Armed leftists rattle nerves, test Paraguay's Lugo

[naaman fletcher]

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111122/wl_nm/us_paraguay_violence

CAPITAN GIMENEZ, Paraguay (Reuters) – No one thought to mention it when they heard whispers and rustling in the bushes near the police station in Capitan Gimenez, assuming it was the hushed voices of lovers in the dark.

The two officers on guard had just finished dinner when gunmen ambushed the station, killing them both. Another had gone out to buy credit for his mobile phone. In this remote corner of northern Paraguay, cattle-rustling is the most common crime.

"You can't forget something like that," said Jose Gamarra, 24, another officer at Capitan Gimenez who was also out when the group of as many as 10 heavily armed attackers struck the village station one night in late September.

Officials were quick to blame the Paraguayan People's Army, or EPP by its Spanish initials, a small left-wing group that mixes violence with a revolutionary rhetoric reminiscent of the guerrilla movements that sprang up across Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s.