What Is Shining Path? A Journey Through Its History
Sendero Luminoso is a Peruvian political organization that was the protagonist of one of the most important and conflictive armed movements of recent decades in Latin America. The consequences of violent public actions, and the state of war unleashed, continue to be analyzed to this day as a crucial part in the history of the development of the political systems of the region.
Below we will briefly explain What is Sendero Luminoso, what are some of its background and key people? as well as some of the consequences it has had in the cities most involved.
Shining Path, also known as the Communist Party of Peru-Shining Path (PCP-SL), is an armed insurrection movement that has been active since the 1970s in Peru considered a terrorist organization by several States.
It began as an armed movement for free education, initiated in the Peruvian province of Ayacucho, and later spread as a political movement, which developed through other cities in the same country and culminated in a war that lasted more than a decade.
The uprising in arms occurred in the 1980s and unleashed a series of actions and clashes that are considered some of the bloodiest in the recent history of Latin America.
Abimael Guzmán and the beginnings of the PCP-SL
The most representative figure of the movement is Abimael Guzmán, who was a professor at the National University of San Cristóbal de Huamanga, located in the province of Ayacucho. When analyzing the indigenous situation of Peru before the political powers, Guzmán applied his interpretation of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism as well as his perspective on international debates surrounding communism in the Soviet Union and China, among other things.
In the electoral and political context of the 1960s, Sendero Luminoso was not only promoted by the rural sector and the peasantry in their different expressions; but many young university intellectuals participated in an important way. Initially, the organizational bases of the movement were laid through the Communist Party of Peru and the red faction.
Luminous Path It formally emerged after a meeting that took place at the University of Huamanga in Ayacucho and was established from the beginning as a political organization with a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist perspective.
In addition to this, some scholars of the movement have analyzed intellectual influences of the beginnings of SL in relation to the theories of Alain Touraine, Antonio Gramsci, José Arico, Sinesio López, José Nun, James Scott, among others. Something that these authors have in common is the vindication of agency (the power of the actors themselves) in social transformation and in historical models and structures. (Colonel, 1996).
Some background and development of this organization
Degregori (2016) distinguishes between three fundamental antecedents of the Shining Path armed struggles. On the one hand, the birth of Sendero Luminoso as an independent organization between 1969 and 1970. On the other, the decision to take up arms that occurred between 1976 and 1978. And finally, the national context and the transformations that had been produced by the government military reformist, from 1970 until the crisis of the following decade.
In this critical situation, The indigenous Andean region had been unprotected and violated by the military dictatorship of the revolutionary government of the armed forces, which lasted from 1968 to 1980.
Ending this dictatorship, in 1980, Sendero Luminoso carried out the first public act of violence: a burning of anaphoras and electoral ballot boxes as a way of protesting against the supposed normalization towards democracy. This occurred in the province of Ayacucho, specifically in the municipality of Chuschi, and from then on, the movement continued to carry out public acts of violence for the next 10 years. In this course, the movement became militarized (between 1983 and 1986), which culminates with the deployment of violence throughout the territory for the following three years.
An important transformation finally occurs in the 1990s, with the arrival to power of Alberto Fujimori In 1992, Abimael Guzmán was arrested and the movement laid down its weapons and the actions of the SL were drastically modified, which is currently known as post-senderismo.
The moment in which the uprising occurred was crucial for the history of the country, since the first months of government of the armed forces began, the oil had been nationalized, and the discussion on reforms for the rural sector was looming. , among other things. In this context, the movement for free education promoted by Sendero Luminoso gave an idea of the regional crises that the countryside was going through.
after the war
As expected, the armed confrontation has had many unpleasant consequences in the Andean region of Peru. According to Degregori (1996), in addition to the destruction of infrastructure and widespread poverty of the Ayacucho region, there were important changes in the countryside in the rural areas of Huanta, La Mar and Cangallo, which are three of the provinces most affected by violence.
Many people were forced to move from their communities to avoid the disastrous consequences of the fighting. Those who stayed had to radically rearrange their lifestyles.
For example, one of the practices that were generated to maintain the population in the affected areas was the construction of fortified villages on hills or hills Those who did not climb the hills had to strengthen their houses with structures that resemble walls.
Land and livestock were also seriously affected. Overall, the conditions of extreme precariousness also accentuated the differences in the prosperity achieved by different regions.
