The Peruvian government has been celebrating a major triumph in its fight against the remnants of the Sendero Luminoso (SL) guerrillas: the capture of Florindo Eleuterio Flores Hala (‘Camarada Artemio’), the leader of the smaller of the two factions. Details of his capture even are not entirely clear. Attention is now focusing on what will happen to Flores’s followers and the fate of the rival SL faction that operates in the Apurímac-Ene River Valley (Vrae).
On 12 February Defence Minister Alberto Otárola announced that ‘Artemio’ had been captured alive, though badly injured. President Ollanta Humala immediately flew to the Santa Lucía army base in the Upper Huallaga valley where ‘Artemio’ was being treated. After holding a brief meeting with the prisoner, he said he had urged him to call upon his followers to down arms, and announced that he had “ordered the specialised forces to direct all their efforts towards capturing the narco-senderista remnants acting in the Vrae under the command of ‘José’”.
‘Camarada José’(Víctor Quispe Palomino) leads a force estimated to be about 300 strong, more than three times the number attributed to the forces led by ‘Artemio’ at the time of his capture. It has also been, by far, the most aggressive of the two SL remnants and, since mid-2010, has been conducting probes into the rival faction’s territory (indeed, in July of that year there were reports of such a probe in the vicinity of where ‘Artemio’ was captured). Since then, there have been several reports of a northward expansion of the Vrae guerrillas.
On 13 February the government announced that a leading figure of the Vrae unit, Albino Toscano Taipe (‘Camarada Tucán’) had been captured. Three days later, SL fighters struck at an army patrol operating out of the Unión Mantaro base in Huanta, Ayacucho. After a brief exchange of gunfire, in which an army captain was killed, the attackers departed.
The precise circumstances leading up to the capture of ‘Artemio’ are unclear. There was a clash between security forces and guerrillas on 9 February, in which ‘Artemio’ was said to have been hit. Several versions were put out by officials. According to one, ‘Artemio’ had been shot by members of his own protection detail who wanted to collect the US$5m reward offered by the US for information leading to his capture. Another, put out by officials, was that the security forces were led to where ‘Artemio’ was hiding by two “moles” in his security detail. There have also been suggestions that ‘Artemio’ may have negotiated a disguised surrender to the authorities.
Equally confusing have been the successive reports about the extent of the injuries suffered by ‘Artemio’. Defence Minister Otárola said upon his capture that he had been gravely injured and might lose the use of an arm. Later, official reports spoke of unspecified injuries to his thorax and an arm (or hand). He was, however, well enough to converse with Humala and, later in Lima, with police Director Raúl Salazar.
One thing is certain: in the days immediately after ‘Artemio’ was captured, the security forces had good enough information to locate a significant cache of weapons nearby and another larger one in a hamlet close to Puerto Pisana. On the very day of his capture, they found two satellite phones and 18 notebooks which, according to off-the-record information from police sources, contained details of the drug traffickers who were paying ‘Artemio’ for protection and, most intriguing, the names of some high-ranking military and police officers, legislators, politicians and local authorities, as well leaders of the coca-growing associations and the local self-defence rondas.
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