Proefschrift Mario 12/11/02 10:45 Page 153

proefschrift mario 12/11/02 10:45 Page 153 5From Selva to Sierra The reaction has two ways to crush guerrillas: (1) to win the masses, (2) to liquidate the leadership, because as long as it remains, it will return....1 Partido Comunista del Perú-Sendero Luminoso 5.1 The Comandos Especiales In September 1991, DECAS militiamen were once again in the district of Tambo. In the twenty-four and a half months since they first came to the district during Operation Halcón, civil defence organisation in most of Tambo’s rural communities had yet again disintegrated. Back in August 1989, Tambo’s rural communities apparently exhibited a common determination to oppose Shining Path. In spite of this, however, strong guerrilla presence in the district persisted, chipping away at, and so demoralising, the peoples’ will to resist Shining Path. The periodic armed incursions; the frequent levies from rural villages of provisions and recruits (including children) to replenish rebel ranks; the chilling execution of “enemies” and “traitors” immedi- ately following a “people’s trial” (juicio popular)—all these served as constant, vio- lent reminders to the peasants of the terrifying hold that Shining Path had on their daily lives. By mid-1991, most of the villages that had previously reorganised themselves with the help of the DECAS during Operation Halcón had once again deacti- vated their self-defence committees. It had become apparent to them that their comités de autodefensa not only attracted cruel reprisals from the rebels, but also were quite incapable of realistically deterring rebel attacks, particularly given their pitiful weaponry and lack of support from the army at the time. The local army garrison, securely sheltered in a fortified base on top of the small hill adjacent to the town’s central plaza, showed little interest in engaging the guerrilla columns or risk- ing themselves in protecting the rural populace. Their nonchalant attitude caused local resentment and merely heightened the demoralisation of Tambo’s rural communities. Many peasants interpreted the army’s reluctance to fight or to carry out routine patrol duties during the second half of the García regime not as a political decision, but as simple cowardice. “The soldiers, they were frightened of the terru- cos,” was what many peasants in Tambo thought at the time. Historian Steve J. Stern once wrote, “peasant societies, to survive, are notorious- ly sensitive to changes in power balances” (1982:30). This certainly held true in respect of Tambo’s rural peasant communities, especially at this juncture. At the start of the new decade, Sendero’s strength in most parts of the emergency zone seemed to be growing, while the army’s appeared to be diminishing. Thus, it was as a matter of survival that most Tambinos came to the conclusion that it was more sensible to appease, or at times even collaborate with, the guerrillas, than to oppose them. Only a very few villages continued to resist Shining Path through self-defence committees, foremost of which was the multi-community desplazado settlement of 153 proefschrift mario 12/11/02 10:45 Page 154 From Victims to Heroes Ccarhuapampa. For reasons that later are discussed, it was only the civil defence com- mittee of Ccarhuapampa that had remained solidly organised since it was formed at the end of 1983. It was in this context of a general stagnation and demoralisation of the civil defence movement in Tambo district that the handful of comités de defensa civil that continued to function there appealed to the DECAS of the Apurímac River Valley for help. Jorge Choque Quispe, President of the DECAS of Pichihuillca, responded by sending a detachment of Pichihuillca’s Comandos Especiales to Tambo. Under cover of night, this elite and well-armed company of fifty-three seasoned militiamen arrived in the village of Osno on 14 September. From there, they pro- ceeded, one by one, to reorganise or reactivate the comités de defensa civil of Tambo’s rural villages. Once the civil defence patrol of Masinga had been reorganised, the Comandos Especiales reorganised those of Challhuamayo, Mahuayura, and Tapuna. Then they moved on to Vicos, Huayao, Patapata, and Millpo. “From Millpo we then entered Qeqra,” Comando Zorro, one of the two Comandos de Operativos in the group, recalled years later. “Qeqra was the principal support base of Sendero [in the district]. It was a village where everyone—children, adults, everyone—was commit- ted [to the subversion]. It was a control centre where they planned and organised assaults, incursions.”2 Situated in a fertile valley some four kilometres east of Tambo town, Qeqra pre- sented an ideal base for guerrilla operations in the sub-region. The village is in con- veniently close proximity to the town, yet distant enough to avoid drawing the atten- tion of the army garrison or the police detachment. Consequently, Qeqra became for Shining Path a “principal support base.” Not only did the rebels draw freely from the material and human resources of the village itself, they also utilised Qeqra as a sort of central depot for food supplies gathered from surrounding areas. These were then transported by pack animals along mountain footpaths and used to re-supply guerrilla forces dispersed throughout the Apurímac and Ene River Valleys, the sierras of La Mar, Huanta, and Huamanga, even as far away as Huancavelica.3 For these reasons, the capture of Qeqra became the first important strategic objective of the Comandos Especiales. The Comandos Especiales eventually succeeded in dislodging the rebels from Qeqra, and took control of the village in October. “We drove Sendero out of the community of Qeqra, and then set ourselves up there, in their very base. This infuri- ated them, and thereafter we found ourselves harassed every late afternoon, every evening, for it had been their base and it was as if we had thrown them out of their own home!” Comando Zorro recalled years later with brimming satisfaction.4 The Comandos Especiales established themselves in Qeqra, using it as their own base of operations. Apparently, this early triumph was achieved not so much by a clash of arms as through careful intelligence work, which had resulted in the capture of spe- cific individuals suspected either of being the important local Senderista authorities, and their willing collaborators. This was made possible, according to Comando Zorro, because the DECAS had their own informants and spies within the rural villages—“our own ears and our own eyes, just like Sendero” is how he described them.5 It was with the aid of these individuals that the Comandos Especiales were able to detect and deactivate Sendero’s clandestine political-military cells within Tambo’s 154 proefschrift mario 12/11/02 10:45 Page 155 From Selva to Sierra rural communities. By returning to the district, it was not the intention of the Comandos Especiales merely to repeat the transitory success of Operation Halcón. This time, the militiamen had been mandated by DECAS chiefs in Pichihuillca to remain in the district for an entire year. This decision was made by DECAS commanders in Pichihuillca in the light of the fact that the organisational efforts of Operation Halcón had failed to pre- vent the eventual degeneration of Tambo’s local civil defence committees. They con- cluded that what was necessary was some form of direct and prolonged presence of DECAS militiamen in Tambo district, if there was to be any hope of strengthening and consolidating the civil defence initiative there. To this end, the Comandos Especiales came fully prepared for the task in hand. The majority of the men in the group were seasoned fighters, and all were well armed. Should one be killed, a replacement would be sent from the Apurímac Valley to take his place. Furthermore, arrangements had been made so that the Comandos Especiales would be financed entirely by the DECAS organisation of the Apurímac River Valley for the duration of their tour of duty in Tambo. “The people of the selva who had coca crops—all of them—they gave a monthly tip [“propina”] of two hundred nuevos soles per person, and we lived on that,” explained Comando Zorro. In principle, the Comandos Especiales were enti- tled to this remuneration for one year, if available funds could be made to stretch that long.6 This impressively sophisticated arrangement owes itself to the fact that, as we have already seen in the preceding chapter, the DECAS of the Apurímac Valley were in a unique economic position to finance to a certain extent the expansion of the civil defence movement in the department of Ayacucho. Their exceptional capacity to do so was largely made possible by the financial support they received from the narco- traficantes in the Apurímac Valley. “That money was what we used to finance the countersubversive struggle in that zone,” Comando Zorro admitted to me.7 5.2 Facilitating conditions for the expansion and institutionalisation of Civil Defence Organisations in the Zone of Emergency The election of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) as the next president of the Republic initiated a dramatic transformation in the nation’s political situation. For one thing, it led to a fresh, bold counterinsurgency policy on the part of the government and the army.8 In Fujimori the armed forces finally found a supportive and sympathetic president and commander in chief, determined to do whatever was required—at whatever cost—to defeat the subversion once and for all. Although at first it took some time before Fujimori and his military chiefs could agree on exactly how to proceed, “some months after initiating his government, Fujimori accepted the proposals of the Armed Forces.

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