Claims that the 'historic' leader of Sendero Luminoso (SL) has been masterminding the recent upsurge of guerrilla activity are 'absolute nonsense', said interior minister Fernando Rospigliosi last week. As we have reported, these claims have come from high-ranking officers of the police's antiterrorist directorate, Dircote (WR-03-27). The police reports to the interior ministry, so heads can be expected to roll.
Indeed, they have already started rolling. On 1 August Rospigliosi dismissed the director-general of the national police, General Eduardo Pérez Rocha - who weeks ago had publicly criticised the commission charged with modernising the police force, a body created by Rospigliosi when he was first interior minister. Pérez Rocha's replacement, General Gustavo Carrión Zavala, dutifully proclaimed during his swearing-in ceremony that he would pursue the reform plans devised by Rospigliosi.
No contact with armed remnant of SL
Rospigliosi says that the only armed group of senderistas is the one operating in the jungle valley of the Ene and Apurímac rivers, and that it does not take orders from Guzmán. Moreover, he says, there have been no meetings of SL leaders in the Callao naval base prison where Guzmán has been held since the days of President Alberto Fujimori. The closest thing to such a meeting took place during the interim administration of Valentín Paniagua, when a group of senderista prisoners (none of them leaders) were taken to Guzmán's prison to verify that he was still alive.
The minister has also dismissed the suggestion that there was anything suspicious about the secret meetings between former justice ministry adviser Javier Ciurlizza and SL leaders in the Callao prison in late 2000 and early 2001. The fact that these meetings had taken place was only acknowledged much later, when recordings of the discussions were leaked to the press. Ciurlizza claims that he had only been seeking to prevent a senderista hunger strike in the Yanamayo prison, in Puno, which had been the scene of a major riot in the Fujimori era.
Conflicting evidence?
For all of Rospigliosi's disclaimers, almost at the same time he was speaking, the prison service reported that it had applied sanctions to Guzmán, his companion Elena Iparaguirre and two imprisoned leaders of the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA), for having staged protests - the former against 'calumnies' in the press, the latter for not having been allowed 'special visitors'.
The sanctions included a 15-day suspension of correspondence rights and visits from anyone except the prisoners' lawyers - which implies that under normal circumstances they are quite able to maintain contact with the outside world.
Reputation for toughness
Rospigliosi has vowed to move swiftly and energetically to stamp out terrorism. An erstwhile leftwinger best known previously as a political commentator, he adopted a tough line when he became Toledo's first interior minister. After senderistas set off a car bomb that killed 10 just before the arrival of US President George Bush Jr in March last year, Rospigliosi took advantage of the public mood to push through congress security legislation which, inter alia, authorised police wiretaps and postal intercepts without court orders and penalised the staging of demonstrations that 'interfere' with the free flow of traffic with prison terms of up to six years. Unsurprisingly, this attracted much criticism from human rights organisations.
He earned himself the enmity of regional social organisations when he sought to quash the widespread protests against the privatisation of power utilities. The police action he ordered only exacerbated the situation, and when the government caved in and shelved the divestments, Rospigliosi resigned. He later became head of the state intelligence agency, CNI, but held the post briefly, resigning at the same time as his successor at the interior ministry, over resistance to his plans to reform the national police.
End of preview - This article contains approximately 654 words.
Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article
Not a Subscriber?
Choose from one of the following options
