Last week we had a guest speaker come to the house and tell us about the 'Shining Path'. This was the worst time in Peruvian history, especially for Ayacucho, the town I am currently living in. The shining path started out as a communist party lead by a guy called "Gussman" i think. He followed the examples of Mao in China and Castro in Cuba. The shining path originated in the early 1980's and began with good intentions, similar to robin hood of 'robbing from the rich to feed the poor'. This concept and many others of theirs was what led people to join the party in the first place. Gussman moved to Ayacucho as a teacher at the university here, and that is where he created the party and its first movements. Like Mao, he choose the poorest region in Peru to start his vision, Ayacucho. At the beginning it wasn't all bad, but soon in the following years to come, it became about power and money- which is usually achieved through murder.
We heard stories about small villages in the department of Ayacucho (Ayacucho is a department or region as well as the main town), where the whole village was murdered. It began peacefully and ended tragically in 69,000 murders, 15,000 people still missing and many mass graves still being discovered today. For many years the Peruvian government did nothing about the Shining Path, turning a blind eye to what was going on. When they finally decided to get involved, they became worse than the shining path members themselves. For example, in a small village a couple of hours out of Ayacucho, there was a bride to be and her groom getting ready for their impending marriage the following day. The brides family were at her house and the grooms at his. During the Shining Path times, the military imposed a curfew and anyone found breaking curfew was immediately shot, woman, child or man. So they were having a small celebration at the grooms house, with lots of food and dancing. The military arrived and accused them of being terrorists (or part of the shining path), they tried to explain that it was a small party celebrating the grooms marriage but they did not believe them. So the military took them away, walking them kilometres and kilometres into the bush and lined them up one by one and shot them all dead. The bride could not understand where he fiance and his family had disappeared to, and asked the military for an enquiry, which obviously never happened. There were so many senseless deaths during this time, for no particular reason at all. For example breaking curfew on the streets meant you were shot and your body 'disappeared', so your family never knew exactly what happened to you.
Another example is of shining path members dressing as the military, going to small villages and asking where their allegiance lie. When they answered 'the military' (because they were wearing military uniforms), the shining path members gathered them up into a small hut/cottage, poured kerosene onto the hut and burned them all alive. So it was not just the military that was murdering people but also the shining path members. So you could imagine how horrible it was for the local people, not knowing who to trust, not knowing who they should support in case it got them killed.
7 Peruvian journalists were murdered after trying to walk to a remote village to talk to them about the shining path. But the villagers were instructed by the military that anybody who was not wearing their uniforms was a terrorist, so upon seeing a large group of ordinary clothed people, the villages went at them and killed them all. There is a monument in Ayacucho that is in memory for the journalists killed. It was after this killing, that the international media gained hold of what was happening in Peru, and started to televise the problems that were going on here. Also, the CCS (cross-cultural solutions) house that we live in is on a street called 26 de enero, 26th of January in commemoration for the journalists, as that was the date they were killed.
In 1990, i think, the people voted and elected FujiMori into power as the president of the country. He was the best thing that happened to Peru during this dark time, as he took steps of acknowledging the problem, and asking the international community for help. He went to the United Nations and the European Union asking for assistance, in terms of financial, political and legal. From them onwards he bought in new laws; for example in return for dobbing in a 'terrorist' you would be provided with money, or if you were a terrorist and wanted to change your life, if you provided the government with the right information they would change your name and your families identity and send you to Colombia or Ecuador. This was the beginning of the downfall of the shining path. He also bought in stricter laws for judges, so that they weren't in fear of being killed, and longer sentances- life for example. At the end of 1992, 12 years after the bloodshed began, the leader of the shining path, Gussman, was captured. This was a wonderful day in Peruvian history. From then onwards, more and more terrorists were captured and by 1996, there was an end to the shining path.
To this day there are still mass graves being uncovered and bodies being found that 'disappeared' during the shining path's reign. It is such an amazing history and terribly sad when our guest speaker spoke of the atrocities of both the military and the shining path, such as small unsuspecting children being strapped with bombs and being sent into buildings- it was blood curling stuff. Our guest speaker was a teacher at the university and a colleague of Gussman at Ayacucho university.
Very intersting! Google shining path for more.
PS, I am going to email the Australian Government because the SmartTraveller website warns of the dangers in Ayacucho. Peru, as a whole country is classed as "Travel with a high degree of Caution" which is fine, but Ayacucho is classified as "Do not travel" as the area still has many sympathizers to the shining path. Which is absolutely ridiculous and I must admit made me a bit apprehensive about coming here, but there is no shining path supporters left in Ayacucho, and the remaining ones work for the drug traffickers providing protection for their smugglers to get cocaine out of the country. I doubt there would be shining path supporters left in the towns after the atrocity it caused this country.
xoxo millie
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