PERU | Compulsory military service. The military high command announced on 22 March that if a recruitment drive to be held in April does not result in the necessary intake of new army personnel, it will resort to the new legislation approved last December, which provides for a compulsory draft by lottery of males aged 18-25. The legislation exempts parents and university students, and allows those who do not wish to enlist to get away with a fine of US$700. It establishes a starting salary for soldiers of US$100 a month, rising to US$146 — considerably lower than the legal…

A major combined operation in the Vizcatán area of the VRAEM led to the seizure of several camps of the Sendero Luminoso (SL) unit led by the Quispe Palomino clan, including what appears to have been the group’s logistical hub. It did not, however, succeed in capturing or killing the group’s third-ranking leader, who had been based there when the operation began. When intelligence gathered by the national police pointed to the possible location of one of the key guerrilla camps in the mountainous Vizcatán area of Huanta, Ayacucho, plans for a major combined operation were drawn up. Codenamed Ocaso…

A wave of attacks by the Farc guerrillas on energy infrastructure targets over the past couple of months — a key feature of their new strategy — has spurred the government into launching a major operation to meet a stubborn, longlasting challenge: the surveillance of long stretches of oil pipelines, railway tracks, and high-tension power lines and the rapid deployment of troops to the points where guerrilla threats are detected. Farc actions of this kind are not a new development, but they have been escalating as a result of the organisation’s shift back to more traditional guerrilla tactics. In 2012…