Shining Path

The Communist Party of Peru more commonly known as the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) is a Maoist organization in Peru.

Formed in the 1960s with an objective to replace what it saw as bourgeois democracy with "New Democracy" in Peru, Shining Path has a long history of militant activities in Peru.

The group is widely condemned for its brutality against peasants, trade unions and general population.

Its leader Abimael Guzmán was captured in 1992. After that, the group fragmented into two factions, and its ranks declined from tens of thousands to just a few thousand fighters.

The first Shining Path faction operates in the Alto Huallaga River Valley and is closely involved with drug cultivation and trafficking but maintains its allegiance to Guzman’s ideological teachings. The Huallaga group has undergone a series of setbacks after years of fighting Peruvian police.

Shining Path in News

It was in news in April 2012, when the Peruvian military announced that it would conduct an operation against Shining Path in the Apurimac and Ene River Valley (VRAE). The operation was announced as a response to the group’s April 9 kidnapping of 36 workers associated with the country’s Camisea natural gas project.