U.S. offers $10 mn in rewards for Peruvian rebel chiefs

Washington, Jul 20 (EFE).- The United States is offering rewards of up to $5 million each for information leading to the capture of two leaders of the remnants of Peru's Shining Path guerrilla group.

Florindo Eleuterio Flores Hala, known as "Comrade Artemio," and Victor Quispe Palomino, alias "Comrade Jose," command Shining Path contingents in the Upper Huallaga Valley and in the Valley of the Apurimac and Ene rivers, or VRAE, region, respectively.

The State Department has added the two Peruvians to the U.S. list of most-wanted drug traffickers, joining the leaders of Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, as well as the chiefs of Colombia's leftist FARC rebel group.

Quispe "is the current leader of the Sendero remnants based in the VRAE, and oversees all of its illicit activities. These activities include extortion, murder, and drug trafficking," the State Department said.

"The drug trafficking activities of this faction of Sendero include taxes/extortion payments charged to local drug traffickers in exchange for security of cocaine labs and cocaine shipments made throughout the VRAE. Furthermore, currently Sendero owns several coca plots and cocaine base laboratories in the VRAE," the State Department said.

Flores Hala is likewise accused of being behind extortion rackets, bribery, killings and drug trafficking.

Comrade Artemio "himself is involved in the local cocaine trade in the Huallaga Valley, since he repeatedly invests his own and/or Sendero money in drug trafficking ventures with local drug traffickers," the State Department said.

The guerrilla leader "also repeatedly uses violence against Peruvian National Police officers, other GOP (Government of Peru) personnel, and the local populous (sic) in order to achieve his goals," the State Department said.

The Peruvian Armed Forces Joint Command said, meanwhile, that two suspected Shining Path guerrillas were killed and several others may have been wounded in a firefight with army troops in Putis, a remote area in Ayacucho province.

The firefight with "a terrorist column" occurred late in the afternoon on Sunday, the Armed Forces Joint Command said, adding that the army suffered no casualties.

An unidentified guerrilla carrying a backup filled with ammunition was captured after the firefight, Radio Programas del Peru, or RPP, reported.

Army troops engaged the guerrillas in a second firefight in Ayacucho on Monday, capturing a rebel.

The counterinsurgency operation is continuing, the Armed Forces Joint Command said.

The Lima daily El Comercio published a story last week revealing the true identity of Comrade Artemio.

The future rebel commander was born in the city of Camana on Sept. 8, 1961, dropped out of high school at the age of 17, joined the army a year later and served until late 1980.

Artemio left the army as a firearms expert and appeared in 1984 in the Upper Huallaga Valley, where most of Peru's drug gangs operate, organizing the guerrilla group's so-called regional committee, which he commands to this day.

Peruvian security forces' operations against the Shining Path's remnants have focused on the Upper Huallaga Valley and the VRAE.

The Maoist-inspired Shining Path launched its uprising on May 17, 1980, with an attack on Chuschi, a small town in Ayacucho province.

A truth commission appointed by former President Alejandro Toledo blamed the Shining Path for most of the nearly 70,000 deaths the panel ascribed to politically motivated violence during the two decades following the group's 1980 uprising.

The guerrilla group, according to commission estimates, also caused an estimated $25 billion in economic losses.

Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman Guzman, known to his fanatic followers as "President Gonzalo," was captured with his top lieutenants on Sept. 12, 1992, an event that marked the "defeat" of the insurgency.

The guerrilla leader, who was a professor of philosophy at San Cristobal University before initiating his armed struggle in the Andean city of Ayacucho, once predicted that 1 million Peruvians would probably have to die in the ushering-in of the new state envisioned by Shining Path.

The group became notorious for some of its innovations, such as blowing apart with dynamite the bodies of community service workers its members killed, or hanging stray canines from lampposts as warnings to "capitalist dogs."

The Shining Path's remnants did not comply with Guzman's order more than a decade ago to end the armed struggle, and he does not recognize them as members of the group.

The La Republica newspaper reported in May 2009 that Guzman, who is serving a life sentence for terrorism, called the remaining members of the guerrilla group operating in the VRAE region "mercenaries".