The Challenge of Truth and Justice 1980-2000
After 12 years of military dictatorship, in 1980, and following the approval of a new Political Constitution, the population awaited the return to democracy with great expectation. However, on the very day of the general elections — in which architect Fernando Belaúnde Terry won a second term — Sendero Luminoso (SL), a Maoist faction that had split from the Communist Party, launched what it called a prolonged war by attacking a polling station in the Ayacucho village of Chuschi. (Introduction excerpt).