PERU: POLICE HAVE RELEASED THE FIRST VIDEO OF A CAPTURED MAOIST SHINING PATH REBEL

Record ID: 646048

  • Title: PERU: POLICE HAVE RELEASED THE FIRST VIDEO OF A CAPTURED MAOIST SHINING PATH REBEL
  • Date: 6th July 2003
  • Summary: (W1) LIMA, PERU (JULY 6, 2003) (REUTERS) TRACKING SHOT OF CAR TRANSPORTING CARDOZO TO POLICE HEADQUARTERS/MEDIA RUNNING (2 SHOTS) PAN/SV EXTERIOR POLICE HEADQUARTER (2 SHOTS) SV/CU JOURNALIST TAKING PICTURES OF CARDOZO PHOTOS (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 21st July 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: HUANCAYO, LIMA, PERU
  • Country: Peru
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVABC9GT9ZBI9YZTMKUFYDG3EL1E
  • Story Text: Police have released the first video of a captured a key Maoist Shining Path rebel. According to authorities the arrest has left just one of jailed leader Abimael Guzman's inner circle at large.
    General Marco Miyashiro said Florentino Cerron Cardoso, known by his nom de guerre Marcelo, was arrested over the weekend in the central city of Huancayo and was being interrogated by anti-terrorism police in Lima. He was in charge of the Shining Path's committee for central Peru.
    Cerron, who police have linked to 122 murders, 92 rebel attacks and 91 other incidents of violence, appeared in a now-famous video in which Guzman was seen at a party in the late 1980s dancing with members of the Shining Path's Central Committee to the music of "Zorba the Greek."
    "This is an important capture," Carlos Tapia, a sociologist and member of Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission who has studied the group for two decades, told Radio Programas del Peru.
    The Shining Path, whose actions declined sharply after the capture of once-legendary Guzman in 1992, has been conducting raids in remote towns of southeastern Peru in the last few weeks and last month kidnapped 71 workers on a natural gas project for 36 hours before releasing them unharmed.
    The stepped-up activity of the group has caused alarm among Peruvians traumatized by two decades of guerrilla violence. The Shining Path is blamed for about half of the 30,000 deaths from political violence since the group took up arms in 1980.
    With Cerron's arrest, the only remaining leader of the central committee of the Shining Path, also known as the Communist Party of Peru, is the head of the Huallaga regional committee whose alias is "Artemio," Miyashiro said.
    President Alejandro Toledo, in a rare television interview late Sunday, said the importance of the group, whose militants are now estimated by police at a couple of hundred rebels in two river valleys, was being exaggerated.
    "There is a ... deliberate psycho-social campaign afoot and we are on their track," he told Panamericana Television, adding that police and armed forces budgets would be increased.
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