In the last two years, the violence and visibility of the conflict between the Paraguayan State and the Paraguayan People's Army (EPP) has escalated significantly, due to the appearance of new weapons, tactics, and increasing involvement of foreign advisers on both sides as each has adapted to gain advantage over the other. Although the nature of the EPP has become somewhat clearer, many areas still need to be better understood in order for the Paraguayan state to effectively defeat this threat, which it can still do at relatively low cost if it adopts the right strategy and takes appropriate action. This article provides some of that understanding by identifying the events and breakthroughs which occurred in roughly two phases: government offensive (2010) and EPP adaptation (2011). The author concludes that groups such as the EPP are not merely police/justice problems, but state problems, and the most successful states are those that recognize this early and employ all the elements of national power to deal with the problem not only to reduce or eliminate the violence, but to prevent its regeneration.
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The new guerrilla group known as the Paraguayan People's Army, or EPP, is unique as a Marxist insurgency against a Marxist-sympathetic populist government. Although still small they appear to be growing. The evidence indicates that EPP is a serious group that has been in development for more than twenty years. They have an ideology and a strategic plan that they are systematically carrying out. They are anything but amateurs. They have acquired training and assistance from the Colombian FARC, if not others. They have built up funds through bank robberies and kidnappings, and gradually they are expanding their operations. While sometimes referred to as a "foquista" movement, the comparison falls short. What distinguishes EPP is the significant support base they have systematically built up among the radical elements of the Paraguayan rural peasantry, particularly in the north of the country. So far the state has responded by sending contingents of policemen and soldiers to cordon off and search rural areas in San Pedro and Concepcion. These operations appear to have produced little result. This article discusses the EPP's history and dynamics.
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