RIGHT-WING OFFENSIVE IN PERU /J of the GGTP, the GUOS (the Consejo Unitario de Organi^aciones Sindicales which coordinated the general strike), and the CTRP were occupied. 1,500 leaders, among them Eduardo Castille, General Secretary ofCGTP, and Victor Sanches, of GNT, were arrested. When the workers of CENTROMIN finally went on strike on July 25, all its leaders were fired and arrested. The repression was so wide and so brutal that the Archbishop of Lima and Cardinal of Peru, Juan Landazurri Ricketts, forcefully condemned it and asked for the repeal of the Decree. A wide spectrum of Peruvian intellectuals, ranging from the conservative historian Jorge Basadre to the ex-vice rector of the University of San Marcos, Alberto Escobar, signed a letter demanding a halt to the massive violations of human rights which had taken place after the General Strike. The wave of repression, however, continued until August 28, when Morales Bermudez felt that he had ^taught a lesson" to the working class movement. On that date he lifted the state of emergency and promised to be ^flexible" in thevapplication of the'^emergency programme" while permitting some of the workers dismissed to return to their jobs. These measures, however, would only cover 10 percent of those affected by the dismissals which was calculated at 3,000 workers. While, making these minor concessions, he announced a time bound plan tailored to the demands of the bourgeois parties lead by APRA: elections for a Consti' tutional Assembly would be held in 1978, this Assembly would frame a new constitution ^incorporating the changes brought about by the revolution" during the second semester of 1978 and General Elections would be held in 1980. The political goal of Morales Bermudez of transferring power to the APRA lead block of right-wing parties through electoral means has set for the left an urgent political task: that of forging a broad alliance out of the unity achieved on July 19 capable of offering a socialist alternative to the economic and political crisis. And this task must be fulfilled in the context of the most fierce repression of the working class movements and progressive organisations since the beginning of the process of reforms in 1968. JORGE RODRIGUE? BERUFF