By Carlos Quiroz, peruanista.blogspot.com

June 19, 2008 (updated June 26) -- The videos you are about to see are a bit shocking. For 18 months the people of the Moquegua region (southeastern Peru) and the mining workers from that region have been seeking for peaceful negotiations with the Peruvian government in Lima.

By Hugo Blanco

March 4, 2008 -- Not long ago repression in Peru was more a matter of laws than actions. Now, however, APRA's legislation (APRA is President Alan García's party), with basic support from the ultra-rightist Unidad Nacional party, and from the party of Fujimori, who is now being tried for massive crimes, and with no consequent parliamentary opposition, is being used to launch a full assault against the people.

Hugo Blanco was leader of the Quechua peasant uprising in the Cuzco region of Peru in the early 1960s. He was captured by the military and sentenced to 25 years in El Fronton Island prison for his activities, but an international defence campaign won his freedom. He continues to play an active role in Peru’s indigenous, campesino, and environmental movements, and writes on Peruvian, indigenous and Latin American issues.

He wrote this article for Socialist Voice on the eve of the