PERU: Authorities transfer bodies of two soldiers killed by landmines allegedly set by a Shining Path remnant band

Record ID: 352318

  • Title: PERU: Authorities transfer bodies of two soldiers killed by landmines allegedly set by a Shining Path remnant band
  • Date: 26th November 2010
  • Summary: SOUNDBITE (Spanish) FAMILY MEMBER OF FALLEN SOLDIER MILTON MOLINA, SAYING: "Soldiers end up dead and without families. A three-year old creature is now fatherless." FAMILY MEMBERS OF SOLDIERS CRY SOUNDBITE (Spanish) ARMY COMMANDER OTTO GUIBOVICH, SAYING: "Unfortunately, when lives are lost to clandestine actions by drug trafficking groups, it's painful because soldiers
  • Embargoed: 11th December 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Peru, Peru
  • Country: Peru
  • Reuters ID: LVAD6W171Y4T3QDRY5XZG0I3YHIM
  • Story Text: Peruvian authorities transfered on Thursday (November 25) the bodies of two soldiers killed after stumbling onto landmines set by a remnant band of Shining Path rebels involved in the cocaine trade.
    While on the patrol in the coca-growing region of the Ene and Apurimac Valleys, seven soldiers were wounded and two of them died from wounds caused by the exploding landmines, which are often used to guard drug trafficking routes or cocaine labs.
    Soldiers Milton Molina and Lorenzo Huancachoque died while on duty on Tuesday (November 23).
    "Soldiers end up dead and without families. A three-year old creature is now fatherless," said this member of Molina's family.
    Molina's body will be transported to the city of Jaen to be buried. Huancachoque's family will transport his body to Cusco.
    President Alan Garcia has sent more soldiers over the last two years to areas rife with coca plantations in an effort to turn the tide in Peru's drug war.
    The army and police have been caught repeatedly in ambushes that have killed more than 50 soldiers or officers.
    "Unfortunately, when lives are lost to clandestine actions by drug trafficking groups, it's painful because soldiers are carrying out their duty and their mission," said Army Commander Otto Guibovich.
    Peru has surpassed Colombia as the world's largest producer of cocaine, the United Nations said this year. Some of Garcia's critics have said that his strategy has failed to make headway.
    Estimates of the size of the Shining Path range from less than 100 to several hundred. Political analysts say the Shining Path no longer poses an acute threat to the government but is part of long-term risks associated with the drug trade.
    After their leader Abimael Guzman was captured in the early 1990s, most fighters in the Maoist Shining Path abandoned a bloody civil war they launched against the state.
    Some of them then fled to the jungle and went into the lucrative cocaine trade. Initially they offered protection for trafficking routes and later moved into cocaine production, officials say.
    Officials say the Shining Path group in the Ene and Apurimac Valleys has had a falling out with Guzman and is no longer driven by ideology.
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