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Shining Path
Peru
The name “Shining Path” refers to the Communist Party of Peru, which has conducted a guerilla warfare campaign against the Peruvian government since 1980. It seeks an overthrow of the power apparatus in Peru through a massive popular uprising, aiming to create a communist state patterned on Maoist principles. Unlike FARC, it underwent a considerable decline after years of successful terrorist attacks, and its membership currently numbers only a few hundred members.
It was founded in the late 1960s by university professor Abimael Guzman, who taught at San Cristóbal of Huamanga University, in Ayacucho. It its early days, it remained little more than a radical student union, gaining control of several university councils before suffering a series of setbacks and reorganizing along more militant lines. Under Guzman’s tutelage, it began training members in military tactics, and launched a guerilla war in 1980 on the eve of Peru’s first elections in over a decade. Vased in the Peruvian Andes, it sought to win the hearts of the populace by punishing criminals, assassinating members of the upper class, and conducting “popular trials” against the disliked local figures. Government indifference allowed it to take root and spread, and a heavy0handed military assault in 1981-in which the Peruvian military detained, tortured, and killed a number of innocent peasants-gave it considerable credibility in the areas where it operated.
It escalated its activities throughout the 1980s, targeting key pieces of infrastructure such as bridges and radio towers. It also conducted retaliatory raids against supposed government sympathizers, executing a number of local peasants including women and children. While it generally stayed focused on the countryside, it launched attacks on the capital city of Lima as well, bombing shopping malls and detonating explosives outside important government facilities. By the early 1990s, it had seized control of vast areas of the countryside, marked by brutal executions and the forced closure of local businesses as “tools of imperialist exploitation.”
Its tactics did not endear it to the populace, however, and the 1990s marked a decline in its fortunes. Roaming bands of anti-Shining Path peasants, called rondas had operated in the group’s territory since its inception, and in 1991, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori made the rondas official representatives of law enforcement. He sent the Pervian military into Shining Path-controlled areas as well, hoping to root out the terrorists and restore government control to the countryside (they proved as dismissive of human rights as Shining Path did, however, engaging in torture and other atrocities in an attempt to locate the rebels). The harshest blow fell in 1992, when Guzman himself was captured by Peruvian police. A cult of personality had sprung up around the charismatic leader over the years, and his followers spoke of him alongside the likes of Marx, Lenin, and Mao. Losing him shook many of his followers to their core. Leadership fell to a lieutenant, Oscar Ramires, who controlled the group unti his own arrest in 1999. By that time, Shining Path activity had fallen to but a shell of its former self. A resurgence began several years later, with attacks on law enforcement officials and other instruments of the government to send troops back into the countryside, and though decimated, Shining Path retains some 300 members capable of launching terrorist operations.
It remains limited to the countryside, refocusing its efforts on protecting Peru’s coca farmers from government interference. Increased ties to drug smugglers give it a financial base with which to operate, while its members continue to act under a highly decentralize command. The harsh geography of the Andes demands that members retain a great deal of autonomy, allowing them to act without communication from superiors. While decimated by government gains and the loss of their philosophical leaders, rooting the last of the members out of such rugged terrain will take some doing.
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 Posted by: Izan-Oen Mon Feb 17, 2014 @ 06:56pm
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