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Fujimori's Miners?

By Aaron <aaron@BURN.UCSD.EDU>
23 May 1997

Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 12:46:20 +0200 (SST)
From: Heinrich Bohmke <hbohmke@pixie.udw.ac.za>
To: debate@sunsite.wits.ac.za

Dear Comrades,

Thought this would be of horrific interest to you'all.

" PERU: 24 miners who dug tunnels for Peruvian commandos under the Japanese ambassador's mansion to free the hostages held by the MRTA have yet to return home. It is not known where they are. At least 2 of the miners were killed or injured building the tunnels and the state mining company will not comment on the miners' whereabouts. The company offered miners US$2,000 each for for the job of digging the tunnels, but to date, the miners' families have only received US$1,000 each (Financial Times, May 6, 1997; Associated Press, May 5, 1997). "

What's horrific about this is that individuals from a historically militant and conscious section of the working class would sell themselves as mercenary appendages to the armed forces of the capitalist state for use against the left. I'm certainly not going to sympathize with them because some were killed and injured in performing their counter-revolutionary tasks, or because they didn't get the pay they were promised.

May the misfortune of these tunnel-diggers, as of the U.S. military victims of 'Gulf War Syndrome", be used to spread the message: "If you do the dirty work of the ruling class, don't expect anything from your patrons but the contempt you deserve!"

-- Revolutionary solidarity,
-- Aaron <aaron@burn.ucsd.edu>