South American Journal

I have to admit, I haven't been keeping up on the news coming out of Peru's anti-insurgency and anti-narcotrafficking efforts. I probably should brush up at the Plan Colombia and Beyond blog or the Narco News Bulletin.

Like most observers, I figured that Sendero was a bad, but increasingly distant memory. But I see today that the AP reports an increase in Sendero activity in the Apurimac valley. Chilling, in light that I'll be heading there in a few weeks. Not to that valley, thank you very much, but to an area a couple hours outside of Ayacucho, which saw more than its fair share of Sendero and army massacres back in the 80s-90s.

It's interesting to read in the article that some villagers still regard Fujimori as a hero for bringing down Sendero before he fled the country in shame. Perhaps it's the folks who were visited by the guerrillas and escaped reprisals by the army. And perhaps that's just the nature of things, that in this kind of war, there is no black and white, that a guy like Fujimori, while authorizing war against his own fellow citizens, also did in fact succeed in decapitating one of the most frightening guerrilla movements since the Khmer Rouge.

• Read Peru's Shining Path guerrillas on the rise again
• Check out my niece Melissa's blog post about attending Fujimori's trial. She's doing a fantastic job on her blog of chronicling her first visit to Peru. Can a career in journalism be far behind?
• Find out about Foundation Comunidad, a group I recently joined, that is bringing schools, books (and teachers' dirty looks?) to some villages that were hard hit by the Sendero-FAP civil war.

Update: My neice Melissa went on a class field trip to the U.S. embassy and asked specifically about this article. Apparently, they dismissed the reports as being overblown.