People’s War Continues to Hit Peru’s Military
February 12, 2000
It's clear from press reports coming out of Peru that the US-backed Fujimori regime has failed in its attempts to defeat the PCP forces that carried out a powerful guerrilla attack on a Peruvian Army helicopter on October 2 in the Department of Junin. The PCP attack killed five Peruvian Army officers and up to four enlisted men. The government said their Army helicopter had landed near the town of Satipo, about 180 miles East of Lima, while in pursuit of a guerrilla column of more than 60 PCP combatants, when the revolutionary forces suddenly unleashed the unexpected attack.
Since the October 2 action, Fujimori has sent more than 3,000 of his troops into this jungle region of Junin and Northern Ayacucho to, in his words, "pursue the column of guerrillas responsible for the October 2 assault," who he called "followers of Oscar Ramirez, Comrade Feliciano". Government forces have included helicopter gunships, Army regulars, para-militaries, and 400 of his elite "special forces." Fujimori admitted at a press conference that the PCP fighters were heavily armed but boasted that he would continue pursuing these PCP forces "until all the rebels are captured." Press reports on subsequent weeks, however, point to a failure of Fujimori's "Operation Annihilation" despite heightened U.S. military assistance.
A La Republica news report of October 18, 1999 said that in this same region of Satipo there was another armed clash in which both PCP guerrillas and government para-military forces (who were, according to the report, "serving as guides for the Army") were killed. The battle, which reportedly lasted one hour and 45 minutes, involved helicopter-mounted artillery in support of government ground-troops.
The article points out that despite the all-out assault by the Peruvian military since the October 2 PCP action, not a single PCP fighter has been captured in this area. The report also reveals that the government's recent barrage of helicopter mounted artillery directed at this area was not just targeting PCP fighters but also villagers who live in this area along the banks of the Ene River.
According to reports from "native people who have fled from this zone, the helicopters have been firing rockets into this area near the Anapati River, where the ambush of the government helicopter occurred, but the principal [PCP] column has already retreated to Vizcatan [Northern Ayacucho] and only [PCP] contingency forces remained behind, and these are the ones who have been battling against the Army."
U.S. Ambassador Inaugurates New Military Base
An October 19, 1999 article in La Republica reports that, on that day, US Ambassador John Hamilton inaugurated a new police base at Palmapampa. It says that in response to recent PCP incursions in the jungle of Ayacucho, the head of the pro-government para-military forces of the Apurimac River area was asking for "more coordination with the police authorities to fight the insurgency." He affirmed that "the insurgency was not eradicated" because guerrilla columns had recently entered towns in the Ayacucho near the Apurimac River.According to him, on October 8 a column of PCP fighters went into the community of Conaire and took supplies from various markets. Later on October 12, according to the article, a column of approximately 50 Maoist combatants, men and women, reportedly entered the community of Iribamba-Choymacota, about 25 kilometers from the district of Sivia, in the Ayacucho province of Huanta, taking food and medicines. Therefore, says the article, the head of the (anti-People's War) paramilitary forces wanted "to warn about the latent danger of a resurgence [of the People's War]."
The new military base, funded with a 13 million dollar grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development is for the Peruvian National Police "Department of Tactical Anti-Drug Operations of Palmapampa"-- part of what the U.S. calls their "war on drugs." In reality this "drug war" is a pretext for sending more U.S. military assistance for Fujimori's vicious counter-insurgency. This past month the U.S. Congress approved a new 1.3 BILLION-dollar military assistance package to the Andean region, which includes Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
On November 6, 1999, La Republica reported that two more officers and three enlisted men of the Peruvian Armed Forces were killed in armed clashes with "subversives of Sendero Luminoso," on November 3rd and 4th, in the Departments of Junin and Ayacucho.
The first engagement was on November 3 in an area where the Mantaro and Vizcatan Rivers meet in Ayacucho, when a soldier patrolling the area stepped on a land trap called "cazabobo," which is made with bamboo wood. The soldier reportedly injured his left leg. According to the official version, when a MI-17 helicopter came to evacuate the injured soldier, and the insurgents opened fire on the helicopter that received three shots to the cabin and could not take off. During the clash, Army captain Florencio Zegarra and two enlisted men were reported killed, together with "six unidentified subversives". The soldier who stepped on the trap was reportedly also killed. The news article says it is not known if the helicopter was lost.
On Nov. 4, a group of "Special Forces" of the Peruvian Army "confronted a senderista column in the Ene River Valley, near Tincaveni, in the jungle of Junin, resulting in one Army captain dead (unidentified) and four enlisted men injured." The report says that during the same week the Special Armed Forces operation intensified in Junin and Ayacucho trying to find the subversive column that downed the helicopter on October 2. The report says the Army has combined the launching of rockets from the air with land pursuits -- trying to carry out an "encirclement to keep the subversives from crossing the left bank of the Ene River to get food and supplies."
The article quotes Peruvian military sources saying they have been trying to cut the supply lines of the Maoist forces, in order to then encircle and proceed to, in their words, "clean up" the areas where they know the subversives are hiding, like the hills of Quiteni and Yanco. But Peruvian press reports show that government forces are taking significant losses in these failed attempts to encircle the PCP's revolutionary forces.
On November 11, according to an article in the Peruvian magazine Caretas, Gedion Charrete one of the main leaders of the government's reactionary para-military forces in this same region of Junin was killed in a clash with PCP fighters. The report says that Charrete and his men were returning to the Natalio Sanchez counter-insurgency base when they were ambushed by PCP forces, leaving Charrete dead and a captain and 3 soldiers seriously wounded.
El Comercio newspaper reported that on January 21, "two soldiers were killed and another three seriously wounded" when "a military contingent that was carrying out a counter-insurgency operation in the locality of the Apurimac River Valley was ambushed by a Senderista group." This was in the same mountain region of Junin that borders Northern Ayacucho. The armed clash reported lasted over an hour. Two government soldiers were killed and another three were severely wounded. The press report says that an estimated 20 men and women combatants of the PCP took part in the attack. The government troops were from the Pichari Military Base.
According to La Republica, on February 1 three dozen PCP combatants took over a stretch of the Tumtubaru highway, in the province of La Mar [Ayacucho], stopping vehicles to solicit donations of food and money. According to the article, vehicle drivers and passengers were gathered together and given a presentation on the importance of the continuing People's War. La Republica also noted that a couple of days earlier on January 29 five PCP fighters raided the nearby home of the mayor of Trampahuasi in the district of Soras. The mayor's brother was killed during the raid.
After the capture of PCP leader Comrade Feliciano this past July, the Fujimori regime and its U.S. imperialist godfathers have intensified their counter-revolutionary war along with pompous claims that they were on their way to finally defeating the Maoist People's War. But the PCP and the revolutionary masses of Peru have had other ideas-- they have shown the ability to persevere in the People's War under very difficult conditions, demonstrating a fierce determination to "overcome the bend in the road" that followed the 1992 capture of Chairman Gonzalo. As these battles intensify, and the US tries to "beef-up" Fujimori's military, is more important than ever that we stand with the people of Peru.
Illustrations above by a CSRP member in Alabama.
