Government involves peasant patrols in anti-subversive struggle

In March 1989, the APRA government of President Alan García Pérez formally involved the peasant patrols in the anti-subversive struggle. On March 24, Alberto Valencia, the APRA deputy for Ayacucho, announced a new movement of peasant patrols that were organizing spontaneously to free themselves from the PCP-SL. The leader of these ronderos, called Comandante Huayhuaco, asked the government for arms, specifying that "if the government would only give me a hundred rifles, a hundred FAL, until November or December, I would return peace to Ayacucho". This policy was part of the government's strategy to intensify the counter-subversive struggle announced by Prime Minister Armando Villanueva del Campo on March 10.