Five Peruvian Soldiers Killed In Rebel Attack
8/17/2012 4:46 AM ET
(RTTNews) - Peru's military said on Thursday that five of its soldiers were killed after their patrol was ambushed by Shining Path rebels in the country's central region.
According to the Armed Forces Joint Command, soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Brigade were ambushed by "terrorist criminals" in the forested Junin region, some 190 miles east of capital Lima, on Wednesday night.
It said four sergeants and a corporal were killed in the resultant fighting, which also wounded four other sergeants and another non-commissioned officer. But the statement did not say whether the rebels suffered any casualties.
Incidentally, Thursday's rebel attack comes just three months after Peru's Defense and Interior Ministers resigned in May amidst severe criticism over the death of eight police officers in a fierce clash with the Left-wing Shining Path rebels in the country's south.
The incident in question happened after Shining Path rebels ambushed a convoy of security forces and police officers as they were pursuing a group of rebel fighters who had abducted 36 gas workers in April near natural gas fields in the Apurimac-Ene valley in the southern region of Cusco.
There was a public outrage in Peru after the father of one of the slain policemen managed to find his son's body in the jungle by himself days after authorities abandoned their search for the missing.
Further, one wounded cop managed to survive in the jungle all alone for 17 days before making his way to safety days after the security forces abandoned their search for their missing colleagues. The incidents triggered calls for resignation of the concerned Ministers.
Notably, the gas workers abducted by the Shining Path rebels were rescued by security forces in April itself. Officials said then that the government had not negotiated with the rebels for release of the hostages, or paid any ransom for their freedom.
The Peruvian government has deployed large number of troops in the coca growing region in the country's Ene and Apurimac River Valleys (VRAE) in August 2008 to tackle the rebel problem. Dozens of soldiers and rebel fighters have been killed in the region since then.
The VRAE region, where the Ene and Apurimac rivers meet, is said to be the country's main coca producing area, which is also a stronghold of the Shining Path and drug gangs. The region has witnessed a resurgence of the Shining Path movement in recent years. The movement had been slowly fading out after the capture of its leader, Abimael Guzman, in 1992.
The remaining rebels have now joined forces with the drug traffickers in an effort to raise funds for their insurgency. Some 400 members of the Shining Path are believed to be still active in Peru, the world's second largest producer of coca -- the main ingredient in the making of cocaine, after Colombia.
- The Maoist-inspired Leftist group was founded in the 1980s with the intention of replacing Peru's "bourgeois democracy" with a Communist government. Although the group was very powerful in the 1980s and the 1990s, its influence waned by 2000 after a fierce crackdown by the then President Alberto Fujimori.
Fujimori was convicted in 2009 for ordering death-squad killings and kidnappings during the crackdown, which later became famous as Peru's "dirty war." The crackdown targeted Shining Path guerrillas and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. More than 70,000 people are believed to have died in two decades of conflict in the Andean country.
by RTT Staff Writer
Source http://www.rttnews.com/1949957/five-peruvian-soldiers-killed-in-rebel-attack.aspx?type=gn&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=sitemap&pageNum=2
(RTTNews) - Peru's military said on Thursday that five of its soldiers were killed after their patrol was ambushed by Shining Path rebels in the country's central region.
According to the Armed Forces Joint Command, soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Brigade were ambushed by "terrorist criminals" in the forested Junin region, some 190 miles east of capital Lima, on Wednesday night.
It said four sergeants and a corporal were killed in the resultant fighting, which also wounded four other sergeants and another non-commissioned officer. But the statement did not say whether the rebels suffered any casualties.
Incidentally, Thursday's rebel attack comes just three months after Peru's Defense and Interior Ministers resigned in May amidst severe criticism over the death of eight police officers in a fierce clash with the Left-wing Shining Path rebels in the country's south.
The incident in question happened after Shining Path rebels ambushed a convoy of security forces and police officers as they were pursuing a group of rebel fighters who had abducted 36 gas workers in April near natural gas fields in the Apurimac-Ene valley in the southern region of Cusco.
There was a public outrage in Peru after the father of one of the slain policemen managed to find his son's body in the jungle by himself days after authorities abandoned their search for the missing.
Further, one wounded cop managed to survive in the jungle all alone for 17 days before making his way to safety days after the security forces abandoned their search for their missing colleagues. The incidents triggered calls for resignation of the concerned Ministers.
Notably, the gas workers abducted by the Shining Path rebels were rescued by security forces in April itself. Officials said then that the government had not negotiated with the rebels for release of the hostages, or paid any ransom for their freedom.
The Peruvian government has deployed large number of troops in the coca growing region in the country's Ene and Apurimac River Valleys (VRAE) in August 2008 to tackle the rebel problem. Dozens of soldiers and rebel fighters have been killed in the region since then.
The VRAE region, where the Ene and Apurimac rivers meet, is said to be the country's main coca producing area, which is also a stronghold of the Shining Path and drug gangs. The region has witnessed a resurgence of the Shining Path movement in recent years. The movement had been slowly fading out after the capture of its leader, Abimael Guzman, in 1992.
The remaining rebels have now joined forces with the drug traffickers in an effort to raise funds for their insurgency. Some 400 members of the Shining Path are believed to be still active in Peru, the world's second largest producer of coca -- the main ingredient in the making of cocaine, after Colombia.
- The Maoist-inspired Leftist group was founded in the 1980s with the intention of replacing Peru's "bourgeois democracy" with a Communist government. Although the group was very powerful in the 1980s and the 1990s, its influence waned by 2000 after a fierce crackdown by the then President Alberto Fujimori.
Fujimori was convicted in 2009 for ordering death-squad killings and kidnappings during the crackdown, which later became famous as Peru's "dirty war." The crackdown targeted Shining Path guerrillas and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. More than 70,000 people are believed to have died in two decades of conflict in the Andean country.
by RTT Staff Writer
Source http://www.rttnews.com/1949957/five-peruvian-soldiers-killed-in-rebel-attack.aspx?type=gn&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=sitemap&pageNum=2
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