The Allure of Quick Victory: Lessons From , Peru's Fight Against Sendero Luminoso
Military Review › Vol. 90 Nbr. 5, September 2010
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Summary
In 1974, SL lost control of the university, but it had already succeeded in creating a "revolutionary consciousness" in the population of Ayacucho.8 Other Latin American communist movements followed Che Guevara 'sfoco method and brought their ideologies to rural areas.9 Guzman's followers were not foreigners or crusading children from the urban middle class, they were a part of the impoverished rural population already. Shining Path could take up the banner of a nationalist movement against foreign intruders and regain widespread popular support.15 On 12 September 1992, Guzman was captured along with several other SL leaders in a raid by DINCOTE (Dirección Contra Terrorismo), an elite group of Peruvian national police that had received extensive support and training from the United States.\n30 Peru's Plan VRAE and Plan Huallaga, like USAID, are designed as interagency efforts.
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The Allure of Quick Victory: Lessons From , Peru's Fight Against Sendero Luminoso
FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER a powerful rebellion spread fear and destruction throughout the nation of Peru, the commanding general of the Peruvian Army, Otto Guibovich, provided the ominous warning: "If we don't do something they will grow and we will realize we have our own FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia)."1 Sendero Luminoso (SL) conducted a violent campaign of rural guerrilla war and urban terrorism from 1 980 to 1995; however, its growth and expansion seemed to vanish in an instant with the capture of its leader, Abimael Guzman. The rapid disintegration of SL was cited as an example of successful counterinsurgency, but now rising casualties and violence caused by the formerly dormant group have called those conclusions into question. While the importance of the capture of SL's leadership is...
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