Drug trafficking in Peru: its beginnings, its main driver and the armed conflict that unleashed

The terrible drug business generates millions of dollars in profits for narcoterrorists. (AFP)

The drug business is one of the worst scourges that hit humanity. They not only destroy those who consume them, but also their families, loved ones, the society in which they live and even the entire country.

And like every horror story, it all started almost by chance, in which the need to survive became the perfect excuse to turn a place that seemed like a little piece of heaven on earth into a true hell.

This is the case of how the terrible business of drug trafficking began in a place beyond Alto Huallaga, called Paraíso (Huánuco).

The former first lady of the United States, Pat Nixon, arrived in Peru to see the damage caused by the 1970 earthquake in the Huascarán area (White House Photo Office)

Although many may not believe it, it all began on May 31, 1970. That unfortunate afternoon, an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale destroyed a good part of Ancash and was even felt in Lima and La Libertad. The worst came later when a flood destroyed the city of Santa Domingo de Yungay and almost 20,000 of its inhabitants. A tragedy that is remembered to this day.

After the fact, most of those who survived found themselves in need of looking for a new place to rebuild their lives with the little they had been able to salvage after the violent seismic movement.

So they decided to look further into the country and cross the Andes mountain range until they reached Alto Huallaga to an area they called Paradise.

Finding themselves almost destitute, the government at that time decided to support them financially with a full subsidy for almost three years in a row.

But seeing that people had gotten used to receiving money and producing absolutely nothing, then this was cut. So, a good part of the inhabitants of Paraíso decided to move to other towns to look for another future.

Only a fifth of the original population that had arrived decided to stay in their new home. And they began to dedicate themselves to livestock and agriculture. Until 1978 when their lives changed when they started growing coca leaves.

The cultivation of the coca leaf gave Paraíso the status of a cosmopolitan city that had nothing to envy to the capital, Lima. (Andean)

It did not take long for the results of that momentous decision to be seen, which managed to turn the town into a kind of small cosmopolitan city where there was absolutely everything. From luxury restaurants, discotheques, brothels to luxury vehicles, five-star hotels. All going through the excellent salaries that the workers had.

For the latter they also used to take singers and other fashionable artists, the vedettes of the moment arrived. These benefits, and many more, caused many to come to take, even a little, of the great cake prepared with cocaine.

And the state? At first glance, it was conspicuous by its absence, but the truth was that the bosses had their own payroll for the members of the Police and the Army who lived in the area.

A point in favor for everything to go wonderfully was that Paraíso was a very inaccessible place. The easiest way to get there was by air.

The terrorist group Sendero Luminoso caused thousands of deaths in Peru until the capture of its leader, Abimael Guzmán (InSightCrime)

With the birth of the Communist Party of Peru – Shining Path, the real problems would also come to Paraíso. And it is that the members of this insane terrorist group saw here the ideal place, because they could get easy money and there would be no authority to prevent them.

First, its members arrived little by little and studied the place. Then they began their armed raids, although without causing harm to anyone. They just wanted to be noticed.

When they established themselves, the three main bosses of Paraíso (Braulio Tafur, Antonio Ríos (a) ‘Tío’ and Marcelo Ramírez (a) ‘Machi’) did not want any more problems and said ‘yes’ to the conditions of the senderistas. Total, all ‘played’ for the same side.

But the power of the Shining Path was growing more and more (it took control of Tocache and Uchiza) and little by little they became the highest authority in the area. So much so that they interceded, through a popular committee, in the payment problems that some workers had.

This new senderista order grew so much that, finally, the National Police was forced to intervene and thanks to the Special Units of the PNP, they managed to recover Tocache, the center of the area. This was only the beginning of the end of the relationship between drug traffickers and terrorists.

The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has some chapters that explain what happened in Paraíso, the first kingdom of cocaine. (Andean)

According to the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR), there are up to three theories of what would have happened to end the link between Sendero Luminoso and ‘Machi’, the drug trafficker who had the best relations with them.

The first says that while Marcelo Ramírez was in Colombia on a business trip, the senderistas killed his entire family.

The other suggests that the dead were actually eleven ‘Machi’ workers and that a group of terrorists saw them talking with their boss on the radio. They believed that they were coordinating an operation with the police and shot seven of them. The other four were pardoned on the condition that they join their ranks.

The last hypothesis indicates that ‘Machi’ himself ordered a rancher to be kidnapped in Paraíso. But since he recognized his captors, he convinced them to release him. The Senderista command found out about this situation and decided to wage war on the boss.

The former chief of Sendero Luminoso, ‘Comrade Artemio’, was captured in 2012 and is serving a life sentence (Andina)

As it was, the thing is that in 1987 the war was already declared in Paradise. In order not to be left behind, ‘Machi’ came to put together an army of almost 100 men with whom he dedicated himself to looking for each Sendero member who crossed his path to kill him. It was enough to just suspect it to kill someone.

The most curious thing is that, according to the former terrorist leader Florindo Eleuterio Flores Hala (a), ‘Comrade Artemio’ confessed years later in an interview given to Gustavo Gorriti that Marcelo Ramírez founded the Anti-Terrorist Movement (MAT) to put an end to the Senderistas.

According to ‘Artemio’, this commando had the blessing of the same President of the Republic at that time, Alan García Pérez; and his Interior Minister, Agustín Mantilla.

There could be some truth in this situation, since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission registered that the small army of ‘Machi’ received support from the National Police. He even dressed as if he was a commander.

Like that time in November 1987, in which during a scuffle between the MAT and SL, Ramírez found himself cornered on the verge of being killed by the senderistas. But like in action movies, he was rescued at the last minute when two PNP helicopters arrived and pulled him out.

The passing Peruvian governments continue to fight against the total eradication of coca leaf cultivation. (Andean)

Finally, no one was able to provide accurate information on the final whereabouts of Marcelo Ramírez. Some pointed out that he fled to Panama. Others, that he was killed by the members of the Police themselves so that he would not speak everything he knew about them.

In this sense, “Artemio” also pointed out that Colombian drug traffickers “sold” him to Sendero Luminoso, who murdered him in the northern country.

And although that was the end of Paraíso as the Mecca of cocaine, the ‘business’ remained in the hands of terrorists and moved to other places further south in the mountains of our country and to this day continues to be one of the most serious problems in the Peru.

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