Cenepa War - First Encounters

First Encounters

With the coming of the new year, crisis loomed in the Cenepa valley. By January 8, the Peruvian Army had deployed four patrols near Base Sur. On the night of January 9, 1995, Ecuadorian troops found and captured four Peruvian soldiers that according to the Ecuadorian accounts were supposedly reconnoitering the approaches to the Ecuadorian outpost of Cueva de los Tayos. Following the customary regulations put in place by both Armies for the handling of such instances, the so-called Cartillas de Seguridad y Confianza (Guidelines for Safety and Mutual Confidence), the captured Peruvian personnel were delivered to their own officers without further incident.

Always following the Ecuadorian accounts, a subsequent incident took place two days later, on January 11, when another Peruvian patrol was detected near a place called the "Y", a point of tactical importance in the Ecuadorian lines. Shots were fired, apparently causing no casualties on either side.