Shining Path and Ethnocultural Conflicts in the Andes
During the last part of the twentieth century, the highlands of Peru saw the emergence of one of the most brutal guerrilla organizations in the world, the Partido Comunista de Perú-Por El Sendero Luminoso de Mariátegui. This revolutionary movement, in keeping with its Maoist roots, promoted the idea that the insurgency would benefit Peruvian peasants, composed almost exclusively of indigenous peoples. Hostilities between mestizo and indigenous citizens were exacerbated by the government's brutal counterinsurgency war, in which "indigenous peasants" were conflated with "terrorists." Unverified ethnocultural hostility, cognitive bias, and ignorance aggravated and prolonged the brutal civil war.