Click image to view full size
A group of Asháninkas organize into Self-Defense Committees
A group of Asháninkas organizes into Self-Defense Committees (CAD) to fight against Sendero Luminoso in Puerto Ocopa, Satipo, Junín, in 1991. For more than ten years, the Shining Path members kept a large portion of the Asháninka population in captivity, subjecting them to forced labor, inadequate food, and mandatory indoctrination. Hundreds of native people were massacred and entire communities lost their crops, animals, and homes. Nevertheless, the Asháninka people managed to organize self-defense patrols and resist the control that both Sendero Luminoso and the MRTA sought to impose on them.