Shining Path

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Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso in Spanish) is a Maoist guerrilla insurgent organization in Peru; followers are generally called Senderistas. The group never refers to itself as "Shining Path", preferring to be called the Communist Party of Peru (see Communism in Peru); the more familiar name comes from the maxim of José Carlos Mariátegui, founder of Peru's first communist party: "El Marxismo-Leninismo abrirá el sendero luminoso hacia la revolución" (“Marxism-Leninism will open the shining path to revolution”).<ref>Encyclopædia Britannica Online, "Shining Path."Available online, accessed 1 February 2006.</ref> The name "Shining Path" is used by outsiders to distinguish the organization from other Peruvian communist groups.

Shining Path's stated goal is to replace Peruvian bourgeois institutions with a communist peasant revolutionary regime, presumably passing first through the Maoist developmental stage of New Democracy. Since the capture of its leader Abimael Guzmán in 1992, it has only been sporadically active. In any case, Shining Path's ideology and tactics have been influential on other Maoist insurgent groups, notably the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and other Revolutionary Internationalist Movement-affiliated armed organizations.

Widely condemned for its brutality, including violence deployed against ordinary peasants, trade union organizers, popularly elected officials and the general civilian population, Sendero is on the U.S. Department of State's "Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations" list.<ref>US Department of State, "Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs)" October 11 2005. Available online Accessed 1 February 2006.</ref> Peru, the United Kingdom and the European Union likewise regard Shining Path as a terrorist group and prohibit providing funding or other financial support.

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Origins

Image:Pcpnovote.jpg Shining Path was founded in the late 1960s by former university philosophy professor Abimael Guzmán (also known as Presidente Gonzalo), whose teachings created the foundation for its militant Maoist doctrine. It was an offshoot of the Communist Party of Peru — Bandera Roja ("red flag"), which in turn split from the original Peruvian Communist Party in 1964.

Shining Path first established a foothold in San Cristóbal of Huamanga University, where Guzmán taught philosophy. The university had recently reopened after being closed for about half a century, and many students of the newly-educated class adopted Shining Path's radical ideology. Between 1973 and 1975, Shining Path gained control of the student councils in the Universities of Tacna and Huánuco, and developed a significant presence in the University of Engineering in Lima and the San Martin de Porres University. Sometime later, it lost many student elections in the universities, including Guzmán's own San Cristóbal of Huamanga, and decided to abandon the universities and reconsolidate itself.

In the beginning of 1980, Shining Path held a series of clandestine meetings in Ayacucho, known as the Central Committee's second plenary. It formed a "Revolutionary Directorate" that was political and military, and ordered their militias to transfer to strategic areas in the provinces, to start the "armed struggle". The group also held its "First Military School" where militants were instructed in military tactics and weapons use. They also engaged in the "criticism and self-criticism" of democratic centralism. During the First Military School, members of the Central Committee came under heavy criticism, while Guzmán did not, and he emerged from the First Military School as the clear leader of Shining Path.

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Guerrilla war

When Peru's military government allowed elections for the first time in a dozen years in 1980, Shining Path was one of the few leftist political groups that declined to take part, and instead opted to launch a guerrilla war in the highlands of the province of Ayacucho. On May 17, 1980, it burned ballot boxes in the town of Chuspi, Ayacucho, on the eve of the presidential elections. It was the first act of war by Shining Path. However, the perpetrators were quickly caught, additional ballots were shipped to Chuschi, the elections proceeded without further incident, and the incident received very little attention in the Peruvian press.

Throughout the 1980s, Shining Path grew in both the territory it controlled and the number of militants in its organization, particularly in the Andean highlands. It gained some support from peasants, by beating and killing widely disliked figures in the countryside. It often executed cattle rustlers, whose crime is considered particularly egregious in poor Peruvian villages. It also killed managers of the state-controlled farming collectives and well-to-do merchants, who were unpopular with poor rural dwellers. These actions caused the peasantry of many Peruvian villages to express some sympathy for the Shining Path, especially in the regions of Ayacucho, Apurímac, and Huancavelica. But only a small minority of peasants were ever as dogmatically Maoist as the Shining Path cadre.

Shining Path's credibility was also bolstered by the government's flawed response to the insurgency. For a long time, the government simply ignored Shining Path, believing it to be relatively benign or, as press said in the first years, they were only "lunatics". Thus the state appeared impotent against the Maoist revolutionaries. When it became clear the Shining Path represented a threat to the state, the government declared an "emergency zone" in the Ayacucho area, and granted the military the power to arbitrarily arrest any suspicious person. The military used this power extremely heavy-handedly, detaining scores of innocent people, at times subjecting them to torture and rape. In several massacres, the military wiped out entire villages. Military personnel took to wearing black ski-masks to hide their identity as they committed these crimes.

Shining Path's attacks were not limited to the countryside. It mounted attacks against the infrastructure in Lima, killing civilians in the process. In 1983, it sabotaged several electrical transmission towers, causing a citywide blackout, and set fire to the Bayer industrial plant, destroying it completely. That same year, it set off a powerful bomb in the offices of the governing party, Popular Action. Escalating its activities in Lima, in June 1985 it again blew up electricity transmission towers in Lima, producing a blackout, and detonated car bombs near the government palace and the justice palace. It also started fires in several shopping malls. (At the time, President Fernando Belaúnde Terry of Peru was receiving President Raúl Alfonsín of Argentina.) In one of its last attacks, on 16 July 1992, it detonated a powerful bomb on Tarata Street in the upscale district of Miraflores in Lima, <ref>"Ataque terrorista en Tarata." Archived online Accessed February 1 2006</ref> killing more than 20 people and destroying several buildings.

During this period, Shining Path also targeted specific individuals, notably leaders of other leftist groups, local political parties, labor unions, and peasant organizations, some of whom were anti-Sendero Marxists. On 24 April 1985, in the midst of presidential elections, it tried to assassinate Domingo García Rada, the president of the Peruvian National Electoral Council, severely injuring him and mortally wounding his driver. In August 1991, the group killed one Italian and two Polish priests in the department of Ancash. It later blew up the bodies with dynamite. The following February, it assassinated María Elena Moyano, a well-known community organizer in Villa El Salvador, a vast shantytown in Lima.

By 1991, Shining Path had control of much of the countryside of the center and south of Peru and had a large presence in the outskirts of Lima. As the organization grew in power, a cult of personality evolved around Guzmán. The official dogma of Shining Path ceased to be Maoism (or "Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung thought"), and was instead referred to as "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo thought."

Shining Path also engaged in armed conflicts with Peru's other major guerrilla group, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), with campesino self-defense groups organized by the Peruvian armed forces, and with legally-recognized parties of the Peruvian Left.

Although the extent of Shining Path atrocities and the reliability of reports remains a matter of controversy, the organization has been frequently accused of particularly brutal methods of killing.

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Decline

While Shining Path quickly seized control of large areas of Peru, it soon faced serious problems. Shining Path's extreme Maoism was never popular. It never had the support of the majority of the Peruvian people, and quickly lost almost all sympathy that it once had.

Many peasants were unhappy with its rule for many reasons, such as its disrespect for indigenous culture and institutions, and the brutality of its "popular trials" that often included stoning, and sometimes scalping the head with a hammer and an axe. While punishing and even killing cattle thieves was popular in some parts of Peru, Shining Path also killed peasants and popular leaders for even minor offenses against its dogma. Peasants were also offended by the rebels' injunction against burying the bodies of Shining Path victims for at least 24 hours.

Shining Path also became disliked for its policy of closing small and rural markets in order to end small-scale capitalism and to starve Lima. As a Maoist organization, it strongly opposed all forms of capitalism, and also followed Mao's dictum that guerrilla warfare should start in the countryside and gradually choke off the cities. Peasants, many of whose livelihood depended on trade in the markets, rejected such closures.

In several areas of Peru, Shining Path also launched unpopular campaigns, such as a prohibition on parties and the consumption of alcohol.

Even most Marxist Peruvian political parties considered Shining Path's analysis -- that Peru was a semi-feudal nation analogous to China in the 1930s and 1940s -- as deeply flawed.

Faced with a hostile population, the guerrilla war began to falter. In many areas, peasants formed anti-Shining Path patrols, called rondas. They were generally poorly-equipped despite donations of guns from the armed forces. Nevertheless, Shining Path guerrillas were militarily attacked by the rondas. The such first reported attack was in January 1983 near Huata, when some rondas killed 13 senderistas; in Febraury in Sacsamarca, rondas stabbed and killed the Shining Path commanders of that area. In March 1983, rondas brutally killed Olegario Curitomay, one of the commanders of the town of Lucanamarca. They took him to the town square, stoned him, stabbed him, set him on fire, and finally, shot him <ref>La Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación. "La Masacre de Lucanamarca (1983)." 28 August 2003. Available online in Spanish Accessed February 1 2006.</ref> As a response, in April, Shining Path entered the province of Huancasancos and the towns of Yanaccollpa, Ataccara, Llacchua, Muylacruz and Lucanamarca, killing 69 people—many of them women and children—in brutal ways such as ripping the guts and smashing the skulls of the babies; this was the first massacre by Shining Path of the peasant community. Many others followed, such as the one in Marcas on 28 August 2003. <ref>La Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación. "Ataque del PCP-SL a la Localidad de Marcas (1985)." Available online in Spanish Accessed February 1 2006.</ref> <ref>La Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación. "Press Release 170." Available online Accessed February 1 2006.</ref>

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Government response and abuses

In 1991, President Alberto Fujimori issued a law<ref> Legislative Decree No. 741. 

Available online Accessed February 1 2006.</ref> that gave the rondas a legal status, and from that time they were officially called Comites de auto defensa ("Committees of Self Defence"). They were officially armed, usually with 12-gauge shotguns, and trained by the Peruvian army. According to the government, there are approximately 7,226 comités de auto defensa<ref>Army of Peru. "Proyectos y Actividades que Realiza la Sub Dirección de Estudios Especiales." 2005.  Available online in Spanish Accessed February 1 2006.</ref>; almost 4,000 are located in the central region of Peru, the stronghold of Shining Path.

The Peruvian government also clamped down on the Shining Path in other ways. Military personnel were dispatched to areas dominated by Shining Path, especially Ayacucho, to fight the rebels. Ayacucho itself was declared an emergency zone, and constitutional rights were suspended in the area. The government also sent forces to take back an Ayacucho prison that had recently been taken over by its own incarcerated Shining Path members, killing at least 35.

Initial government efforts to fight Shining Path were not very effective or promising. Military units engaged in many human rights violations, which caused Shining Path to appear in the eyes of many as the lesser of two evils. They used excessive force and killed many innocent civilians. Government forces destroyed villages and killed campesinos suspected of supporting Shining Path. They eventually lessened the pace at which it committed atrocities such as massacres. Instead, the state used intelligence agencies. However, atrocities were committed by the National Intelligence Service, notably the La Cantuta massacre and the Barrios Altos massacre, both of which were committed by Grupo Colina.

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) established by President Alejandro Toledo found in a 2003 report that 69,280 people had died or disappeared -- 22,507 fully identified as dead and 46,773 disappearances. Shining Path was held directly responsible for the death of 12,561 people. According to a summary of the report by Human Rights Watch, "Shining Path… killed about half the victims, and roughly one-third died at the hands of government security forces… The commission attributed some of the other slayings to a smaller guerrilla group and local militias. The rest remain unattributed." The other major Peruvian guerrilla group during this period, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), was held responsible for 1.5% of the deaths.<ref>Laura Puertas, Inter Press Service. "Peru: 20 Years of Bloodshed and Death." 29 August 2003. Available online Accessed February 1 2006.</ref>

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Capture of Guzmán and collapse

Image:Abimael Guzman 6.jpg On September 12, 1992, the intelligence efforts paid off. On that day, Peruvian police captured Guzmán and several Shining Path leaders in an apartment above a dance studio in the Santiago de Surco district of Lima. The police had been monitoring the apartment, as a number of suspected Shining Path militants had visited it. An inspection of the garbage of the apartment produced empty tubes of a skin cream used to treat psoriasis, a condition that Guzmán was known to have. Shortly after the raid that captured Guzmán, most of the remaining Shining Path leadership fell as well. At the same time, the Shining Path suffered embarrassing military defeats to campesino self-defense organizations — supposedly its social base — and the organization fractured into splinter groups. Guerrilla activity diminished sharply and peace returned to the areas where the Shining Path had been active.

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21st Century

Although the organization has virtually disappeared, a militant faction called Proseguir (or "Onward") continues to be sporadically active in the region of the Ene and Apurimac valleys on the eastern slopes of the Andes, some 300 miles southeast of Lima. It is believed that the faction consists of three companies known as the North, or Pangoa, the Centre, or Pucuta, and the South, or Vizcatan. According to the Peruvian government, the faction consists of around 100 hardliners from other (now disbanded) regional Shining Path units. The government claims that Proseguir is operating in alliance with drug traffickers.

The Proseguir faction has been blamed for an upsurge in guerrilla activity in the region during 2003. Government forces have had a number of successes in capturing its leading members. In April 2000, Commander José Arcela Chiroque, called "Ormeno", was captured, followed by another leader, Florentino Cerrón Cardozo, called "Marcelo" in July 2003. In November of the same year, Jaime Zuniga, called "Cirilo" or "Dalton," was arrested after a clash in which four guerrillas were killed and an officer wounded. Officials said he took part in planning the kidnapping in June of 71 workers of the Argentine company Techint, who were working on a gas pipeline in the jungle. He was also thought to have led an ambush against an army helicopter in 1999 in which five soldiers died.

On 9 June 2003 a Shining Path group attacked a camp in Tocache, Ayacucho, and took 68 employees of the Argentinian company Techint and three police guards as hostages. They had been working in the Camisea gas pipeline project, a gasoduct that would take natural gas from Cuzco to Lima. According to sources from Peru's Interior Ministry, the terrorists asked for a sizable ransom to free the hostages. Two days later, after a rapid military response, the terrorists abandoned the hostages. According to rumor, the company paid the ransom.

That year, the Peruvian National Police broke up several Shining Path terrorist camps and captured many members and leaders. It also freed more than 200 indigenous people held in virtual slavery. For 2003, terrorist incidents amounted to 115 (a 15% decrease from the 134 kidnappings and armed attacks in 2002). Also for the year, 6 military and 3 private defense personnel were killed, and 6 Shining Path terrorists were killed and 209 captured.

In early 2004, a man known as Comrade Artemio and identifying himself as one of the last free Shining Path leaders said in a media interview that the group will resume violent operations unless the Peruvian government grants amnesty to other top Shining Path leaders within 60 days. Peru's Interior Minister, Fernando Rospigliosi, said that the government would respond "drastically and swiftly" to any violent action. In September that same year, a comprehensive sweep by police in five cities found 17 suspected members. According to the interior minister, eight of the arrested were school teachers and another two were high-level school administrators.

Despite these arrests, Shining Path continues to exist in Peru, although it only operates sporadically. On December 23, 2005, Shining Path ambushed a police patrol in the Huánuco region, killing eight. Later that day they wounded an additional two police officers. In response, President Alejandro Toledo declared a state of emergency in Huánuco, and gave the police the power to search houses and arrest suspects without a warrant. On February 19, 2006, the Peruvian government killed Héctor Aponte, who was believed to be the chief military commander of Shining Path. After the killing, the minister of the interior said that he believed that Shining Path would be defeated.

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Notes

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Fiction

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External links

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See also

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References

es:Sendero Luminoso fi:Loistava polku fr:Sentier lumineux he:הנתיב הזוהר ja:センデロ・ルミノソ nl:Lichtend Pad pl:Świetlisty Szlak pt:Sendero Luminoso sv:Sendero Luminoso zh:光明之路 simple:Sendero Luminoso

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