Military Politics and Democracy in the Andes

4. Mission Constraint and Neglect of Counterinsurgency: Peru since 2000

Reminiscent of its behavior in the late 1980s, Peru’s army underperformed its counterinsurgency mission during 2000–2007 in response to what officers thought was a government-created contradiction in that mission: the army had a mandate to eliminate the guerrillas but lacked the autonomy that army leaders deemed necessary to do the work. In this chapter I analyze the Peruvian army’s mission performance in the first decade of the new century, in two parts. The first part describes the army’s refusal to carry out counterinsurgency against the remnants of Sendero Luminoso and to conduct available policing duties, and demonstrates that this behavior cannot be explained by frameworks based on military interests in professionalism, legitimacy, and/or resources. The second part explains the army’s paralysis, highlighting the importance of mission beliefs and predictability for army patrols. staying in the barracks The Peruvian army refused to perform counterinsurgency in spite of an ongoing guerrilla threat, the highly professional nature of the mission, and the resources and public legitimacy that doing the work would have brought to the army. A chapter 4 B Mission Constraint and Neglect of Counterinsurgency Peru since 2000 Mission Constraint and Neglect of Counterinsurgency in Peru 59 Insecurity in Sendero Zones Since the rapid decline of Sendero Luminoso and the elimination of the MRTA in the 1990s, Peru’s remaining guerrilla (i.e., Sendero) zones have been pockets of the VRAE and the VAH. Insecurity in the two regions can be classified into two broad categories. First, armed Sendero guerrillas continue to exercise coercion . Second, in the regions, other types of security threats, including drug traf- ficking and protests by coca farmers (cocaleros), have also been common. Confronting this second category of activities, which have been exacerbated but generally not performed directly by armed insurgents, would be police work. Coercion Exercised by Armed Guerrillas Following Abimael Guzmán’s capture in 1992, Sendero split into two branches, one armed and one purely political. The focus of this study is on the violent branch.1 Sendero is much weaker than it was in the 1980s and 1990s in terms of its military prowess and violent tactics, but nevertheless, the group is still active.2 Because of financing from the drug trade (as analyzed below) and other activities, including the extortion of loggers, Sendero’s armed wing is well-off in terms of weapons, communications equipment, uniforms, and other items used in its operations (El Comercio [Lima] 8/28/01).3 As of 2000, the total annual number of incidents involving insurgents had declined from 1,918 in 1993 to 187 (figure 4.1). Since 2000, Sendero combatants 0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Incidents National total post-2000 Sendero Luminoso zones Figure 4.1. Insurgent Activity in Peru by Zone, 1993–2004. Sendero Luminoso zones include the departments of Apurímac, Ayacucho, Cusco, Huancavelica, Huánuco, Junín, and San Martín. Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática 2005b, drawing on national police data 60 Military Politics and Democracy in the Andes have numbered between approximately 200 and 450 (El Comercio [Lima] 3/3/03, 7/18/03, 12/25/05; McClintock 2005, 79; Balbi 1/2/06), down from 10,000 at the peak of the insurgency (see chapter 3). We also observe a decline in the guerrilla threat when considering changes in Sendero’s tactics. Peru’s state security forces divide guerrilla incidents into four categories. A first category is sabotage of infrastructure, extremely common during the 1980s and into the 1990s but almost nonexistent since 2000. A second is intimidation and kidnapping. As an example, in San Juan de Ubiriqui (near Satipo, Junín) in August 2001, hooded, armed Sendero members (senderistas) forced the lieutenant governor and twenty other community members to gather on the town’s athletic field. The combatants told the political official that they did not want a state authority in the town. The lieutenant governor resigned the next day out of fear (Ramírez 9/2/01). Perhaps the most internationally well-known kidnapping incident occurred in June 2003, in the district of Anco (in La Mar, Ayacucho ). Sixty-two senderistas kidnapped seventy-one employees of Techint, an Argentine company that was constructing the private Camisea natural-gas line that runs from Peru’s eastern jungle to...