NCJ Number
111835
Date Published
1988
Length
18 pages
Annotation
Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), a Peruvian radical leftist group, was founded in 1970 by Abimael Guzman.
Abstract
It is the largest and most successful of Peru's terrorist groups. It initiated its first operations against the Lima regime in 1980 and has carried out as many as 12,000 terrorist actions, resulting in a possible death toll as high as 10,000. Guzman appears to retain tight control over the organization through a national directorate and a central committee who together oversee operations. Sendero seeks to create a new state of workers and peasants and has called for the abolition of a national market economy, industry, banking, foreign trade, and currency. It views armed struggle as the only means of achieving these goals. Its tactics have included bombings of utilities and military installations, death threats, and assassinations; it is regarded as a major security threat to the Government and its fragile democratic institutions. While Sendero has exhibited a high degree of group cohesion and internal discipline, a number of organizational pressures and limitations could affect its future effectiveness. These include its isolation, extremism, rigid belief system, lack of outside sponsors, cellular organization, limited weapons and tactics, and too severe use of terror. 33 footnotes.