The BBC's Dan Collyns reports from Peru on the renewed fight against the Shining Path guerrilla movement. The Maoist rebels had been defeated years ago by the Peruvian government. But income from drug trafficking has given the Shining Path a new boost.
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LISA MULLINS: Canada is at one end of the drug trafficking chain. Peru is at the opposite end. The South American nation of Peru is a source of cocoa and cocaine. Lately, profits from the drug trade have revived the fortunes of a rebel group in Peru. The Shining Path waged a guerrilla war against the Peruvian government for decades. But the Maoist rebels were thought defeated years ago. Now, the Shining Path is back, as the BBC's Dan Collyns reports from eastern Peru.
DAN COLLYNS: This is the frontline of a jungle war being fought in Peru's mountainous no-man's land. These soldiers are battling against an old enemy in one of its last strongholds – Viscatan, a thick jungle area of around 185 square miles. But the Army's been able to establish five bases here, and their leader, General Raymundo Flores, is confident the enemy can be beaten.
FLORES: In the next few years, the Shining Path leaders will be in prison and the Shining Path's ideological appeal here or in any other part of Peru finished. It will be buried, and those that remain free will just be a gang of drug traffickers.
COLLYNS: General Flores says his troops killed around 20 guerrilla fighters in their latest operations, but four soldiers have lost their lives – just some of the 25 military and police killed by the guerrillas in the last year. Experienced guerrilla fighters and well armed with money from the drugs trade, the Shining Path's other advantage is the booming cocaine business in the lush Apurimac river valley, on the Amazon's margin with the Peru's Andes mountains.
FLORES: As Machiavelli says, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The drug-trafficker is the friend of the cocoa farmer, and the Shining Path guerrilla is the friend of the drug-trafficker. So all three are friends and we who represent the state stand against all of them. The economy of this valley is based on the cocoa leaf, so as such this is a low intensity war where 10 percent is military and 90 percent is political.
COLLYNS: The armed forces are trying to win hearts and minds in poor and isolated communities like Sanabamba in Viscatan. Until recently, these people saw more of the Shining Path than they did of the state. One of the village leaders, Froylan Gutierrez, says the rebels have changed. “Before,†he explains, “they killed men, women, and children and stole livestock. Now, when they pass through, they pay for what they need and invite the villagers to join in a soccer game.†The guerrillas themselves reject the group's brutal past and say they now protect civilians. But Antonio Cardenas, a leader of the valley's civil militia which fought the guerrillas for almost two decades, is skeptical. Cardenas says they appear to have changed, but he believes they're still the same bloodthirsty killers who used to kill whole communities regardless of age or gender. Peru is the world's second producer of cocaine, and UN figures say it made around 180 tons last year. Around half came from the Apurimac river valley. Farmers here grow cocoa and 90 percent of their crops go to make cocaine, yet most of them don't see any of the profits. Maribel Contreras is one of them.
MARIBEL CONTRERAS: Others get fat on the cocoa we grow in the valley, but we are far from rich. We are just trying to survive.
COLLYNS: Observers say addressing the issue of poverty and sense of abandonment by the state in this valley is just as important as taking back territory, if the government is to finally overcome the Shining Path. Journalist Gustavo Gorriti has covered the movement since its beginnings 30 years ago.
GORRITI: Even though they seem at this point to confine themselves mostly to regional operations, the fact is that they have slowly grown in terms of operational reach and presence.
COLLYNS: Just a fraction of its former size, but buoyed by the drugs trade, the Shining Path is expanding. So far it continues to be one step ahead of the Peruvian state. For The World, this is Dan Collyns, in the Apurimac river valley, Peru.
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