Sendero Luminoso and the Peasantry of Andahuaylas

1986 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 165-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald H. Berg

Since 1980 the maoist party known as Sendero Luminoso, the “Shining Path,” has been waging a guerrilla campaign against the civilian government of Peru. To the surprise of most observers, this group not only has survived but has expanded its scope of operations, kept the military on the defensive, and attracted a small but significant national following.This limited success is puzzling because of the movement's small size, its lack of arms and its extreme radicalism, in a country with a diverse and substantial Left. Sendero Luminoso, calling itself the Communist Party of Peru, holds to an orthodox Maoist philosophy.

1995 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 399-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orin Starn

AbstractThis article examines the history and ideology of the Communist Party of Peru-Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso). The rebels claim to embody a distinctively Peruvian Marxism. However, a close examination of the party betrays a conspicuous indifference to Peruvian culture and traditions. The distinctiveness of this largest and most diverse of the Andean nations disappears in the orthodoxy of a universal Marxism, in this respect placing the Shining Path within the long legacy of the imperial inscription of Latin American history into the preconceived categories and linear narratives of Western philosophy and science.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 583-600
Author(s):  
Dino Carlos Caro Coria

AbstractThe internal conflict in Peru that ranged from 1980 to the mid 90s entailed serious crimes committed by armed groups, especially "Sendero Luminoso" (Shining Path) and by the state's own armed forces, in particular the military and paramilitary groups such as the "Colina Group". These crimes ranged from attacks against civilians in violation of international humanitarian law, to enforced disappearances of persons, torture, and extrajudicial executions. In some cases, these crimes have even qualified as genocide.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 41-53
Author(s):  
Renzo Aroni Sulca

On August 14, 1985, during the armed conflict between the Communist Party of Peru, known as Shining Path, and the Peruvian state, an army patrol entered the town of Accomarca, in the Andean region of Ayacucho, and assassinated 69 peasants, presumed sympathizers of the insurgents. The majority of the survivors were displaced to the city of Lima, where they created an organization of victims and joined the Asociación de Hijos del Distrito Accomarca. Since 2011, the survivors and relatives of the victims have been remembering the massacre and transmitting their memories to their children through a Carnival performance of music and dance. Carnival is a constructive space for the production of other forms of memory and for the pursuit of justice and reparations through participatory choreography and musical performance. El 14 de agosto de 1985—-durante el conflicto armado entre el Partido Comunista de Perú, conocido como Sendero Luminoso, y el Estado peruano—una patrulla del ejército entró en el pueblo de Accomarca, en la región andina de Ayacucho, y asesinó a 69 campesinos, presuntos simpatizantes de los insurgentes. La mayoría de los sobrevivientes fueron desplazados a la ciudad de Lima, en donde crearon una organización de víctimas y se unieron a la Asociación de Hijos del Distrito Accomarca. Desde 2011, los sobrevivientes y los familiares de las víctimas han estado recordando la masacre y transmitiendo sus memorias a sus hijos a través de un espectáculo carnavalesco de música y baile. El carnaval es un espacio constructivo para la producción de otras formas de la memoria y para la búsqueda de la justicia y la reparación por medio de una coreografía participativa y una representación musical.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 27-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Eugenia Ulfe ◽  
Vera Lucía Ríos

Memory museums exist as markers in the public domain; meanings and practices are created around them and assigned uses and silences. The Museum of the National Directorate against Terrorism in Peru displays artworks and archives seized from members of the Shining Path Communist Party of Peru and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and can be visited only with a special permit. The memories it contains are considered “toxic” and are exhibited in a private instead of a public space. This space cannot be understood as a “museum of conscience” or a “site of memory.” Victims are not dignified there, and no symbolic reparations are made. It houses memories in the form of artwork, books, and memorabilia of those who because of their participation in the armed groups during the conflict have been denied the status of victims as defined in the country’s reparations program. Los museos de la memoria funcionan como marcadores simbólicos en el ámbito público; se construyen significados y prácticas alrededor de ellos y se les asignan usos y silencios. El Museo del Directorio Nacional en Contra del Terrorismo en el Perú muestra el trabajo artístico y los archivos incautados a los miembros del Partido Comunista del Perú-Sendero Luminoso y del Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru. El museo sólo puede visitarse con un permiso especial. Los objetos que se exhiben son considerados “tóxicos” y se exhiben en un espacio privado en vez de un espacio público. Este espacio no se puede entender como un “museo de la conciencia” o un “lugar de la memoria.” Aquí las víctimas no son dignificadas, y tampoco reciben reparaciones simbólicas. El museo alberga memorias o recuerdos (libros, dibujos, recuerdos personales) de aquéllos a quienes se les ha negado la condición de víctimas, tal como está definida en el programa de reparaciones del país, debido a su participación en los grupos armados durante el conflicto.


Author(s):  
Peter Krause

This chapter on the Palestinian national movement examines the impact of hierarchy on group behavior. It uses a variety of tight within-case comparisons, in which the shifting of variables at different times allows for powerful assessments of why groups such as Fatah, the PFLP, and the Jordanian Communist Party used or restrained violence at different periods in their history. The chapter also illustrates “the tragedy of national movements”: Palestinian groups knew they needed hegemony to succeed, but their desire for power kept them largely fragmented. Regardless of changes in time or space, the Palestinian national movement met with strategic failure when the movement was fragmented (1965–1973, 1975–1985, and 2001–2016); limited success when it was united (1974); and its greatest success when the movement was hegemonic (1986–1993 and 1995–2000).


2020 ◽  
pp. 253-270
Author(s):  
Neil Macmaster

The chapter examines how the Communist Party, following the decision of June 1955 to organize the paramilitary Combattants de la libération (CDL), established a short-lived guerrilla, the so-called ‘Red Maquis’, in the Chelif region. The clandestine structure had begun to take root as a consequence of the massive earthquake of September 1954, centred on Orleansville, that exposed the long-term failure of the colonial state to develop the rural economy. The communists rapidly created the Fédération des sinistrés that established a network of peasant cells that soon became the base of the Red Maquis. While the communists were successful in creating a guerrilla base centred on Medjadja, the main group inserted by Laban and Maillot in the Beni Boudouane was rapidly located and destroyed by the army, assisted by the bachaga Boualam. The catastrophic failure of the Red Maquis highlighted the failure of the Algiers-based central committee to prepare the ground for a guerrilla movement. However, several key participants escaped the military encirclement and were soon absorbed into the FLN on the dissolution of the CDL in July 1956.


2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 62-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kostis Karpozilos

In the fall of 1949, after the end of the Greek Civil War, the bulk of the defeated Greek Communist (KKE) fighters were covertly transported from Albania to Soviet Uzbekistan. This article addresses the covert relocation project, organized by the Soviet Communist Party, and the social engineering program intended to create a prototype Greek People’s Democracy in Tashkent. Drawing on Soviet and Greek Communist Party records, the article raises three major issues: first, the contingencies of postwar transition in the Balkans and the precarious status of the Albanian regime; second, the international Communist response to the military defeat of the KKE in 1949 and the competing visions of the Greek, Soviet, and Albanian parties regarding the future of the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG); third, the intentions of the KKE to establish military bases in Albania and the party’s ensuing effort to transform the agrarian fighters of the DAG into revolutionary cadres for a future victorious repatriation in Greece. Drawing these elements together, the article elucidates the relocation operation of 1949, positions the Greek political refugee experience within the postwar “battle of refugees,” and challenges the widespread historiographical assumption that the KKE immediately abandoned the prospect of a renewed armed confrontation.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document