SHINING PATH, TÚPAC AMARU REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT (PERU, LEFTISTS)
The two main rebel groups in Peru, both leftist, are the Maoist group Sendero Luminoso and the Cuban-inspired Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA). Both organizations operated most forcefully in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Peru's government fought a costly war against both insurgencies, but disproportionately against Sendero Luminoso. The U.S. State Department classifies Sendero Luminoso as a terrorist organization, but the MRTA has not been listed as such since 1999. Sendero Luminoso had a period of dormancy in the 1990s, but the organization has since resurged, along with the Peruvian cocaine trade. Analysts say the group is small in numbers, but it could gain support in rural areas that have been neglected by the Peruvian government.
Referenced in events
- Attack on the police post in Villa El Salvador
- Nine guerrilla fighters captured in Paucartambo
- Kidnapping of journalist Vicky Pelaez and cameraman
- Kidnapping of Virginia Pelaez Ocampo and Percy Raborg Pfenning by the MRTA
- III MRTA Central Committee
- Car bomb at U.S. ambassador's residence
- I Unitary Central Committee and announcement of unity MRTA-MIR VR
- Opening of MRTA guerrilla front in San Martin
- Capture of Alberto Gálvez Olaechea
- First MRTA kidnapping - Julio Ikeda Masukawa
- Takeover of Tabalosos by the MRTA
- Seizure of Juanjui by the MRTA
- Public presentation of 10 MRTA subversives captured in Madre de Dios