Posted on 12/22/2005 5:24:10 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
IN ONE of the bloodiest incidents for more than a decade, Shining Path guerrillas ambushed and killed eight police officers, amid fears that money from drug trafficking is giving the Peruvian rebel group a new lease of life.
The ambush was set along the road to Aucayacu, more than 240 miles east of Lima. As the vehicle carrying nine officers entered the rebel killing zone, 20 members of the Shining Path opened up with automatic weapons. The police driver managed to get the vehicle off the road, where those not killed in the initial hail of gunfire fought on for 20 minutes before being overwhelmed.
There was one survivor, whom the guerrillas left for dead. Initial forensic reports said that at least three of the police officers were shot in the head from close range, suggesting rebels finished off the wounded after the fire fight.
Luis Vizcarra, a general in the police force, said: "We know it was these terrorists, as they left behind a red rag with a hammer and sickle." The flag is the calling card of the Marxist movement that brought Peru to its knees in the early 1990s in a war that left more than 70,000 dead.
"We are deploying police units, and this lamentable event is a consequence of police pressure that the terrorist remnants are feeling," Gen Vizcarra said. "This unfortunately is the price we have to pay in trying to guarantee law and order in the zone."
This latest ambush comes on the back of three other attacks this month as security forces try to make inroads into a traditional drug-growing region.
On 5 December, another rebel column tried to free a suspected drugs trafficker being transported by police in the Apurimac Valley. Five officers were killed in the attack. The army has also been involved in skirmishes, and rebels shot at a military helicopter in the area.
The Shining Path was thought to have been defeated after the capture of its leader, Abimael Guzman, in 1992.
Ah, elections in Bolivia. The gift that keeps on giving - I guess we can look forward to the creation of a South America-wide narcotics free trade zone.
If we didn't use it, they wouldn't come.
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