Pedro Castillo promises justice after the death of soldiers in confrontation with Sendero Luminoso

First modification: 08/14/2022 – 05:01

The president of Peru, Pedro Castillo, assured that his government “will not give up in the anti-subversive fight to maintain peace and tranquility in the country.”

The statement was made in the framework of the operation carried out by the military forces against the armed group and in which the rebel leader, known as ‘José’, was wounded. brother of former leader Jorge Quispe Palomino, alias ‘comrade Raúl’.

“Their deaths will not go unpunished,” the president said.

The combat operations, which continue together with the National Police, have so far reached a series of terrorist camps in Vizcatán. Weapons, communications material, equipment, laptops, “abundant literature, documents and other materials of “great interest” were captured in them, adds the statement from the Joint Command of the Armed Forces (CCFFAA).

Castillo ordered the continuity in the searches for “terrorist remnants.”

The Joint Command of the Armed Forces also reported that another non-commissioned officer was injured in the maneuvers carried out in the Vizcatán region, the same area where another soldier died on July 15.

El Vraem, a troubled area

The Valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro Rivers, in the southern Peruvian Andes, is an extensive region of mountainous jungle in which three different departments are located and drug trafficking coexists with the remnants of the Shining Path.

Both maintain a financing agreement in exchange for security to get the drug out of the area, the largest coca-growing basin in the South American country.

According to the CCFFAA, there are 46 rebel bases in the area, which has been in an emergency for more than a decade. The plan to clean up the area, carried out by the Peruvian military, consists of four phases: implementation and deployment, intervention, consolidation and normalization.

The Vraem is the last active scene of the internal conflict caused by the Shining Path and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the clashes caused at least 69,000 deaths.

The crime heads in the Vraem

Since the entire leadership of ‘Sendero Luminoso’ was captured at the end of the 1990s, the Quispe Palomino brothers, alias ‘José’ and ‘comrade Raúl’ took control of the criminal organization in the Vraem.

The death of Jorge (Raúl) at the hands of the Peruvian military forces in March of last year, led to the rise of his brother as the sole leader of the rebels.

Abimael Guzmán, founding leader of Sendero Luminoso, who died in 2021 while in prison, never recognized them as bosses, so they did not follow his orders. Both brothers participated in criminal actions prior to the capture of Guzmán in his crusade to install the communist system in Peru.

With EFE and Peruvian media