Speaking of commies… we now take a trip to Peru, where a little group that calls itself “Sendero Luminoso” (Shining Path) unleashed terror on their entire country in the name of Mao and Marx back in 1980’s. The terrorist organization was funded mainly through trafficking cocaine and was headed by the then-mysterious Abimael Guzman. In 1992, Guzman was captured by Peruvian police, but not before his group turned Peru into a war zone. Peruvians I have spoken to describe bombings, assassinations, and massacres as a common occurrence during the years that the group was active. From 1980 to 2000, total deaths and disappearances from the conflict neared 70,000.

Once Guzman was captured, he was exhibited in a cage to the Peruvian public and humiliated. Later he was sentenced to life in prison for his actions.

Fast-forward to 2009 and we find that Sendero Luminoso has come back thanks mainly to cocaine trade. They control a mountainous area of the country and the Peruvian army was sent in August 2008 to try to contain a resurgent guerrilla army. Thus far, 33 soldiers have been killed by the terrorists and they have been capturing and killing peasants who collaborate with the government. Peruvian General Otto Guibovich told a local news source that Sendero Luminoso can count on help from Colombia’s own communist guerrilla army FARC. Peru needs to stop them now before it is too late, but in a country where former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori has been convicted for crimes against humanity due to cracking down on opposition and also for his heavy handed tactics against the terrorist group, it may be difficult for a sitting Peruvian government to go after the rebels.

The violence we have been seeing in Mexico coupled with a fanatical Maoist ideology that can eventually gain support from leftist Latin American leaders, if it hasn’t already, can become one of the most serious security threats in the region. The rise of revolutionary socialism in Latin America is not a matter to be taken lightly. It started in Cuba and has spread to Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and now El Salvador. How far these countries will go in spreading their ideology by force of arms is not yet known, but to ignore them is to give them what they want: time to overrun Latin America. Peru itself is between Ecuador and Bolivia in addition to sharing a border with Colombia which can be used as a supply route between Sendero Luminoso and FARC. This is no time for our government to start using kid gloves when dealing with Chavez or Castro.

-AG