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The Peruvian Navy serves in the front lines not only at sea, but also ashore—a mission it has had for more than ten years.
More than 22 million persons populate Peru’s coastal, mountain, and jungle regions—a mosaic of variegated geography in South America’s third largest country. The nation, rich in ethnic cultures—each jealously guarding its own customs—has been difficult to govern. Almost 30% of the population lives around the capital city of Lima, which has helped create not only centralism, but also, particularly since 1980, the phenomenon of terrorist subversion that the nation has been fighting for the last 14 years.
The Peruvian Navy is basically a seagoing and riverine force, but does operate on lakes such as Titicaca, on the border with Bolivia. Peruvian gunboats routinely navigate the swift-running rivers on the eastern slopes of the Andes, and a hospital ship operates along the rivers of the frontier.
The Departments of Loreto, Ucayali, and Madre de Dios form the frontier between Peru and Brazil. Task Force 100 has its headquarters in the Department of Ucayali; it also operates in the Department of Huanuco’s Province of Puerto Inca, and the Department of Loreto’s Province of Ucayali. The area has seen much of the fighting against subversion fomented by the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the Movimiento Rev- oluciondrio Tupac Amaru (Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement—MRTA).
Fighting initially in the south-central Andes in the Department of Ayacucho, the birthplace of the Shining Path movement, and later in the high jungle of Ayacucho, the navy at present is engaged in the jungle itself in Ucayali. Loreto, and Huanuco.
The Peruvian Navy hospital ship Morona, based at Iquitos on the Amazon, operates here on the Putumayo River, which forms the boundary with Colombia. A Peruvian Navy pharmacist’s mate goes ashore and writes out a prescription for a villager.
Ayacucho’s university, San Cristobal de Huamanga, has its original roots in the Spanish viceroyship and it is a cultural symbol not only of this department of the Peruvian sierra, but also of the country as a whole. The Shining Path’s ideology emerged here. It developed under cover of the teaching staff, which was able to control the university and mount a successful campaign of subversion— all under the auspices of the legal government.
Abimael Guzman Reynoso, the head of the Shining Path movement, taught with impunity at the university, spreading his doctrine among teachers and students. From him came the phrase, “to destroy the Old Order, it is necessary to break its back, which is the Armed Forces and this can only be done by forming the People’s Armed Forces in the course of armed struggle.”
Peruvian seamen first encountered the terrorists in Tambo, Fluamanguilla, San Jose de Cecce, and Huanta—the Shining Path's theater of operations at elevations reaching 13,000 feet above sea level. Task Force 90, part of the marines, fought for several years in the area before going down to the jungle of Ayacu- cho on the Apurimac River. In Huanta, the highest ranking marine officer took over the role of Political and Military Chief of the Provinces of Huanta and La Mar. Marines Pedro Cueva Vasquez, Felix Rosas Zevallos, and Johnny Ordonez Diaz distinguished themselves in these actions.
On 10 November 1984, Lieutenant Senior Grade Carlos Cieza Castellanos, Petty Officer Andres Casas Negreiros, and Apprentices Enrique Montedoro Es- curra and Ever Melendez Vargas gave their lives in the struggle. It should be emphasized that until President Fernando Belaunde Terry decided to send in the armed forces against the Shining Path and the MRTA, the Peruvian police were at the forefront; more than 2,000 were lost.
But the combination of uniformed men fighting at the sides of villagers has turned the tide; the Peruvian people have come to recognize that the fight against the Shining Path and the MRTA is more than a matter for just the armed forces and the Peruvian Police Force. Winning over the population, first in the mountains and then in the cities, has given a real body blow to the Shining Path and the MRTA.
The successes have not come easily. On 14 March 1986, Lieutenant Commander Jorge Alzamora Bustamente was assassinated while serving with Task Force 90 in Ayacucho. Two months later, Rear Admiral Carlos Ponce Canessa was killed. He had held, among other important posts, the position of Director of Naval Intelligence. Also in 1986, the navy subdued the rising of the criminal elements in the El Fronton Penitentiary but four servicemen were killed.
On 14 October 1986, Admiral Geron- imo Cafferata Marazzi, who had commanded the navy, was assassinated. On 6 December 1988. Marine Captain Juan Vega Llona, who had successfully taken part in the struggle at El Fronton, was assassinated in Bolivia by members of the Workers Revolutionary Movement—actually the Shining Path.
In July 1991, the Peruvian Navy took charge of the present Ucayali Front. The next month, two officers and nine seamen died on the Federico Basadre road, in the Province of Padre Abad, between the country houses Previsto and Bo- queron. On 1 September 1991, Rear Admiral Jorge Novoa Altamirano was assassinated, having fulfilled among other positions, Commander of El Callao Naval Base and Commander of the Naval Air Force.
On 12 September 1992, government forces captured Abimael Guzman Reynoso along with other Shining Path terrorists; Victor Polay Campos, head of the MRTA had been recaptured several months earlier. Today, sentenced to life imprisonment, they and others serve their sentences in a maximum- security prison located in El Callao Naval Base— guarded by the Peruvian Navy.
These important captures are directly related to the political measures taken by Peru’s present government—until 1990, the country’s legal framework allowed the Shining Path and the MRTA to commit their criminal activities with impunity. For more than ten years of this war, numerous members of the armed forces and police gave their lives to capture terrorists who were almost immediately freed by the Peruvian judiciary.
Perhaps because Peru is so far removed from the interests of the nations wielding the swords of economic power in the world, the nation was left to face this war alone. I have refrained from mentioning drug trafficking because, at least initially, Peruvian subversive activity was not related to the drug traffic. Later, for reasons of mutual interest, a close connection developed; today, subversion relies on the marketing of cocaine—narco-terrorism. The two have become the common enemy.
The same remoteness of interests and a notable international campaign of misinformation have generated foreign support for the Shining Path and the MRTA. This campaign has been directed by obscure Peruvian political personalities who, in turn, have connections with important organizations linked, in many cases, to human rights. Some naive people, acting in good faith, were hoodwinked by these agents; European news agencies predicted a Peruvian apocalypse, which has not happened.
In a world concerned with the end of the Cold War, it seems fitting to give at least fleeting reference to the way in which a small, ancient country, birthplace of thousand-year old cultures and the Inca Empire, continues to wage an internal war in which the navy is playing a vital role.
Abbe Sieyes once said that a nation consists of its land and its dead. In memory of them and of all those who previously forged what is now the Peruvian Navy, the fight is continuing on the military front, side by side with the Peruvian people and their government.
Admiral Casaretto Alvarado is the Director of Navy Education. A surface officer, he has served extensively at sea and commanded the destroyer Rodriguez.