Peru's Shining Path (Communist Party of Peru) is Making a Comeback, Analyst Says

Just when the mainstream media tells us the civil war is over in Peru and Shining Path (actually the Communist Party of Peru) is completely defeated they report making a comeback. According to several sources and reports on the group, they have recently expanded their operations out into areas of Peru where they had been thought to be driven out.

This may not mean a complete comeback to the days when the guerrilla movement had taken much of the country side and was actually winning. But it does mean the group is not yet defunct.

The old guard of Shining Path (Communist Party of Peru), at least their leadership, has given up on winning the "people's war" and are presently working in the organization movadef (Movimiento Por Amnistía y Derechos Fundamentales, Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights) which strives to end the people's war and bring about release of all imprisoned comrades.

The article below mentions the Quispe Palomina clan. They broke off of Shining Path to form the group Communist Party of Peru Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. That group is keeping up the guerrilla war. But whether it really has anything to do with the original Shining Path is hard to know. The CPP-MLM only made brief contact with outside parties from Peru a few years ago and has not been heard from since. So it is not all that clear which Shining Path is actually doing the fighting and organizing. Chairman Gonzalo ( Abimael Guzmán) has been associated with movadef.

Despite ending the people's war, the Peruvian government has tried to shut down movadef. The Peruvian Government is trying to destroy the group and has prevented it from being a legal political party. They treat movadef as if it is just another Shining Path effort. They are treating it the same as a terrorist organization.

No matter what is going on in Peru, the news that the guerrillas are still active is good news.

- សតិវ​អតុ 

From Insight Crime:

by Mimi Yagoub

A politician in Peru is urging that the security forces be deployed to "stateless" drug transit areas where one analyst says Shining Path guerrillas are making inroads, a sign the group may be expanding its territorial reach after years of decline. 

Congressman Carlos Tubino said that the Peruvian military and police should be deployed to areas without a state presence, such as the Masisea district in Ucayali, a province in central Peru on the eastern border with Brazil, Diario UNO reported. Tubino is the representative for Ucayali and vice president of the Defense and Anti-Narcotics Commission in Congress.

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