Shining Path - 21st Century, Resurgence, and Downfall

21st Century, Resurgence, and Downfall

Although the organization's numbers had lessened by 2003, a militant faction of the Shining Path called Proseguir (or "Onward") continued to be active. It is believed that the faction consists of three companies known as the North, or Pangoa, the Centre, or Pucuta, and the South, or Vizcatan. The government claims that Proseguir is operating in alliance with drug traffickers.

On March 21, 2002, a car bomb exploded outside the U.S. embassy in Lima just before a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush. Nine people were killed and 30 were injured; the attack was blamed on the Shining Path.

On June 9, 2003, a Shining Path group attacked a camp in Ayacucho, and took 68 employees of the Argentinian company Techint and three police guards as hostages. They had been working in the Camisea gas pipeline project that would take natural gas from Cusco to Lima. According to sources from Peru's Interior Ministry, the rebels asked for a sizable ransom to free the hostages. Two days later, after a rapid military response, the rebels abandoned the hostages; according to government sources no ransom was paid. However, there were rumors that US$200,000 was paid to the rebels.

Government forces have successfully captured three leading Shining Path members. In April 2000, Commander José Arcela Chiroque, called "Ormeño", was captured, followed by another leader, Florentino Cerrón Cardozo, called "Marcelo" in July 2003. In November of the same year, Jaime Zuñiga, called "Cirilo" or "Dalton," was arrested after a clash in which four guerrillas were killed and an officer wounded. Officials said he took part in planning the kidnapping of the Techint pipeline workers. He was also thought to have led an ambush against an army helicopter in 1999 in which five soldiers died.

In 2003, the Peruvian National Police broke up several Shining Path training camps and captured many members and leaders. It also freed about 100 indigenous people held in virtual slavery. By late October 2003 there were 96 terrorist incidents in Peru, projecting a 15% decrease from the 134 kidnappings and armed attacks in 2002. Also for the year, eight or nine people were killed by Shining Path, and 6 senderistas were killed and 209 captured.

In January 2004, a man known as Comrade Artemio and identifying himself as one of the Shining Path leaders said in a media interview that the group would resume violent operations unless the Peruvian government granted amnesty to other top Shining Path leaders within 60 days. Peru's Interior Minister, Fernando Rospigliosi, said that the government would respond "drastically and swiftly" to any violent action. In September that same year, a comprehensive sweep by police in five cities found 17 suspected members. According to the interior minister, eight of the arrested were school teachers and high-level school administrators.

Despite these arrests, the Shining Path continues to exist in Peru. On December 22, 2005, the Shining Path ambushed a police patrol in the Huánuco region, killing eight. Later that day they wounded an additional two police officers. In response, then President Alejandro Toledo declared a state of emergency in Huánuco, and gave the police the power to search houses and arrest suspects without a warrant. On February 19, 2006, the Peruvian police killed Héctor Aponte, believed to be the commander responsible for the ambush. In December 2006, Peruvian troops were sent to counter renewed guerrilla activity and, according to high level government officials, the Shining Path's strength has reached an estimated 300 members. In November 2007, police claimed to have killed Artemio's second-in-command, a guerrilla known as JL.

In September 2008, government forces announced the killing of five rebels in the Vizcatan region. This claim has subsequently been challenged by the APRODEH, a Peruvian human rights group, which believes that those who were killed were in fact local farmers and not rebels. That same month, Artemio gave his first recorded interview since 2006. In it he stated that the Shining Path would continue to fight despite escalating military pressure. In October 2008, in Huancavelica Region, the guerrillas engaged a military convoy with explosives and firearms, demonstrating their continued ability to strike and inflict casualties on military targets. The conflict resulted in the death of 12 soldiers and two to seven civilians. It came one day after a clash in the Vizcatan region, which left five rebels and one soldier dead.

In November 2008, the rebels utilized hand grenades and automatic weapons in an assault that claimed the lives of 4 police. In April 2009, the Shining Path ambushed and killed 13 government soldiers in Ayacucho. Grenades and dynamite were used in the attack. The dead included eleven soldiers and one captain and two soldiers were also injured, with one reported missing.

Poor communications were said to have made relay of the news difficult. The country's Defence Minister, Antero Flores Aráoz claimed many soldiers "plunged over a cliff". His Prime Minister Yehude Simon said these attacks were "desperate responses by the Shining Path in the face of advances by the armed forces", and expressed his belief that the area would soon be freed of "leftover terrorists". In the aftermath, a Sendero leader called this "the strongest blow... ...in quite a while". In November 2009, Defense Minister Rafael Rey announced that Shining Path militants had attacked a military outpost in southern Ayacucho province. One soldier was killed and three others wounded in the assault.

On April 28, 2010 Shining Path rebels in Peru ambushed and killed a police officer and two civilians who were destroying coca plantations of Aucayacu, in the central region of Haunuco, Peru. The victims were gunned down by sniper fire coming from the thick forest as more than 200 workers were destroying coca plants. Since this attack, the Shining Path faction, based in the Upper Huallaga Valley of Peru and headed by Florindo Eleuterio Flores Hala, alias Comrade Artemio, has been operating in a survival mode, and has lost 9 of their top 10 leaders to Peruvian National Police (PNP)-led capture operations. Two of the eight leaders were killed by PNP personnel during the attempted captures. Those nine arrested/killed Shining Path (Upper Huallaga Valley faction) leaders include Mono (Aug. 2009), Rubén (May 2010), Izula (Oct. 2010), Sergio (Dec. 2010), Yoli/Miguel/Jorge (Jun. 2011), Gato Larry (Jun. 2011), Oscar Tigre (Aug. 2011), Vicente Roger (Aug. 2011) and Dante/Delta (Jan. 2012).

This loss of leadership coupled with a sweep of Shining Path (Upper Huallaga Valley) supporters executed by the PNP in November 2010, prompted Comrade Artemio to declare in December 2011 to several international journalists that the guerrilla war against the Peruvian Government has been lost, and that his only hope was to negotiate an amnesty agreement with the Government of Peru.

On the 12th of February 2012,Comrade Artemio was found badly wounded after a clash with troops in a remote jungle region of Peru. President Ollanta Humala said the capture of Artemio marked the defeat of the Shining Path in the Alto Huallaga valley – a centre of cocaine production. President Humala has stated that he would now step up the fight against the other remaining band of Shining Path rebels in the Ene-Apurimac valley. On March 3, Walter Diaz, the lead candidate to succeed Artemio, was captured, further ensuring the disintegration of the Alto Huallaga valley faction. On April 3, 2012, Jaime Arenas Caviedes, a senior leader in the group's remnants in Alto Huallaga Valley who was also regarded to be the leading candidate to succeed Artemio following Diaz's arrest, was captured. After Caviedes, alias "Braulio," was captured, Humala declared that the Shining Path was now unable to operate in Alto Huallaga Valley.

On the 7th of October 2012, Shining Path rebels carried out an attack on three helicopters being used by an international gas pipeline consortium, in the central region of Cusco. According to the military Joint Command spokesman, Col. Alejandro Lujan, no one was kidnapped or injured during the attack.