Florindo Flores

By the time soldiers nabbed a wounded Florindo Flores, 50, on Feb. 12 in a hut in Peru’s Amazon jungle, he was as much a relic as a rebel. Flores, a.k.a. Comrade Artemio, is considered the last of the old-guard commanders of Peru’s bloodthirsty Maoist Shining Path guerrillas, who terrorized the country in the 1980s and ’90s in a war that killed 70,000 people. After their top leader, Abimael Guzmn, was captured in 1992, the rebel army dissolved, but a smaller version emerged in the 2000s as a violent cocaine-trafficking gang. Officials say Flores, who left the Peruvian army in 1980 to join the Shining Path, most recently led a unit of little more than 100 militants from a base in the northern Tocache province. President Ollanta Humala hailed the capture as a fatal blow to Peru’s “terrorist criminals.” Said Flores: “I lost.” A long time ago.