Sendero Luminoso

Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) (Peru) A Peruvian guerrilla movement founded in 1970 by Abimael Guzmán to follow the example of Maoism in seeking to establish Communism through a peasant-based (rather than proletarian) revolution. It only became active on the national scene in 1980, and initially focused its activities on the Ayacucho district, killing officials and peasants loyal to the government, as well as bombing government buildings. In the dirty war which ensued, which was joined in 1983 by the socialist Tupac Amaru guerrilla force, an estimated 25,000 people died, with thousands disappearing. More than half of Peru came under martial law. The struggle was complicated by the increasingly powerful drug barons, who began to finance the Sendero Luminoso in return for its protection. While it retained much influence in the countryside, it was on the defensive after the election of Fujimori in 1990. Guzmán was captured and imprisoned in 1992, while the number of activists declined from around 8,000 to an estimated 700 in 1995. Guzmán's successor, Ramírez Durand, was captured and imprisoned in 1999.