Return of the Shining Path

Return of the Shining Path

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/return-of-the-shining-path7640773.html

Terrorist group kidnaps 40 workers less than a week after Peru's President

said it had been 'totally defeated'

Simeon Tegel

Less than a week after President Ollanta Humala declared Peru's Shining Path

rebel group "totally defeated", the terrorist group has reportedly demanded

a $10m (£6.3m) ransom for the return of around 40 gas workers kidnapped in

the Amazon.

A heavily-armed group burst into a hotel housing the workers in the remote

town of Kepashiato in the early hours of Monday morning. They used two

stolen pickup trucks to flee with their victims.The government has sent

around 1,500 soldiers to the area and declared a state of emergency in the

vast rainforest district of Echarate.

Peru's Ministry of Defence said the troops "will cordon off the zone with

the objective of isolating the narco-terrorist criminals". But relatives of

the victims – most of who were working for construction contractor Skanska –

appealed to the government to avoid a shoot-out.

"The government or the company should reach an agreement [with the Shining

Path]," said Vanessa Estrada, wife of one of the workers, Alberto Quispe

Luza, 35, a crane operator who had been working for Skanska for less than

six months. Speaking to the Peruvian newspaper La Republica, she added:

"They shouldn't send soldiers because that could lead to a confrontation in

which no one knows who will die. They should pay the $10m."

The Defence Minister, Alberto Otarola, is due to travel to Echarate and the

head of Peru's police force, Raul Salazar, is already believed to be there.

There are also unofficial reports that the government has sent a unit of

"sinchis", Peru's elite commando force, feared for its no-holds barred

approach to fighting terrorists – to the area.

Kepashiato is now in a state of lock-down, with soldiers and police

searching all vehicles passing through the town. Locals, meanwhile, were

making the most of the quiet before the gathering storm of likely army

action. "We are all scared because we are unprotected," one told the daily

newspaper El Comercio. "At any moment there could a confrontation and

deaths."

All eyes are now on President Humala, as pressure mounts over how he will

handle the terrorists' latest outrage. A former army major who saw armed

action against the Shining Path in the 1990s, he has previously vowed to

crush the surviving remnants of the terrorist group once and for all.

The incident is the most serious involving Shining Path since 2003, when the

group kidnapped 70 workers for Argentine oil firm Techint. They had also

been working on the Camisea gas project, one of Peru's largest ever

infrastructure projects, which is projected to provide the country with

cheap gas for decades to come. The hostages were released unharmed within 24

hours after Techint privately negotiated with the terrorists.

Rather than represent a resurgence of activity by the Shining Path, the

kidnapping of the Skanska workers appears to be a desperate response to the

arrest in February of Florindo Eleuterio Flores, alias "Comrade Artemio".

Flores was Shining Path's most senior commander still at large from the

group's murderous heyday in the 1980s and 1990s. He had been leading a small

group of rebels as they continued to attack police and military patrols,

occasionally even downing a helicopter, from their jungle hideout.

The days when the group effectively laid siege to Lima by detonating bombs

in the city centre, are long gone, as is the revolutionary fervour that once

marked the Shining Path and motivated its Khmer Rouge-style scorched earth

tactics.

For most of the past decade, the Shining Path has been divided into two

small groups operating in the remote cocaine hotspots of the Huallaga Valley

and the Valley of the Apurimac and Ene Rivers (VRAE), where it charges the

drugs cartels for protection.

Nevertheless, the group refuses to die and Victor Quispe Palomino, known as

"Comrade Jose", who commands the VRAE faction, is said to have a fortune of

$100m at his disposal to spend on arms including AK-47 machine guns and

anti-aircraft missiles.

Timeline: Shining Path

Late 1960s Abimael Guzman, nicknamed Comrade Gonzalo, founds the group with

the aim of imposing "new democracy" in Peru.

1980 Group launches its first military operation, burning ballot boxes.

1983 Slaughters 69 people, including 15 children, in Ayacucho. This marks

the start of a new trend of killings.

July 1992 A huge bomb explodes in downtown Lima, killing 25 people.

September 1992 Guzman is captured and paraded in front of the world's media

in a prison jumpsuit.

2012 Comrade Artemio, the group's leader, is captured after a shoot-out.

==========================================

(F)AIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this

message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to

these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed

within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with

"Fair Use" criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976.

The principle of "Fair Use" was established as law by Section 107 of The

Copyright Act of 1976. "Fair Use" legally eliminates the need to obtain

permission or pay royalties for the use of previously copyrighted materials

if the purposes of display include "criticism, comment, news reporting,

teaching, scholarship, and research." Section 107 establishes four criteria

for determining whether the use of a work in any particular case qualifies

as a "fair use". A work used does not necessarily have to satisfy all four

criteria to qualify as an instance of "fair use". Rather, "fair use" is

determined by the overall extent to which the cited work does or does not

substantially satisfy the criteria in their totality. If you wish to use

copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you

must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

THIS DOCUMENT MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. COPYING AND DISSEMINATION IS

PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.