Paraguayan People's Army insurgency

Departments where EPP attacks have taken place

Date	27 August 2005 – present (11 years, 5 months, 2 weeks and 2 days)
Location	Northern Paraguay Amambay Department Canindeyú Department Concepción Department San Pedro Department
Result	Conflict ongoing

Belligerents

Government of Paraguay

Supported by:

Paraguayan People's Army (EPP)
Armed Peasant Association (from 2008)

Supported by:

FARC (until 2016)
Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (alleged)

Commanders and leaders

Nicanor Duarte
(2005–2008)

Fernando Lugo
(2008–2012)

Federico Franco
(2012–2013)

Horacio Cartes
(2013 – )

Oviedo Brítez (POW)
Carmen Villabla (POW)
Osmar Martínez
Bernardo Bernal Corn †
Osvaldo Villalba
Albino Larrea (ACA)
Alfredo Jara Larrea (ACA)

Strength

~3,500 Army soldiers deployed, 20,000 in reserve.

20-150 Paraguayan People's Army
~20 Armed Farmers' Group

Casualties and losses

~71 killed(2005-2016)

Government of Paraguay

Supported by:

Paraguayan People's Army (EPP)
Armed Peasant Association (from 2008)

Supported by:

The Paraguayan People’s Army insurgency, also named the EPP rebellion (from the group's name in Spanish: Ejército del Pueblo Paraguayo), is an ongoing small-scale guerrilla campaign in northern Paraguay. From 2005 until the summer of 2014, the EPP campaign resulted in at least 50 deaths in total, the majority of them being local ranchers and police officers, along with several insurgents. During that same period the group perpetrated 28 kidnappings for ransom and a total of 85 "violent acts".

The insurgency began in 2005, after several members of the Partido Patria Libre formed the Paraguayan People’s Army. The Government of Paraguay suspects the EPP has ties to the Colombian rebel group FARC. In 2014 a subgroup of EPP splintered to create the Armed Farmers Group (ACA), which has also engaged in fighting the Paraguayan government.

The 1990 collapse of the Stroessner dictatorship in Paraguay fueled the rapid development of previously banned, left-wing political groups. In the same year current EPP leader Oviedo Britez enrolled in the theology faculty of the Catholic University of Asuncion.

In 1992 Britez was expelled from the theology study course, becoming increasingly interested in political change through revolutionary armed struggle. Britez, Juan Arrom Suhurt and Britez's fiancee Carmen Villalba soon created the core of Partido Patria Libre, Paraguayan People's Army's precursor.

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Wikipedia