Eighteen people, including two children, were killed in a remote valley Peru where coca crops are located, with the armed forces blaming the killings on isolated guerrillas of the Maoist Light Trail movement.
The massacre may increase the volume further in the already polarized election campaign in view of the second round of the presidential elections, on June 6. The candidate of the populist right, Keiko Fuchimori, accuses her opponent, the candidate of the radical left, Pedro Castillo, of being connected with the political arm of the Bright Path, something that the interested party categorically denies.
Via Twitter, Mr. Castillo hurried to condemn “This terrorist act”, while Mrs. Fuchimori spoke of “bloody actions”.
“We are among the 18” killed villagers in the village of San Miguel del Ene, in the valley of the rivers Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro (central-south), the main coca-producing sector in Peru, said Oscar Ariola, head of the counterterrorism directorate. police, on a television network. In addition to the two children, the victims are ten men and six women.
According to the Peruvian authorities, the Bright Path, the Maoist guerrilla movement that fought against the state from 1980 to 2000, still operates in this area. This conflict had tens of thousands of victims.
“These events remind us of the era of barbarism and terror in the country for more than 20 years, which left behind more than 70,000 dead and a large number of missing,” said Archbishop Miguel Cabrechos, chairman of the conference of bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America.
“Brochures were found on the spot demanding that the population not participate in the 2021 election process,” the armed forces said in a press release, blaming a unit of the Path of Light led by Victor Cispe Palomino.
Rebels scattered
Although almost all Maoist guerrilla leaders have been serving prison sentences in Peru for years, some fighters remain scattered in isolated forest and mountainous areas. Authorities estimate that these fighters are about 350 and accuse them of collaborating with drug traffickers.
“I unequivocally condemn the killing of these 14 people,” said interim President Francisco Sagasti on Twitter, who ordered the deployment of “army and police patrols” in the area “so that this terrorist act does not go unpunished.”
The prosecutor’s office has instructed a directorate specializing in terrorism cases to investigate the killings. The Minister of Defense, Nuria Espars, promised that “they will not go unpunished”.
In 2003, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that 70,000 people had been killed or disappeared during the 20-year-old armed conflict between security forces and the Bright Path and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA, Guevara).
According to the Commission’s calculations, the Path of Light was responsible for 54% of the victims of the civil war. Among the bloodiest actions attributed to the organization was the killing in 1984 of a total of 117 farmers in Soras, Ayacucho Prefecture (south), for refusing to support the movement.
Peru is one of the countries producing the largest quantities of coca leaves and cocaine in the world, along with Colombia and Bolivia.
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