Shining Path resurgence may be financed by cocaine money

[emad]

Sibylla Brodzinsky in Bogotá
Saturday December 31, 2005
The Guardian


A recent spate of rebel attacks in Peru has raised fears of a cocaine-funded comeback by one of the most feared insurgencies in Latin America.
In one of the bloodiest incidents Peru has seen since the defeat of the Maoist Shining Path rebels a decade ago, insurgents killed eight police officers on December 20 in an ambush in Peru's central jungles near the town of Aucayacu.

The attack followed the killing two weeks before of three other officers in the same region, known for its drug crops. Five other officers have been wounded in other attacks.


In response, the government of President Alejandro Toledo declared a 60-day state of emergency in the central jungle region, banning public gatherings and giving police and military the right to search houses and make arrests without warrants. By the previous standards of the Shining Path, which in its heyday in the 1980s and early 1990s was a 5,000-strong rebel army known for vicious tactics, the recent killings are small-scale.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1675724,00.html