PERU'S GUERRILLAS HAVE BECOME A THREAT TO THE CAPITAL

(Huancayo, Peru). Starting from a small nucleus in the Andes, a Communist guerrilla movement grew in strength during the 1980s and now threatens Peru's coastal cities. In mid-May, around one million people obeyed an "armed strike" ordered by the Sendero Luminoso movement, stopping work for three days in Peru's mining and agricultural heartland. In a major test of the long-term strategy of strangling Peru's capital from the countryside, the Maoist guerrillas of Sendero Luminoso cut all supplies of food, electricity, and export minerals from three Andean provinces to Lima on the Pacific coast. The "Umbilical Cord of Peru" "Sendero Luminoso is no longer a small regional movement," says Enrique Bernales, a Socialist senator in Lima who heads a parliamentary commission of inquiry into terrorism. "It can now cut the umbilical cord of Peru." The war is expected to intensify in the 1990s. Peru's current economic collapse and an inflation rate of 8,000% are feeding more recruits to the rebellion. Dollars for better weapons flow from a valley controlled by the rebels, which is the source of half the cocaine consumed in the United States.