Impeccable operations do not customarily produce widespread public and political criticism. It is a safe bet that the prime minister Oscar Valdés regrets his choice of adjective to describe ‘Operation Freedom’ conducted between 10 and 14 April. Both the defence and interior ministers are facing imminent censure by congress and the position of Valdés himself now looks far from secure.
Speaking at a ceremony in Chimbote, in the northern region of Ancash,
President Humala admitted on 3 May that the Vrae was under the control of “terrorist groups”. He was justifying why the armed forces had been unable to enter the area to search for two policemen who went missing during the operation to free the hostages. He also explained that the locals who helped Dionisio Vilca locate the body of his son César on 3 May, three weeks after his disappearance, had conditioned their assistance on security forces not taking part in order to avoid being caught up in clashes with SL.
Humala said there were “two heroes: the son and the father who went to bring him back.” There are also two villains: the defence and interior ministers, Alberto Otárola and Daniel Lozada respectively. There was a public outcry after César Vilca’s colleague Luis Astuquillca emerged from the jungle on 29 April, having lived off mushrooms, insects, and the occasional grapefruit, for 17 days. He revealed that Vilca, seriously wounded, had urged him to press on without him. On top of suggestions of poor intelligence and a lack of strategy, media accounts are now proliferating of members of the security forces receiving terrible food and using poor quality bullet-proof jackets. The seeming abandonment of Astuquillca and Vilca to their fate, however, is at the centre of the media storm.
Opposition parties in the 130-member unicameral congress, determined to seize on the widespread public indignation to put the Humala administration in difficulties, is preparing to vote to censure Lozada and Otárola before the end of this week. Everything suggests that the opposition will muster the 66 votes necessary to censure them and demand their resignations. There is no unity in the face of the impending ordeal. Indeed, in what looks like a bid to save his own skin, Otárola directly criticised Lozada for attending a Unasur security summit last week: “he should not have travelled to Colombia”, he said.
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