Taking of Aucayacu

In August 1996, ninety subversives of the Shining Path PCP took the town of Aucayacu and attacked the police post. This attack was part of a series of PCP-SL actions in the region that demonstrated their ability to mobilize large contingents, despite the general decline in subversive activity following the capture of Abimael Guzmán in 1992. In 1997 there was another attack on Aucayacu, although more than twenty subversives were killed or wounded in that confrontation. These attacks occurred in the context of continuing violence in the Huallaga region, where the PCP-SL maintained a presence and operational capacity.