Internal Conflict In Peru
Internal Conflict in Peru from 1980 to 2000: Shining Path, Tupac Amaru, and Governmental Response
I. Introduction
Over the course of its history, Peru has endured several periods of conflict, invasion, and revolution. Between the years 1980 to 2000, the country faced a particularly divisive struggle involving two different revolutionary groups: the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. These groups wreaked havoc throughout rural and urban Peru while masked as revolutionaries acting for the people. This internal conflict was only further fueled by intervention from the government, which in turn committed several human rights abuses and atrocities of its own.
This paper will serve to explore both the inspiration and ideology …show more content…
Founded in the late 1960’s by Huamanga University philosophy professor Abimael Guzman, the Shining Path’s main goal was to overthrow the Peruvian government and replace it with their own centralized regime, which heavily reflected traditional communist ideals (“Peru: The Struggle for Accountability”, n.d.). The rise of the Shining Path from a small group of radicals to a guerrilla army was facilitated by the group’s strong appeal to specific demographics within the Peruvian citizenry. The group had to find support in the masses in order to be able to accomplish its revolutionary goals. Guzman’s occupation as a professor allowed him to spread his ideas amongst large groups of people, specifically younger generations. The Shining Path’s insurrection was ignited not by the poor or uneducated, but by university students who were inspired by radical politics; many of these young adults had experienced poverty or racism personally, and thus were very open to Guzman’s calls for change (Starn, 1995, pp.403). While looking at the origin of the Shining Path, it is crucial that we observe what historical figures and circumstances influenced Abimael …show more content…
Orin Starn (1995) goes into detail about how what was previously was known as Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong thought soon changed into Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong-Gonzalo thought as a result of the evolution of Gonzalo thought, or Guzman’s spin on these traditional ideas. Jose Carlos Mariategui, founder of one of Peru’s first communist parties, was one of Guzman’s primary sources of inspiration in addition to Mao, though Guzman was an isolationist and refused to align his party with any past or present movements (Starn, 1995). Lewis Taylor, in his book Shining Path: Guerilla War in Peru’s Northern Highlands, 1980-1977, explains that Guzman’s ideology represented a “marrying” of the ideas of Mariategui and Mao Zedong (2005). Taylor also highlights the fact that the Shining Path would state, “the people’s war is a peasant’s war or it is nothing,” (2005). This shows that the Shining Path needed the support of the peasantry in order to produce significant change, and that for this reason, many of the peasantry believed that the Shining Path was standing with them and acting in their
I. Introduction
Over the course of its history, Peru has endured several periods of conflict, invasion, and revolution. Between the years 1980 to 2000, the country faced a particularly divisive struggle involving two different revolutionary groups: the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. These groups wreaked havoc throughout rural and urban Peru while masked as revolutionaries acting for the people. This internal conflict was only further fueled by intervention from the government, which in turn committed several human rights abuses and atrocities of its own.
This paper will serve to explore both the inspiration and ideology …show more content…
Founded in the late 1960’s by Huamanga University philosophy professor Abimael Guzman, the Shining Path’s main goal was to overthrow the Peruvian government and replace it with their own centralized regime, which heavily reflected traditional communist ideals (“Peru: The Struggle for Accountability”, n.d.). The rise of the Shining Path from a small group of radicals to a guerrilla army was facilitated by the group’s strong appeal to specific demographics within the Peruvian citizenry. The group had to find support in the masses in order to be able to accomplish its revolutionary goals. Guzman’s occupation as a professor allowed him to spread his ideas amongst large groups of people, specifically younger generations. The Shining Path’s insurrection was ignited not by the poor or uneducated, but by university students who were inspired by radical politics; many of these young adults had experienced poverty or racism personally, and thus were very open to Guzman’s calls for change (Starn, 1995, pp.403). While looking at the origin of the Shining Path, it is crucial that we observe what historical figures and circumstances influenced Abimael …show more content…
Orin Starn (1995) goes into detail about how what was previously was known as Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong thought soon changed into Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong-Gonzalo thought as a result of the evolution of Gonzalo thought, or Guzman’s spin on these traditional ideas. Jose Carlos Mariategui, founder of one of Peru’s first communist parties, was one of Guzman’s primary sources of inspiration in addition to Mao, though Guzman was an isolationist and refused to align his party with any past or present movements (Starn, 1995). Lewis Taylor, in his book Shining Path: Guerilla War in Peru’s Northern Highlands, 1980-1977, explains that Guzman’s ideology represented a “marrying” of the ideas of Mariategui and Mao Zedong (2005). Taylor also highlights the fact that the Shining Path would state, “the people’s war is a peasant’s war or it is nothing,” (2005). This shows that the Shining Path needed the support of the peasantry in order to produce significant change, and that for this reason, many of the peasantry believed that the Shining Path was standing with them and acting in their