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Peru's U.S.-backed Fujimori dictatorship has repeatedly claimed that they are close to completely defeating the PCP (known as the Shining Path or Sendero Luminoso in the media). But the Central Committee of the PCP is continuing to lead the People's War through all the twists and turns of struggle, and in the face of heavy obstacles. The obstacles include not only the vicious counter-revolutionary war being carried out by the Fujimori regime, with U.S. military aid and advisors. The PCP Central Committee is also waging a life-and-death struggle against a right opportunist political line which has called for bringing the People's War to an end through a peace accord.
Another major PCP action took place on August 8 in the town of Aucayacu in the Upper Huallaga department of Huanuco. According to various news reports, about 200 PCP fighters took part in the operation which involved a pincers movement: two groups of guerrillas arrived on trucks along two separate roads, and a third arrived by boat on the Huallaga River. They overwhelmed the local police and took over the town for five hours before dispersing into the jungle. According to the Latin American Weekly Report, Fujimori flew into Aucayacu soon afterward and announced that the counter-insurgency base there would be reopened. The base had been closed when the soldiers were sent to northern Peru last year during the Peru-Ecuador border conflict. And Caretas magazine reported that the army arrested 50 residents for ``questioning'' on the suspicion of being PCP supporters.
The news reports indicate that PCP actions are being carried out in widespread areas of the Peruvian countryside. The United Press International reported an action in late July by about 50 guerrillas in the Andean mountain region of Huancavelica: ``The Shining Path rebels attacked a road construction camp in the Andean district of Palca Tuesday, setting fire to several pieces of road-building equipment, police reported. The heavily armed rebel group gave a recruitment talk to workers at the building camp and attempted to convince them to join the column, authorities said. The guerrillas then blew up an earthmover, motorized rollers and an asphalt plant before fleeing into nearby mountains. The group has been stepping up recruiting activities and attacks in recent months.''
Various Peruvian news sources have reported on a series of PCP actions in La Mar province in the eastern part of Ayacucho department. According to Caretas, on August 29 a group of guerrillas took over the town of San Miguel in the lower jungle of La Mar. Caretas wrote: ``The stoppage of vehicles is becoming a regular thing again in Ayacucho's highways.'' The August 25 issue of La Republica newspaper gave an account of the situation in the Ene River Valley in the central jungle of Junin department: ``The situation in the Ene River is so tense that even military patrols have stopped going into the area `because there seem to be a high concentration of subversive elements,' said military sources from the area. `When we carry out operations in Ene, we do it with air support and by mobilizing a large contingent of men,' said the sources. The military has four bases in the area and they are all on alert."
While the countryside is the main arena of the People's War, there have also been actions in Lima -- Peru's capital and the center of reactionary state power. On July 26, for example, a car bomb exploded outside the central police station responsible for protecting the Peruvian Congress. A few days later, there was another explosion outside the home of the army general in charge of the counter-insurgency operations in the Upper Huallaga region. The head of the ``anti-terrorist'' police was forced to resign after other government officials criticized him for failing to prevent such attacks. And the military announced that it was on full alert and was extending the state of emergency, which is already in effect in many parts of the country.
There are signs that Fujimori's U.S. backers are stepping up ``low intensity'' intervention in Peru and the region overall, under the cover of a ``war on drugs.'' Several hundred U.S. troops have been taking part in a huge ``anti-drug'' operation in several Andean countries since this spring, with the focus on Peru. The operation, called ``Laser Strike,'' involves troops from the U.S. Southern Command, AWAC radar surveillance planes and other agencies such as the Coast Guard and the DEA. Meanwhile, there have been a series of incidents exposing the fact that the Peruvian regime itself is deeply involved in drugs.
In May four air force officers -- including one of Fujimori's pilots -- were arrested after 383 pounds of cocaine was found on a military plane. And in July, there were four seizures of cocaine totaling 220 pounds on four navy ships. In August a major drug trafficker named Demetrio Chavez Peaherrera (known as Vaticano) told a Peruvian court that he had paid $50,000 a month during 1991 to Vladimiro Montesinos, who heads up Peru's intelligence agencies and is Fujimori's top advisor. Montesinos also has longstanding connections with the CIA. (Chavez Peaherrera later retracted his accusation under suspicious circumstances.)
Vaticano controlled a clandestine airstrip in the Upper Huallaga which was located right next to a counter-insurgency army base. The druglord said that in return for the payoffs, he was allowed to use his airstrip to take drugs out to Colombia and to receive notification when government military operations were going to take place. He said, ``That's why they never caught me."