The Shining Path is a communist guerilla insurgent group located in the South American country of Peru. The group was formed by Abimael Guzman, known to Shining Path members as Presidente Gonzalo, in the late 1960’s based upon a Marxist Ideology. Guzman was a philosophy professor at San Cristobal of Huamanga University where he attracted and recruited many like-minded individuals to his cause.
The group name, Shining Path, comes from a quote by Jose Carlos Mariategui who founded Peru’s first communist party in the 1920s; “El Marxismo-Leninismo abrirá el sendero luminoso hacia la revolución” which translates to “Marxism-Leninism will open the shining path to revolution.” The Shining Path group is recognized as a terroris organization by the United States, Canada, the EU, and the Peruvian Government.
In the late 1970’s the Shining Path group established a military school in order to instruct individuals in military tactics and the use of weapons. In May of 1980, Shining Path launched its campaign to overthrow the Peruvian government and establish a communist revolutionary command. Their first attack was burning ballot boxes for the upcoming presidential election in the town of Chuschi.
Throughout the early 1980’s, Shining Path conducted itself in the rural highlands of the Andes mountain regions in the central-south areas of the country. Because of the lack of government presence in these areas, Shining Path was able to operate with little resistance. Shining Path gained much support in these impoverished areas as they were able to fill a political void left by the weak, central government. Shining Path gained control using violence and intimidation tactics, but were also able to gain sympathy by empowering the peasant populations. At the height of its insurgency, Shining Path had between 10,000 – 15,000 members.
In order to fund their operations, Shining Path, like most other terrorist groups in South America, established cocaine processing plants and was involved in drug trafficking operations as well as kidnapping for ransoms, and taxing businesses in the areas in which they operated.