Shining Path and the Indigenous Peasantry in Two Peruvian Novels
More than two decades after the beginning of the internal war in Peru, and more than a decade after the capture of Abimael Guzmán and the leaders of the Partido Comunista del Perú-Sendero Luminoso (PCP-SL), it remains very difficult to draw a complete assessment of the Shining Path phenomenon. Objectivity remains an attribute absent in most Peruvian analysts who, like the rest of the population, continue to feel the aftermath of the 1980–2000 armed conflict. The government authorities and the political forces that survived the conflict continue to do what Fujimori did in the previous decade: they revive the ghost of Sendero Luminoso whenever it suits them and deny it when it actually appears.