A Jagged Scrap of history
On the Shining Path
Nolan, Rachel Publisher: Harper's Magazine
Year Published: 2019
Resource Type: Article
On the history of "The Shining Path", a Maoist guerilla group and its political impact on Peru.
Abstract:
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Excerpt:
The Shining Path differed in one other key aspect from other lef-wing groups in Latin America. The ideological difference - the Maoist verses leninist - was less important than the fact that Shining Path fighters were vastly more murderous and brutal than those of other guerrilla groups. They would set a cat's tail on fire and let it loose in fields ready to be harvested. They immolated bus drivers who defied their orders. They exploded burrombombas, unfortunate donkeys packed with explosives and pamphlets, in open-air marketplaces.
Next to the bodies of executed informers, they left hammer-and-sickle flags, or signs that read THIS IS HOW TRAITORS DIE. But, as Guillermoprieto noted, the Shining Path fighters were captured and asked about their notivationsm they could barely stutters out a coherent reply. Between the spectacular violence and the deadening rhetoric of Gonzalo Thought, why did people join at all? How did the Shining Path manage to survive and carry out murder and mayhem for over a decade?
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