Torching a drug lab in Peru, the No. 1 coca grower

With the sudden burst of a fireball and a blast of heat, another clandestine cocaine lab in a remote jungle valley on the front line of Peru's drug war went up in flames.

Minutes earlier, drug runners fled the makeshift cocaine kitchen when they heard the phwap-phwap-phwap of the police helicopter arriving. They ran away before finishing their lunch -- rice and beans in blue plastic bowls.

With one drug lab torched, Captain Acero, whose nom de guerre means Captain Steel, yelled orders to his team of 15 to hurry on to raid the next camp. Moving quickly, they doused another cache of coca and chemicals in kerosene and set it alight.

Peru's anti-drug police are locked in an ongoing game of cat-and-mouse in the Ene and Apurimac River Valleys against drug runners, many of whom are aligned with a remnant band of about 200 leftist Shining Path guerrillas. But the government appears to be losing the battle.

This year, the United Nations said that Peru has overtaken Colombia -- which has received billions of dollars in U. S. aid to fight drugs -- as the world's No. 1 coca producer, the main ingredient for cocaine.

The fallout has put additional pressure on Peruvian President Alan Garcia to ramp up efforts to seize more drugs, but the inhospitable valleys have dealt the army and police repeated setbacks. They are frequently ambushed in the middle of the night by hit-and-run traffickers armed with grenades.



Překlad vybraných slovíček:

sudden - náhlý, nenadálý
burst - vyšlehnutí
fireball - ohnivá koule, jádro výbuchu
blast - výbuch, závan
heat - horko, vedro
go up in flames - shořet
cat-and mouse game - hra na kočku a na myš
clandestine - tajný, podloudný
makeshift - improvizovaný
to torch - podpálit
drugs - drogy
additional - dodatečný, přídavný
deploy - rozmístit, rozvinout
Peruvian - peruánský, Peruánec, Peruánka