Shining Some Light on the Sendero Luminoso

From 1980 to 2000, Peru was engaged in a brutal guerrilla war with the revolutionary Maoist-Communist terrorist group, the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) mainly in the central Andes and major cities. According to the 2003 Truth and Reconcilliation Commision approximately 69 280 people died or ¨disappeared¨ from this conflict, many of whom  were women and children.The Shining Path has been attributed to about 50% of these deaths while the government have been blamed for 33%, with the remainder by other guerrilla groups or unknown.

The Shining Path (an off-shoot from the Peruvian Communist Party or Bandera Roja) began here in Ayacucho in the late 1960´s as their leader and former professor, Abimael Guzman, taught philosophy at the San Cristobal of Huamanga Univeristy. This university prominently faces the main plaza and was only recently re-opened a few years ago. The Shining Path saw the current democracy in Peru as ¨bourgeois¨ and wanted to replace it with a ¨New Democracy¨ through a cultural revolution (beginning in the country side) and proletariat dictatorship. The long term goal was of´course, world revolution (insert also "world domination").

Initially, the Shining Path attempted this social change through political student councils at universities in Ayacucho, Huancayo, La Cantuta and Lima in the 1970´s but with failing support, this movement turned violent. The violence began on May 17, 1980 with the burning of ballot boxes in the town of Chuschi and coincided with the Peruvian election. Support for the Shining Path grew as the government did not take this group very seriously at first and the region felt negelcted by the capital. The violence quickly escalated with battles against the police and later the army.

The Shining Path were also greatly feared in the countryside as they held public ¨criticism and self-criticism¨ trials where victims were stabbed, their throats slit, hanged or stoned, often based on accusations, suspicions of government collaborations or bourgeois activties. So focused on their doctrine, the group never gained popular support and ironically, alienated the very population (peasants) they were hoping liberate. They were more feared than supported, and their policies to close markets (to prohibit any form of capitalism and to ¨starve¨ Lima), banning of alcohol and parties and suppression of Indigenous customs and beliefs were hugely unpopular.  The group later took to assassinations of government officials, journalists, labour union leaders, foreign aid workers, priests, other communist party members or just about anyone who critcized or opposed them.

The government´s response was equally brutal with many victims arrested and tortured, raped or killed and buried in mass graves. The government declared the regions of Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurimac as ¨emergency zones¨ for martial law in December 1981, giving the police and army the right to detain anyone without any reason. The police and military wore ¨ski masks¨ to hide their identity and the military trained peasants, ¨Rondas¨ who often abused their powers.

Things began to change in 1991 with the new president, Alberto Fujimori's (who is now serving a 25 year jail sentence for corruption and ¨crimes against humanity¨) policies to properly train "Rondas", the use of intelligence and informants and the capture of Guzman and top Shining Path leaders on September 12, 1992 in Lima. Over the next decade, their numbers declined and the military relentlessly either captured or killed key Shining Path members, most recently in 2013. The last Shinning Path attack in Ayacucho was in April 2009. The Shining Path essentially now operate in the remote North East and is suspectedly involved in the Narco trade.  

A couple of decades ago, you could not sit in the main square eating an ice cream cone (a habit I have recently taken on), enjoying the afternoon sun, without fear that a bomb would go off or being arrested without provocation. Ayacucho today is a lively city full of university, college and school students where you can see teens practice dance moves in the plaza, people gather around street stalls to eat grilled meat and parents walking their children home from school. Though people are hesitant to talk about those years, still fresh in their memories. Off the tourist route and absent of McDonalds, Burger King or Pizza Hut, Ayacucho is a very pleasant city full of wonderful churches, pedestrain walkways and inner court yards full of great restaurants and shops. The normal ¨day to day¨ life of Peru is wonderful and the locals friendly and curious where you are from.  

I am off to learn to cook a local dish (Puca Picante - a potato, chilli, peanut and pork dish) with the hotel owner´s wife and then a night bus to Lima.