Luminous Path

The luminous Path - whose true name is P.C.P. - S.L. : Partido Comunista del Peru Sendero Luminoso - was founded by Abimael Guzman Reynoso which was professor of philosophy at the university of Ayacucho. It took, in 1980, the head of the insurrection under the name of comrade Gonzalo . It acts at the beginning of a dissidence of the Peruvian Communist party.

The movement launched its “popular war prolonged” by an act symbolic system in May 1980: at two days of the elections, a commando burned the ballot boxes of Chuschi, insolated village of the department.

With leaving 12 years of military regime, misery with the Peru appeared without remedy, chaos reigned. With the whole beginning, the sentierists, very organized, had been received by the population, to which they distributed grounds.

January 28th, 1989, 240 peasants of the province of Ayacucho are massacred.

May 2nd, 1989, the Peruvian army stops fifteen sentierists.

In 1992, the Peruvian army will make a success of the capture of Abimael Guzmán, alias comrade Gonzalo, the historical leader of the organization and will show it with the press, locked up, a such animal, in a cage. Its behavior, this day, in front of the journalists, approached extremely that of a furious insane animal.

This arrest quickly involved a clear reduction in the actions of the luminous Path.

The Peruvian government evaluated the economic costs of the terrorist activities of the luminous Path to more than 16 billion dollars, the equivalent of the foreign debt of the country, whose service absorbs a third of the currencies coming from exports (fishing, copper, zinc, money, in particular).

Two visions

For some, all degenerated when the Peruvian army started to assassinate the peasants and the persons in charge of social organizations in reprisals to the support that those brought to the Maoists.

For others, all degenerated when the terrorists of the luminous Path started to assassinate the “treacherous” peasants and the persons in charge of social organizations, imposing a pitiless and sanguinary totalitarian order, on the basis of obscure prophetic speech.

That they are charged to the luminous Path, their “enemies” of the revolutionary Movement Tupac Amaru or to the Peruvian government, the massacres present a very heavy assessment: more than 26.000 died, 4.000 missings and 50.000 orphans (figures at the end of 2002). The commission Truth and Reconciliation which has seat as of the middle of the years 1990 noted that 54% of the victims were ascribable with the Luminous Path and 46% with the Peruvian army. Among them, 80% men having between 20 and 49 years for 66% of them. 56% were Andean, illiterate peasants to 68% and of Quechua language for the three quarter of them.

In this state with strong centralist tendency throughout its history, many massacres which have occurred during the guerilla took on the aspect of an ethnic conflict. Of long time the Peruvian company is marked by a rupture (economic, cultural, in term of presence of administrations and schools) between Lima, the capital and its coastal area, and all the back country in altitude. With what extremely old phenomena of discriminations towards the people of the mountains are added. As well violence luminous Path as that of the official forces fell down on the Andean populations, regarded as " indios" (Indians) or " serranos" (mountain dwellers). The fact that this population was aimed in quasi exclusiveness explains, partly, the weak mediatization of the time around the massacres.

According to News Media: The P.C.P. - S.L is distinguished in the history from terrorism by its extreme brutality. When its commandos penetrate in villages, it often sometimes happens to them to massacre part of the population. This movement does not profit from the support of most of the population. Moreover, its methods of recruitment approach a system extremely " conscription obligatoire".

Assessment

The Guérilla opposing the Peruvian soldiers to the luminous path made more than 69.000 victims between 1980 and 2000.

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