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Does the Shining Path still exist? Peru debate between massacres, drugs and politics
Lima, May 27 (EFE) .- Shining Path (SL), the brutal terrorist gang that marked the recent history of Peru, apparently reappeared in the political life of the country with an attack that left 16 dead and doubts, with important political repercussions , on whether there really are still terrorists who respond to those acronyms. The dead, including four minors whose bodies were burned, are the target balance of a ruthless attack committed just fifteen days before the most controversial and polarized elections in the recent democratic history of the country. Authorities, politicians, analysts and citizens disagree, however, on whether SL, of terrifying memory, is really behind this attack whose timing, objectives, implications and the story itself are questioned and add to the already tense political situation. REAL TERRORISM For the Peruvian right, represented by the candidate Keiko Fujimori and her main adviser on Interior issues, former Minister Fernando Rospigliosi, the attack is categorically the responsibility of SL. With a campaign focused on linking his rival, the leftist Pedro Castillo, with the political violence of the past, the events that occurred in the isolated and conflictive Valley of the Apurimac, Eme and Mantaro Rivers (VRAEM) would seem to reinforce his position. Namely: that terrorism is a real danger, that Maoist communism still lurks and that if Fujimori does not win, indiscriminate ideological violence is served. On the right are joined the Armed Forces and the Police, whose Directorate Against Terrorism confirms the “certainty” that the responsibility of the attack was “Shining Path” and not “drug traffickers”, an assertion made almost two days before the first agent arrived in Vizcatán del Ene, where the attack took place. “SL” DOES NOT EXIST For many experts on terrorism, investigative journalists and even – until last Monday – for law enforcement agencies, SL no longer exists. “They are facts based on evidence: SL, as an ideological, political and military structure, ends with the fall of” Comrade Artemio. “And what is left now in the VRAEM? An organization that under the paramilitary structure of the subversives has turned into a group of mercenaries at the service of drug trafficking, “Alberto Otálora, former defense minister, told Efe. This thesis is the one used by the security forces, which for years have linked this armed group with the VRAEM drug trafficking, and categorically called their actions “narco-terrorism.” The VRAEM produces approximately 70% of the more than 400 tons of cocaine that are exported each year mainly to the United States, Europe and Brazil. “What there are are veterans of armed subversion who are now called the Militarized Communist Party of Peru (MPCP) and who work in favor of drug trafficking routes,” Otárola insisted. “COMARADA JOSÉ” Without political ambition to assume control of the State, there is only a group of about 100 or 200 people who follow Víctor Quispe Palomino (“Comrade José”), the last survivor of the three brothers who have led this criminal gang . Before the attack, Rospigliosi had already warned about imminent actions by SL, and even hours before the attack, he spoke of Vizcatán as a hot spot. He was also the first to spread, along with Pedro Cateriano (former Defense Minister, Fujimori ally), crude photos of the massacre on social networks along with open questions to Castillo about his ability to confront “terrorism.” In Otálora’s opinion, all this controversy only revolves “around the favoring or not of one of the electoral candidates”, something “wrong and that threatens the lives of the thousands of Peruvians who lost their lives due to terrorist violence.” THEORIES From the scene of the events, a village where drug trafficking is the main economic activity, the population does not dare to venture who is behind the massacre. The attack actually looks very little like the acts of the historic Sendero: neither speeches, nor uniforms, nor tactics, nor political practices (they robbed the corpses) are the usual ones. “This has been a criminal massacre, quite simply. And it has two possible explanations. One is that it is an express attack by the Quispe Palominos to benefit Fujimori,” Jaime Antezana, one of the main investigators on drug trafficking and terrorism, told EFE. in the country. “This week Castillo leads the polls, and the right wing is in despair. There were already Keiko spokesmen talking about terrorist threats, car bombs, red flags, messages that ‘terrorism’ asks not to vote for Keiko … That is why they want us to let ‘Sendero’ be the one perpetrating the massacre, a self-fulfilling prophecy, “said the analyst. This thesis is supported by pointing out the clear pattern, repeated in 2011, 2016 and 2021 between attacks in the VRAEM and elections in which Fujimori has something at stake. Antezana’s other hypothesis is that they have been members of Quispe Palomino’s gang acting on their own as hitmen to carry out “an assault to measure” to put terror on the country’s political agenda. “In any case, or they are the Quispes, or they are hitmen, but it is not terrorism,” he said. Between 1980-2000 Peru experienced a bloody conflict unleashed by the Shining Path (Maoist), the Marxist group Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), which caused some 69,000 deaths, according to the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) . (c) EFE Agency
