Shining Path, Tupac Amaru (Peru, leftists)
Updated: November 2005
What kind of terrorists operate in Peru?
There are two main rebel groups operating in Peru, both leftist: the Maoist Shining Path (known in Spanish as Sendero Luminoso) and the Cuban-inspired Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru). Their attacks terrorized Peru for decades before they were beaten back in a 1990s crackdown, but a March 2002 car bomb attack near the U.S. embassy in Lima summoned up old Peruvian fears of terrorism. The State Department still identifies both groups as terrorist organizations.
What types of attacks do they commit?
In the 1980s and early 1990s, vicious terrorist attacks were daily occurrences across Peru . Shining Path and Tupac Amaru were notorious for indiscriminate bombings, assassinations, brutal killings, kidnappings, bank robberies, and attacks on Western embassies and businesses. The human and economic toll was devastating, and Peruvians have a particular dread of terrorism to this day. Human rights groups estimate that more than 30,000 people have died since the rebels took up arms two decades ago. In 2003, a government commission blamed Shining Path for about fifty-four percent of the violent deaths caused by the civil war.
What has Peru done to combat terrorism?
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori waged an aggressive and highly successful campaign against Shining Path and Tupac Amaru. Fujimori, originally an elected leader, seized near-dictatorial powers in April 1992, with military support, and disbanded Peru’s congress and courts, which he said were limiting his ability to crack down on terrorism. Within a few years, Fujimori had captured most of the leaders of the rebel groups, and terrorism subsequently declined sharply. Thousands of Peruvians were convicted of terrorism-related charges and sentenced to life imprisonment by military courts. Human rights activists accuse the Peruvian military of committing widespread human rights abuses during the crackdown, including the jailing of thousands of innocent Peruvians.
But in 2003, Peru’s constitutional court struck down the anti-terror laws enacted under Fujimori and as a result more than 1,900 jailed members of the Shining Path have been given the right to request retrials in civilian court, including the group’s leader Abimael Guzman—who was captured and jailed in 1992.
A Peruvian military tribunal convicted an American, Lori Berenson, of terrorism in 1996 and sentenced her to life in prison. After protests by the U.S. government, Peru retried Berenson in a civilian court in 2001. She was convicted of aiding Tupac Amaru and sentenced to twenty years in prison, where she remains.
How did Shining Path and Tupac Amaru form?
Experts say the groups arose in response to Peru ’s entrenched system of race- and class-based discrimination, which has deeply impoverished most of the country's population, especially citizens of indigenous descent.
What are their goals?
Both groups seek to topple the existing Peruvian government and impose their own communist regimes.
How do the groups differ?
Shining Path, established in the late 1960s by the former university professor Abimael Guzman, is a militant Maoist group that seeks to install a peasant revolutionary authority in Peru. The group took up arms in 1980, and its ranks once numbered in the thousands. Experts consider it one of the world’s most ruthless insurgencies; Shining Path often hacked its victims to death with machetes. The group, which now has only several hundred members remaining, operates mainly in jungle areas.
Tupac Amaru, named for an 18th-century rebel leader who fought Spanish colonial control, was founded on many of the communist principles that led to the Cuban revolution. The group, which is Marxist and wants to rid Peru of all imperialist elements, took up arms in 1984 and at its height had close to 1,000 members, mainly in rural areas. Experts consider Tupac Amaru less violent than Shining Path. Tupac Amaru members, who normally conceal their identities by wearing bandannas, have tried to promote a Robin Hood image of stealing from the rich to help the poor. The group is best known for its 1996 takeover of the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima. Most of Tupac Amaru’s leaders were killed in 1997 when Peruvian forces raided the Japanese compound and freed the hostages. The group has fewer than 100 members today.
Do Shining Path and Tupac Amaru have ties to other terrorist groups?
Shining Path is not sponsored by any state and has no known links to other terrorist groups. It considers itself the only remaining true communist revolutionary movement. According to David Scott Palmer, a professor of Latin American studies at Boston University , Tupac Amaru initially received support and some training from Cuba and has historical ties to two leftist insurgent groups, the FARC in Colombia and the FMLN in El Salvador , where some Tupac Amaru rebels fought. These associations waned with the end of the Cold War and Tupac Amaru's own decline. Shining Path and Tupac Amaru have no known ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
Do these two groups cooperate with each other?
No. There is bad blood between them. Shining Path sees Tupac Amaru’s fighters as traitors to communism. In the past, the two groups have fought each other for members and for the “taxes” that they both collect from cocaine smugglers operating in jungle areas under rebel control. Peru is the world's second-largest producer of cocaine (after Colombia), and such “taxes” are a major source of revenue for the insurgents.
Are the rebels popular in Peru?
No. Most Peruvians regard Shining Path and Tupac Amaru as terrorists who caused thousands of deaths and untold suffering. But despite the Peruvian government’s successful antiterrorist campaign, the rebels retain a small number of sympathizers among the rural poor.
Do these groups still pose a threat?
Peruvian and American authorities say that since Fujimori’s crackdown, terrorism has not been a problem in Peru . But in March 2002, just days before President Bush became the first sitting American president to visit Peru , a powerful car bomb exploded in a shopping arcade across from the U.S. embassy in Lima . U.S. and Peruvian officials say the bombing, which killed nine people and injured thirty others, was reminiscent of past Shining Path attacks. Some terrorism experts have warned that Shining Path is regrouping and recruiting new members, but few Peru-watchers believe that the group can regain its prior scale.
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