity against the same enemy and their plans of starvation and maquila (over exploitation).

In spite of being threatened with discounts and dismissals, after 50 days of strike, thousands of Peruvian teachers continue to strengthen the struggle day by day, showing their will to succeed. Massive mobilizations of different regions arrive at the streets of Lima and in San Martin Square the slogans echoes: "They cannot silence our strike!", "Now say that we are a minority!" And "CEN Already died (in allusion to the Stalinist leadership of Patria Roja, Writer´s Note), the bases buried him!" among others. The deep hatred of the teachers’ rank and file against the class collaborationist leaders of Patria Rojais increasingly taking form, and the pressing task of recovering our organizations for the fight is in the making. Because Patria Roja leaders are guarantors of the adjustment plans and the destruction of public education, in particular the Unified Union of Workers of Education of Peru (SUTEP). To coordinate and urgently centralize the teachers struggle with miners, factory workers, health workers, combative students and poor peasants. This heroic strike has also gained wide sympathy from the exploited population who are betting on the triumph of defending public education against privatization. In Cuzco the solidarity of the students and parents was weld. They mobilized together against the police and in response of the murderous state that tries to imprison for twelve years Jose Freddy Mozo Quispe and Salazar Zúniga, both parents accused of supposed disturbance. Like thousands of parents, they supported the teachers' fair strike by tying their children's fate to the triumph of the struggle. Enough of persecuting, harassing and frightening the unity of the exploited! Let's set up self-defence committees to confront the murderous police of the Fujimori regime! Immediate drop of all charges of all the exploited to fight for a decent life!

On the other hand, the treacherous leadership of SUTEP and the CGTP attempted to boycott, divide and disorganize teachers' struggles at every step. Consequently, they dared to sell out the strike at closed negotiating tables with the government, refusing to promote and fight for asingle list of claims of all the exploited ones of the whole nation. This is not surprising. Months ago they fervently supported the electoral campaign of the bourgeois party Frente Amplio of Veronica Mendoza to support the fraud of the presidential elections and save the bourgeois regime’s life as a whole. For all these stabs in the back is that the teachers rank and file began to revolt against the class collaborationist leadership of Patria Roja. Let us recover the CGTP and all our fighting organs from the rotten bureaucracy to put them at the service of the exploited, to unify our ranks and to impose the revolutionary general strike! The Peruvian teachers are a continuation of the uprising that was evidenced with the exploited people of Argentina, who threw off the stage the bureaucracy of the General Workers Central (CGT)in March 7ththis year. As also did the miners of Huanuni in a General assembly of more than 3000 miners where they disregarded the leader Orlando Gutiérrez (of the Union Federation of Mining Workers of Bolivia) for being a traitor to the labour cause, just to give a few examples. This is the way to fight! These class collaborationist leaderships are those that prevent the advance of the working class in response to the class war declared by the capitalists. Down with class collaborationism! Long live the uprising of the exploited ones!

Kuczynski’s government, continuing the misdeeds of the repressive government of Humala, at the service of the FTA Fujimorist regime, did not wait in showing he will comply with what Wall Street ordered and has already taken the life of a new martyr, this time a teacher. Shortly before, the same Fujimorist regime with Humala never got tired of murdering poor peasants and massacring the workers and revolutionary youth. Enough of massacring the exploited ones!
Peruvian teachers today mark the way for the entire labour movement. They face the privatist plan and labour reform of the Yankee regime and its transnational corporations. They confront their lackey Kuczynski. This was done by the teachers of the National Coordinator of Education Workers of Mexico (CNTE), Colombian teachers, Santa Cruz teachers in Argentina. The attack of imperialism and its lackeys in the region urgently deserves an anti-imperialist struggle throughout the continent. A single unified fight from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego of all the exploited ones of the Southern Cone and all Latin America. To have education, health, work and bread: No payment of the foreign debt! Nationalization of the imperialist monopolies, transnational mining companies and their banks, without payment and place them under workers' control! Copper, gold, silver, gas, oil, and land belong to American workers! Get out gringos!

As Cuba was sold out to imperialism by the Castro brothers... Let us take back the revolutionary path of Cuba of ‘59! Expropriators must be expropriated!

Correspondent
Socialist League of Internationalist Workers of Peru