Sendero Stages Deadliest Attack in 10 Years

On Thursday night, October 9, 2008, Shining Path guerrillas attacked a Peruvian military column as it sounded a bend in Tintaypunco, in the Tayacava Province in Huancavelica Department.

A map of Tayacava Province in Huancavelica Department. It's part of the Vrae region of Amazonian rain forest.

The attack left 13 soldiers and 2 civilians dead (earlier reports of 12 soldiers and 7 civilians killed were wrong) and 11 others wounded (8 soldiers and 3 civilians).

The civilians were being transported by the military convoy. The convoy was returning to the Cochabamba Grande military base when it was hit.

A typical road in the Vrae region. Not much, is it? The convoy was probably traveling on a road like this when it was hit.

Sendero attacked the convoy of four trucks with a roadside bomb first, then followed up with automatic weapons fire. The result was a battle that lasted for hours. Vizcatán is in the far northwest corner of Ayacucho Province, in the La Mar District.

A map of the Vizcatán region where Junin, Huancavelica and Ayacucho all come together in the Vrae. Sendero has been holed up here forever and there doesn't seem to be any way to get rid of them.

The previous day, Sendero attacked a military vehicle in Vizcatán, killing 1 soldier.

So far, the offensive has killed 20 soldiers and left 27 more wounded.

Last month, the army said it killed 5 Senderistas on September 14 in Vizcatán, but the rebels denied it. It now appears that the army killed 5 farmers instead. The area of the killings was in Pichis Río Seco, Huarcatán municipality, Ayahuanco District, Huanta Province in Ayacucho Department.

The area is in the jungle near where the Ene and Apurimac Rivers merge, known as the Vrae in Spanish.

A photo of the Apurimac River in the Amazon jungle of Peru. Pretty good sized river, no? A typical swollen, muddy Amazonian river.

Vizcatán is the name of a mountain in the area, a stronghold of Senderistas. Sendero Luminoso has been here for a very long time, and to be honest, they have never been dislodged.

This is a photo of the Vrae region, where the Apurimac and Ene Rivers come together. Amazonian rain forest.

Army forces have recently been carrying out an offensive in the area in the usual fashion, destroying any villages they come upon and and "disappearing" several civilians accused of "links to the guerrillas", whatever that means. Disappearing in this case usually means they are taken away to be killed.

"It is no secret to anyone that Vizcatán is a complicated conflict zone," said Defense Minister Antero Flores-Araoz. "All the people who were in Vizcatán were terrorists, narco-terrorists or collaborators."

Great guy. Any civilian in the area is a collaborator. Kill him. I guess then Sendero has a right to kill any civilian who "collaborates" with the state then? See where this BS mindset heads?

Typical residents of the Vrae. They are very much Amerindian. Wow, they even paint their faces. Guerrillas have actually gotten a fair amount of support from the Indians in the region. They've been treated like shit for hundreds of years. They were slaves far up into the 20th Century, enslaved by rubber tappers who first came to the region in the late 1800's.

This was how this brutal war was fought for many years. 70,000 were killed in this war and though over 50% of the deaths are blamed on guerrillas, actually, the overwhelming majority of the "civilians" killed by Sendero were members of rural militia called rondas.

Sendero now has an estimated strength of 800, quadrupled from 200 in recent years. Abimael Guzman, otherwise known as Presidente Gonzalo, is thought to be directing the war once again through visits to his attorney. He was denied all contact for many years, but now he is being allowed to talk to his lawyer. He supposedly renounced armed struggle in recent years, but I guess he has changed his mind.

I fear that Sendero may be making a comeback at some of the universities that it more or less took over 20 years ago. There's some strange rhetoric in the air and some scary posters on the walls at the University of San Marcos these days. A few years back, I heard Sendero was recruiting in the shantytowns of Lima again. Flush with drug money, they are offering good salaries to join the guerrilla army.

The Los Angeles Times describes the situation in Peru as "deteriorating into virtual civil war". That's probably about right.

This is one hardcore, badass, bunch of crazy guerrillas. They nearly took over in 1992. I don't support them at all, at least not in their former form.

The new Sendero is supposedly on a lot better behavior, paying for livestock and other things from villagers instead of just taking them, and having a much more civilized attitude towards the masses. They are apologizing for their brutal behavior of the past, and in some cases, they are being forgiven and gaining some support again.

Most peasants in these areas are pretty much neutral. The state has never done crap for them anyway, and the guerrillas are often just local men and women. The two main areas of strength these days are the Vrae and the Upper Huallaga Valley.

Sendero is taxing and protecting the coca (cocaine) trade here bigtime, and they are starting to make a lot of money. The government says that Sendero has abandoned its ideology and turned into drug-runners. That sounds dubious to me.

If you want to read some of the most fanatical armed Leftist revolutionaries out there, check out Red Sun, published by the Peru People's Movement, which, in my opinion, is just the Shining Path. Whether it's the Shining Path inside Peru (dubious) or the Shining Path supporters and former leadership outside Peru, especially in Europe, is up in the air.

I suspect that this is published by the Shining Path support committee in Sweden. Anyway, for all intents and purposes, it's just Sendero.

Radical enough for you? They hate the NPA in the Philippines. Sellouts. They despise the revisionists in North Korea. A monarchy and a cult (Well, I do agree with that much). They pour scorn on the Nepalese Maoists. Sellouts, having given up Maoism for parliamentary cretinism. (See Lenin, Two Letters). Hugo Chavez? Fascist. Evo Morales? Same, fascist.

This stuff is nuts, endless ranting and raving, but it's entertaining reading. It's very well-written. The writers are Peruvian intellectuals with a lot of knowledge of economics, history, political science, etc., with a deep emphasis on Peru. One wonders that Peru must have a really horrible system to produce such a fanatical and furious bunch of revolutionaries.

A recent PPP communique is here.