The Offensive
by Jorge Vargas
The 1980s saw the rise of two bellicose and gregarious elements within Peru.
The first rose up on 17 May 1980. It was commanded by Abimael Guzman. It was called Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path).
The second was prevalent throughout the 1980s but it did not gain power until 1990. It was commanded by top generals within the Peruvian Armed Forces, and eventually by Vladimiro Montesinos Torres and former president Alberto Fujimori Fujimori. Eventually, it was called fujimorismo, and it has no real platform but is instead a sort of fascist ideology by which the State is always right in a never-ending fight against terrorists and communists.
The leaders of both elements are now imprisoned. Abimael Guzman was tried for treason. Alberto Fujimori was tried for violations of human rights, corruption, abuse of power, and a handful of other crimes.
Both were processed and found guilty.
Both are now in prison.
But Shining Path is not utterly defeated.
Last week, when Peruvians were celebrating the guilty verdict against Fujimori, the condemned, Shining Path's remnants killed 14 Peruvian soldiers.
The remnants of Shining Path are now hiding in the Apurimac valley known as VRAE, holding out in the Vizcatan strong-hold. Vizcatan was well known as a terrorist fortress during the war in the 1980s and 1990s, and that valley remains the only Shining Path hiding hole today.
Today's Shining Path are not the communist rebels of yesteryear who fought for a cause, despite the fact that their cause was broken and without virtue.
Today's terrorists are little more than drug dealers. They protect the illegal coca producers in the valley and protect the shipments made from there to the drug processors elsewhere in that valley. These dealers then send cocaine through Lima or other coastal towns and cities and the cocaine either goes to Colombia - for further processing - or to Mexico in order to reach the United States or else to Africa, and from there to the streets of Europe.
The Shining Path had 10,000 members in its glory days.
Today, they are down to 500 fighters, but those 500 have been with the terrorist group for decades, and they are now well-trained veterans in the guerrilla warfare that the Shining Path is waging against the Peruvian State.
The Peruvian State made the decision to launch an offensive, which began last October, that is two-fold in character.
There is, of course, a strong military element within this offensive. Thousands of soldiers are penetrating Vizcatan and re-conquering the State's territory while attempting to drive away the terrorists.
In the meantime, there is also a societal emphasis that has allowed the Peruvian State to invest nearly $100 million in that region in recent years. The investments have gone toward development projects and toward efforts, on the part of the State, to engage the citizenry living in that area to make alliances with the local community in order to further decimate the terrorist threat.
There are a host of problems with the Vizcatan valley, however. The first is that it has three escape routes for the terrorists to use, should the offensive ever launch an all-out invasion. These escape routes are spread far apart and provide significant logistical constraints for the Peruvian Armed Forces.
Then, of course, there is the climate. Vizcatan is located where the Andes meet the Amazon, making the region highly inaccessible and making operations more expensive than otherwise.
Finally, there is also the difficulty that lies in trying to find only 500 people in a massive area in a dense forest. And, of course, 500 is but an estimate. There could now only be 400, just as there could be 600. The terrorists drag away the bodies of their fallen whenever there is a firefight, making it impossible to attain an accurate body count, thus making it difficult to assess whether or not the operation is successful.
Facing these difficulties, several former members of the State who once directly influenced the Armed Forces have thought it prudent to criticize the offensive as ineffective.
They might be correct.
They suggest precise and tactical special operations attacks. They suggest surgical decimation of the otherwise defeated enemy rather than a traditional, full-frontal, all-out offensive.
They might be correct.
They approve the social-cultural-development emphasis of the current campaign, and there is no doubt that it is effective. There is no doubt that it is a massive improvement over the old campaign of the 1980s and 1990s that treated the local populations as undeclared enemies.
Prime Minister Yehude Simon has agreed that the current offensive is marked by imperfections, and there is no doubt that he is correct in his assertion.
The Peruvian Armed Forces are at once highly conventional and highly revolutionary.
Peru's Air Force boasts French-made Mirage 2000 and Belorusian MiG-29 with Russian technical support, and then there are U.S.-made bombers from a generation past, and a host of Italian and Russian helicopters, and Russian Sukhoi 25 fighter jets as well.
The Peruvian Navy has several powerful warships and submarines, almost all of which hail from Russia and Latin Europe.
The Peruvian Army is composed of over 100,000 soldiers, and it is highly regimented and, admittedly, top-heavy. The Peruvian Army has dozens of tanks and other land-based attack and defense craft, along with several key surface to air missiles and several ground-support attack and defense helicopters. Furthermore, the Peruvian Army has several search and rescue units within it that serve to protect the citizenry from natural disasters in the various extreme climates that the Republic calls its sovereign territory.
But the Peruvian Army is also revolutionary in that it has been tested in guerilla warfare when so many other militaries have not had to go through such a grisly trial by fire. It can be said that if Peru's Army were in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden would have been captured years ago.
Furthermore, the Peruvian Army has units that participate closely with elite elements of the Peruvian national police. Together, these comprise the forefront of the the anti-subversive units of the Peruvian Armed Forces.
It is on that point that the Peruvian military is revolutionary.
However, the commanders of the Armed Forces in 2007 and 2008 opted for a traditional offensive, as if Peru were involved in a border conflict against Ecuador, with the capture of a border town being the primary objective.
On the surface, this is acceptable. However, there is still uncertainty as to where that "town" actually is, and there are no bases to bombard, there are no enemy warplanes to shoot down, and any mass bombing of the area will lead to allegations of human rights violations.
Thus, the argument for special operations units, for joint Army-Police units, and for surgical strike teams is a powerful one.
No government in the world can utilize conventional tactics against a cowardly enemy that seeks to use nature as an ally.
The United States demonstrated this to the world in Vietnam, and the same is true of France in Algeria, and of the USSR in Afghanistan.
Now, it is true that those nations were all invading - or attempting to hold on to - large territories far away from the original basing points of their militaries.
Peru does not have such a constraint, because Vizcatan lies in the heart of the Republic. There is no major transport cost involved in this conflict, for Peru.
One must then look at Cuba in the 1950s, when Castro's communists were using guerilla tactics - like those employed in China some years earlier - and when the Havana authorities were listening to U.S. advice that called for a major, traditional offensive against the communists.
The offensive failed, and Havana fell to communism.
Lima is not on the verge of falling, but the lessons are the same.
In every instance where traditional methods were utilized against a subversive, non-State enemy in that enemy's terrain, the State lost. Why?
Because the subversives are small. 500 people can find several hiding places in an area as large as Vizcatan. The terrorists can be flexible and can avoid any significant exposure. The Armed Forces can not. They can not blend into the scenery. They can not be flexible. Their size prohibits it.
Surgical-strike units would not have this problem.
Let us propose this, then.
Let us propose that the massive army currently attempting to recapture Vizcatan withdraw. Let a skeleton force remain, and send the rest to guard those three escape routes from the region.
Then, use those territories that have been conquered as staging points for surgical strikes and for intelligence gathering. It is obvious that intelligence is currently weak in that area, and whenever the State lacks adequate intelligence in a military situation, the State will find itself over-extended, cash-strapped, and weak (just ask the United States).
And do not withdraw the development aid to that region. It is pivotal for the development and pacification of the region and its denizens.
Making VRAE a top priority was an excellent move. Moving so many soldiers to the region was an excellent move.
But now the Republic needs to show these rebels who is truly revolutionary by throwing away the old rule book and launching an intelligent, cost-effective, and precise offensive that will wear out the opponents and force mass defections.
This is not beyond our reach.
And it must be done before the United States decides that Peru is in need of assistance and tries to make of Peru what was done with Colombia and what might still be done with Mexico.
And it must be done before the fujimoristas start to proclaim that the State is losing the war and use that lie to get themselves elected in 2011, because that will be a return of right-wing, near fascism. They have taken sound defeats in the years after their ten-year dictatorship, but they are still present, and they can still be a threat.
Many demons arose in the 1980s and 1990s.
Today, Peru is in a position to deal killing blows to both.
All Peru needs is the right strategy.
