Paraguay’s Interior Minister announced Tuesday that Cristaldo Mieres, one of the guerrilla leaders of the Paraguayan People’s Army (PPE), may have died as a result of injuries received in October last year during a clash with the army. The minister admitted, however, that the body has not yet been found. Cristaldo Mieres’s image appeared on posters that the government is putting out as part of a new campaign to capture 14 PPE members, for whom it offered a reward of 7 billion guaraníes (about $9.9 million) for any information leading to his arrest.
Cristaldo Mieres was reportedly wounded in the clash in which Osvaldo Vallalba, alias “Comandante Alexander”, the main commander of the PPE and two other members of the PPE were on 23 October 2023 in fighting with the Joint Task Force (FTC) in Cerro Guazú, in a rural area of the department of Amambay. The Minister of the Interior also announced that the authorities were “on alert” on the occasion of the first anniversary of Villalba’s death,