Peruvian Civil War
...resent were becoming more and more frequent. The widespread surprise these clashes caused was perhaps showing the extent to which scholars had ignored the question of why peasants become actively and violently counter-revolutionary. The Shining Path generated extensive resentment when it attempted to impose a revolutionary strategy that threatened personal security and also exacerbated the very economic hardships that had brought the rebels a large measure of popular sympathy in the first place. Life had been hard before the war, but at least they had their own homes and enough food to eat. The peasants also blame the Marines for the killings and the destruction they perpetrated in Peru in the past. But they ultimately blame the terrucos or the Senderista “terrorists” for causing the Marines to come to Peru in the first place. The democratic election of 1980 was intended to symbolize Peru's return to civilian governance and democracy after more than a decade of military rule. But the Communist Party of Peru, the Shining Path, which is a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organization committed to armed struggle, chose the eve of the election to initiate a rebellion against the Peruvian state by burning ballot boxes in the rural town of Chuschi, in the Ayacuchan province of Cangallo. The seventeenth of May would thereafter be celebrated on the revolutionary calendar as the Inicio de la Lucha Armada, but the decision to embark on the path of guerrilla war had already been made as early as 1978, when it was deemed at a Central Committee meeting that conditions in Peru had reached a prime point in time for revolution. The Plan Inca, which is Shining Paths ambitious program of progressive social and economic reform, was first conceived by a small group of left-leaning military officers under the leadership of General Juan Velasco Alvarado in response to the failed guerrilla revolts of 1965. The reforms, created as a coherent anti-poverty strategy, were to prevent another guerrilla uprising in the future. Most of the reformist military officers considered reform to be a vital ingredient for national security. In spite of the military government's best intentions and limited achievements, it had become apparent by the middle of the decade that the reform structures and economic policies it had put in place were sometimes conflicting with the priorities of peasant communities. For instance, the government's decision to create state-controlled agrarian and livestock cooperatives, rather than to restore the land in the form of individual or communal holdings caused widespread disillusionment and dissatisfaction among peasants towards the official land reform and its administrators. Despite the continuing problems of poverty and economic crisis at the turn of the decade, Peru at the moment of the ILA could not be described as the "semi colonial" and "semi feudal", which the Shining Path envisioned it to be. Even so, Shining Path would still find lots of dissatisfaction in which to use to get the support of peasants. After the burning of ballot boxes in Chuschi, Shining Path embarked on a series of vigorous, nation-wide operations that aimed at the disruption of public life by dynamiting buildings and sabotaging national infrastructure. Its actions were also directed at making symbolic statements such as blowing up Velasco's tomb, hanging dead dogs on lampposts, and painting political slogans on walls. They also were building up its guerrilla arsenal by robbing dynamite from mining camps and seizing firearms and uniforms from police stations or policemen. The death toll during the first two years of the insurgency was extremely low: six policemen, seven civilians, and 0 peasants. The government of President Belaúnde did not take these acts seriously, and dismissed the militants as "terrorists," "petty cattle-rustlers," and "bandits." The responsibility for stopping the guerrillas in the first three years of the insurgency was given to the police. During this period, the President expressed repeatedly that he was reluctant to utilize the armed forces to suppress the rebellion. He didn’t think it was necessary. The political crisis eventually worsened to such an extent that the government had no alternative but to extend the state of emergency over the entire department of Ayacucho on March 5, 1982 Belaúnde reluctantly turned to the army to try to suppress the rebels. However, that proved extremely difficult to do. The SL expanded its original base in Ayacucho north along the Andean spine and eventually into Lima and other cities, gaining young recruits frustrated by their dismal prospects for a better future. To further complicate pacification efforts, another rival guerrilla group, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru--MRTA), emerged in Lima. Counterinsurgency techniques, often applied indiscriminately by the armed forces, resulted in severe human rights violations against the civilian population and only created more recruits for the Shining Path. By the end of Belaúnde's term in 1985, over 6,000 Peruvians had died from the violence, and over $1 billion in property damage had resulted. Strongly criticized by international human rights organizations, Belaúnde nevertheless continued to rely on military solutions, rather than other emergency social or developmental measures that might have helped to get at some of the fundamental, underlying socioeconomic causes of the insurgency. The Shining Path’s many violent actions have been directed against locally elected municipal officials and anyone designated as a gamonal in the departments of Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Apurímac, Junín, Huánuco, and portions of Ancash and Cusco departments, as well as some other areas designated as emergency zones where government control was deeply compromised. The Shingling Path opposed Lima as the metropolis that takes resources from the rest of the nation. Like most past revolutionary movements acting on behalf of the poor, the Shining Path leadership has consisted of disgruntled and angry intellectuals, mestizos, and whites. Many adherents have been recruited from university and high school ranks, where radical politicization has been a part of student culture since the late nineteenth century. Others have come from the communities of migrant youths living in urban lower-class surroundings, frustrated school teachers, and the legions of alienated peasants in highland provinces in Huancavelica, Ayacucho, and adjacent areas. Beginning in the strategic stage of the defensive, the People's Army, step by step enlarged its theater of operations. The war began in the Andean states of Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurimac; the struggle survived and grew. In 1980, 219 attacks were carried out. By mid 1986, a total of more than 30,000 attacks had occurred. Today the war has touched every state and region of Peru. In the 1990's, increasing numbers of battles have been fought in the three regions of Peru: the coast, the sierra and the jungle. The Shining Path has announced in word and deed that a new strategic level has been achieved. Larger and more heavily armed guerrilla formations assaulting more fortified government positions and attacks in the cities have become a reality. From 1980 to 1990, an estimated 200,000 persons were driven from their homes, with about 18,000 people killed, mostly in the department of Ayacucho and neighboring areas. In five provinces in Ayacucho, the resident population dropped by two-thirds, and many villages were virtual ghost towns. This migration went to Lima, Ica, and Huancayo, where disoriented peasants were offered little assistance and sometimes were attacked by the police as suspected Shining Path members. Many communities have responded to Shining Path attacks by organizing and fighting back. Towns or villages in La Libertad and Cajamarca departments, in particular, greatly amplified the system of rondas campesinas. Elsewhere, the army organized l...