These developments of SL were eminently predictable - indeed they were predicted by me and others in stuff published during the 90s and early 2000s. What is interesting to me is that during the last round of SL many analysts both govt and non, were trying to argue that SL was selling drugs for guns when it wasn't happening. the demise of Guzman left the SL Huallaga Regional Command free to follow its own lead and emulate the FARC which it did - bringing to fruition the self-fulfilling prophecy of guns fro drugs. Mike B has a real good handle on what is happening now.

John Youle is an old friend. He was DCM at the US embassy in Lima in 1986; went from there to be POLAD in SOUTHCOM and retired to Peru. John is one of the best observers of the country. On the academic side, see work by Henry Dietz (U of Texas at Austin), Cynthia Mc Clintock (george Washington U) and David Scott Palmer (Boston U).

Cheers

JohnT