Peru

Peru is a country still emerging from the fires of a protracted civil war with the Shining Path that spanned from 1980 up through the mid-1990s. Today it has a fairly high HDI of 0.73 and a GDP per capita of over $5000; however, it has a history of high income inequality, especially for the peasantry. The Shining Path emerged in 1980 as a response to terrible economic conditions in the rural areas of the country. Thus it formed its base of operations in the rural areas of the country and secured the support of the peasantry as well as disaffected teachers and youth. It then planned to eventually move in on the cities, cut off their food lines, and ultimately topple the government, establishing a communist state. For a long time, they were successful. They were extremely effective in using intimidation to create discord in the areas they were attacking and in control of. The government did not know how to respond. President Belaunde initially marginalized the Sendero threat. As the threat grew in late 1981, the government introduced emergency laws in affected areas and it was not until 1982 that Belanunde started using antiterrorist police to combat the insurgency, refusing to utilize the military. In fact, it was only at that point that Belaunde declared a state of emergency in the provinces of Ayacucho, allowing the armed forces to occupy these provinces, suspend civil rights, and create “civil defense patrols” that gave peasants the capability to attack the insurgents. The police were given wide latitude to torture, arbitrarily arrest people, and murder citizens who were hard to distinguish from rebels. The newly established civil defense patrols, while important later, did not have a large impact initially. It would not be until they expanded that their effectiveness increased.

Garcia did make a couple of changes however that laid the foundation for the ultimate defeat of the Shining Path and provided concrete turning points in the war. First, he expanded the capacity of the government’s intelligence which would lead to Leader Guzman’s capture in September 1992. Second, he promoted the rondas, which were the civil defense patrols formed under Belaunde. President Alberto Fujimori then came into power in 1990 with a much heavier hand toward fighting the insurgents, repairing relations with the military, stabilizing the economy by introducing market reforms that brought down hyperinflation and created growth, and then reaping the benefits of Garcia’s shift in strategy. Though this had the effect of creating more poverty, it set Peru on the course of economic stabilization. These gains, in combination with advances in Peru’s intelligence capability allowed the government to take out Shining Path Leader Guzman and the organization fell apart, at least as a military threat to the state. Today, it remains a criminal organization that fuels the massive drug trade in Peru and it still commits a wide variety of terrorist acts across the country.