Coca/Cocaine, Law & Justice

Narco-Terrorists Regroup, Step Up Attacks in the VRAEM

Source: Andina

Six soldiers were wounded on Monday at the Nueva Libertad military base outside Satipo in the Junin region, in an attack by sharpshooters defending a drug trafficking route along the Ene river.  One soldier was gravely injured.

Only four days earlier, four police were killed when they were ambushed in their patrol car further south in the Huancavelica region, on the road between Churcampa and Anco.

The attacks came just days after reports that Victor Quispe Palomino, a former Sendero rebel, was regrouping after five years as the Militarized Communist Party of Peru, PCMP — two key leaders in the rebel group, including one of Palomino’s brothers, were killed in skirmishes by government forces in 2013 during the Humala administration.

Palomino, 58, who goes by the name of Comrade Jose, was 19 when he and his parents were involved in Sendero Luminoso’s first action in Ayacucho in the 1980s, burning ballot boxes in his home town of Chuschi.

Victor Quispe Palomina, Comrade Jose

The main activity of the offshoot of the Sendero group, however, is the protection of drug trafficking routes and of the hillsides of coca bushes and  makeshift coca paste and cocaine production ‘labs’ hidden in the lush valleys along the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro rivers.  Actively involved in the transport process, they help guard the small landing strips all along the valleys where small single-engined planes fly in daily from Bolivia to pick up crates of processed drugs.

The area, known strategically as the VRAEM, covers areas in the regions of Junin, Huancavelica, Apurimac and Cusco (see map) and is patrolled by joint military and police operations. The government has also stepped up efforts over the past several years to improve education and health facilities in the area.

According to military reports, Palomino’s group, which has recruited younger members and leaders, has begun distributing flyers in the region, accusing the government of using soldiers and police as cannon fodder to protect the “oppressing classes. Military intelligence reports tht Palomino’s plans include disrupting the regional elections for local VRAEM authorities, scheduled nationwide for October 7 this year.

According to a report in La Republica daily, the United States has offered a $5 million reward for Palomino.

More Intelligence, Less Troops

Political analyst Fernando Rospigliosi, who served as minister of Interior during the Toledo administration, believes the government’s success in the VRAEM can be achieved by replicating the government actions in the Upper Huallaga  region, further north,  between 2006 and 2011.

“How? You get informants, you use electronic intelligence, communications, you locate the leaders and you pounce,” Rospigliosi said in an interview on Ideele Radio. Between early 2006 and the beginning of 2011, the “terrorist band” in the Upper Huallaga was dismantled completely, Rospigliosi added.

However, Rospigliosi points out, there are vested interests in making sure nothing is done to solve the narco-terrorism problem.

“There are several reasons why nothing is done in the Vraem. There are a lot of vested interests in the matter,” said Rospigliosi. “The main problem is the management of the resources in the Vraem; of course, the governments don’t dare let that be known.”

A lot of money has been assigned to the armed forces since their entry into the Vraem zone, without any progress, says Rospigliosi.

“The reasoning is that a large deployment of personnel is required to stop this terrorist group.  That is absolutely false, it has been shown that that is not true. However, they insist on it. Why?  Because the military have the power and the governments are weak-willed, they don’t care too much about the issue and they also don’t want to battle with the military, so they leave them to it,” Rospigliosi said.

“Since the military have entered the área, several billion soles have been spent on the effort, because they have a gigantic deployment. Thre are no around 7,500 troops,” Rospigliosi added.

In an interview last week after the attack on police in Huacavelica, lawmaker Gino Costa told radio host Glatzer Tuesta on Ideele Radio that current anti-subversive strategies for the VRAEM need to be revised, pointing also to the Huallaga success, where the police force led the intelligence work.

Costa, who served as deputy minister under Rospigliosi, said there have been changes in the Vraem strategy and he believes these should be reviewed to return to the earlier focus — “a strategy of unification of intelligence and the armed forces, under the leadership of the police. I believe that is the correct strategy.”

“The police and political intelligence” should lead the effort, Costa said, “and of course with the backing of the armed forces.”

One Comment

  1. Robert Tansey

    A very insightful analysis. (Sigh! the problem continues)

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