Alleged Shining Path members in the Alto Huallaga

Presumed members of Sendero Luminoso in the Alto Huallaga, San Martín, in September 1987. Throughout the 1980s, the drug trafficking business and the socioeconomic conditions of the population in coca-growing areas created a favorable environment for the infiltration of subversive groups into the northeastern jungle region of Peru, while at the same time conditioning any kind of counter-subversive response by the State. The highest levels of violence experienced in the Huallaga region are linked to the surge in prices of coca leaf derivatives used for cocaine hydrochloride production in the second half of the 1980s. Likewise, the expansion of illegal coca leaf cultivation and the production of basic cocaine paste is directly related to the sustained increase in drug consumption in developed countries of the northern hemisphere.