Andean Group - February 2009 (ISSN 1741-4466)

The interior minister, Remigio Hernani, resigned on 19 February for “personal reasons". Hernani lasted just four months. He was the most controversial cabinet pick of Yehude Simon when he took over as prime minister last October, which made him very vulnerable as the public security situation deteriorated in Peru. His position fell under scrutiny as the security forces suffered several serious setbacks against the Sendero Luminoso guerrillas at the tail end of last year and evidence emerged that Mexican drug cartels were establishing themselves in Peru.

A former chief of criminal investigation of the police, Hernani was deeply unpopular with the national police, which he accused of incompetence. His first action on being appointed last October was to criticise fiercely General Jorge Cárdenas, who was head of intelligence, for resigning from his position: Cárdenas said he had resigned because he could not work under Simon, who had been convicted on a charge of 'apology of terrorism' in 1992 and sentenced to a 20-year prison term before being pardoned in 2000 by interim president Valentí­n Paniagua; Hernani said this was a smokescreen and that Cárdenas had actually resigned because of his antipathy for him. Hernani then forced out the head of the police, Octavio Salazar, whose security plans he described as “totally erratic, and unable to stand up to the least rigorous analysis".

The apparent resurgence of Sendero also mounted pressure on Hernani. While he is not solely responsible for the counter-insurgency campaign (the defence minister, Antero Flores-Aráoz, has responsibility for the armed forces in the Apurí­mac and Ene river valleys, VRAE) he is answerable for the police, which is conducting the campaign against another faction of Sendero in the Upper Huallaga.

The campaign in the Upper Huallaga has not been going well. The police claimed last November to be closing the net on Camarada Artemio, the leader of the Sendero faction in Huallaga, after confiscating what they said were some of his personal effects in a cave. However, they have not caught him, and police patrols have been on the receiving end of a series of ambushes. Artemio even had the temerity to appear on a local radio station in late December when he accused the police of seizing and torturing “innocent people" in the area because they could not find him.

Hernani attempted to explain the police's lack of success and the upsurge in Senderista violence by claiming that Mexican cartels were operating in Peru. This even prompted President Alan Garcí­a to ask his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderón for the Mexican counter-narcotics police to come to Peru to help combat the influence of Mexican cartels. This has not come to anything, possibly because shortly after Garcí­a made the appeal, a Mexican government report indicated that half of the country's 56,000 state and municipal police evaluated in 2008 were “useless and incapable".

New broom
Hernani was replaced by a congresswoman, Mercedes Cabanillas, who becomes Garcí­a's second female interior minister since he came to power in 2006. Cabanillas can be counted on to be less outspoken, but the opposition is already criticising her appointment because she is a member of the ruling Partido Aprista Peruano (PAP) rather than an independent. The opposition claims that this runs counter to Garcí­a's commitment not to stack the cabinet with members of the PAP.

• US ambassador

The Peruvian government appointed a high-profile new ambassador to the US. Luis Valdivieso, who until recently had served as the economy and finance minister, picks up the post. Valdivieso, 58, said he would strive to improve relations and focus on increasing cooperation in the fight against drug-trafficking. He replaces Felipe Ortiz de Zevallos in Washington.