Violent cartel culture now threatens Peru
Mexican and Colombian drug traffickers are importing a far more brutal operating style to Peru, say authorities.
from the April 3, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
"People get mad. They say it breaks up their marriages. Some realize this is my work. Others want to harass me," says Medina, a devout Catholic who is married with two teenage children. "I don't want to be a hero, I don't want a monument. Someone has to do it."
Contributing to that hostile environment is a reemergence of the Shining Path, the organization that practically went defunct after the 1992 arrest of its leader. According to a recent report by the US Department of State, Shining Path members give protection to coca growers and traffickers alike.
In December, eight suspected Shining Path members were arrested after an attack on a police convoy in a coca-growing region killed eight people.
Pressure on Colombia causes shift
Nearly all the cocaine that enters the US comes from Colombia. But pressure – not to mention the $7 billion that the US has given to the country in recent years – has produced a so-called "balloon effect," in which production has expanded to other countries.
"Because there was real pressure in Colombia, Peru became a very interesting alternative," says Gustavo Gorriti, a Lima-based reporter who studies the drug trade.
In his inaugural address in July, President Alan Garcia acknowledged the challenge facing the country today. "Today kidnappings and narco-trafficking are growing," he said. "The international cartels have arrived in our homeland. We must be firm with them."
But Medina says that real changes have yet to take place. She faults an increase in the drug trade to a lax judicial system, one that often lets traffickers off with lenient sentences, and the corruption that has infiltrated the system. "It's easy to come to Peru to traffic drugs," she says plainly.
"If the state decides to focus on this, we can overcome it," she says, as she leaves the courtroom with three armed bodyguards who constantly look out side mirrors, her cellphone ringing incessantly. "Otherwise it is going to consume us."
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