Peru is a country long plagued by political violence. The Shining Path is by far the largest and most successful of Peru's terrorist organizations. Shining Path initiated its first operations against the Lima regime in 1980. In the intervening years, it quickly became the most serious security problem that the Peruvian government faced. Few political movements, inside or outside of Peru, could match its fanaticism and extreme ideology. The Shining Path must be singled out for its simple ruthlessness. Murder, dynamite bombings, and arson are its instruments of political violence. Few terrorist groups in modern times have employed violence with the same determination, lack of discrimination, and widespread effect as the Shining Path.
Peruvians enjoy a free government and one of the richest histories in the world. Peru’s history has legendary beginnings and leads to a revolution. Furthermore, the Peruvian government allows civil liberties and freedoms. Come and go back in time to the Incas and lead through until Peru’s founding government.
In acquiring an accurate perspective of terrorist threats to the United States it is ease to forgo the concept of terrorist threats prior to September 11th, 2001, or that domestic terrorism exists. Prior to the current onslaught of religiously fanatical terrorist threats that the United States is facing a different form of terrorist threat existed in the form of political ideology. While some domestic terrorist groups are well known such as the KKK and the Black Panthers, other groups such as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) terrorist organizations have faded with time. Due to the current turmoil and political divides facing the nation, a rejuvenated understanding of these less mainstream
The Communist Party of Peru is an insurgent organization that operates in Peru. The organization is more commonly referred to as Shining Path. The Shining Path was created in 1970 as a group that split from the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP). Shining Path was led and founded by Abimael Guzman and had a few dozen members initially. Guzman originally was a philosophy professor at the University of Ayacucho. Guzman initially began recruiting and training teachers of his ideology at the university itself. The teachers would then return to the rural communities and become the cadre of the Shining Path. Thanks to the spread of their ideology and the targeting of poor peasants for recruitment. At its height, the Shining Path fielded 10,000 men, with
Thesis: The FLN used guerrilla warfare to compensate for the lack of military power by launching a series of terrorist attacks targeting key locations which mainly involves hurting innocent citizens.
Right-wing terrorism, also referred to as vigilante terrorism is defined as “Vigilante terrorism includes right-wing terrorism aimed at "restoring" the political relationships of an earlier time or realizing social objectives that are neglected or discounted in the contemporary world” (Professor Cadigan, 2015, Week 4 lecture). There is also left-wing terrorism, which is referred to as insurgent terrorism is explained as “forcing change through terrorist acts” (Professor Cadigan, 2015, Week 4 lecture). Left-wing terrorism has been around since the 1960s to 1970s.
Joaquim faced three major challenges to the initiation of operations at Lake Titicaca. The first challenge was local hostility. The intended site was located in an area previously controlled by the Shining Path guerilla terrorist group (Wesley, 2006). The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (2012) notes that this terror group "pushed for the destruction of all existing Peruvian institutions" in order to "replace the destroyed institutions with organizations based on communist ideals" (p. 1). The group was also very hostile to external influence. While the Shining Path group dissolved prior to the initiation of Joaquim's progress, the hostile response of some locals suggests that some of the anti-capitalist
The Government of Peru is unitary, representative, and organized according to the principle of the separation of powers. There are three branches of government, namely the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary, and each of these branches is autonomous and independent. The Executive Branch consists of the President and two Vice Presidents. President Ollanta Humala Tasso (since 28 July 2011); First Vice President Marisol Espinoza Cruz (since 28 July 2011); Second Vice President is currently vacant; note - the president is both chief of state and head of government. The President carries out the functions of Head of State. He symbolizes and represents the country’s ongoing interests. In turn, as Head of Government, he directs governmental
The 1989 Peruvian Army ME 41-7, Non-Conventional Warfare–Counterinsurgency Manual version was the unique official military source that detailed the SL ideology, doctrine, organization, structure, tactics, techniques, and procedures used by this terrorist group; however, SL has changed, and the Peruvian Army does not release valid and official information.
In the 20th century, terrorism continued to be associated with a vast array of anarchist, socialist, fascist and nationalist groups, many of them engaged in ‘third world’
Peru’s political history has presented periods of democratic rule and periods of authoritarian rule. The current president is Pedro Pablo Kuczysnki Godard of the independent party Peruvians for Change. In Peru the president serves as chief of state and head of government. The constitution adopted in 1993, which has since been altered on several occasions, “gives greater power to the president as he appoints the prime minister and ultimately has final say in almost every governmental matter” (GlobalEdge, n.d.). Moreover, Peru is the largest producer of cocaine in the world and the influence of drug traffickers in the government system has grown (The Heritage Foundation, n.d.). There is recognized corruption in Peru’s government.
Modern terrorism, as deduced from this literature, is acts to violence strategically used by secular groups spanning international borders with the aim of achieving a desired outcome. Further, it can be seen as organized activity whose genesis can be traced back to the 1880’s. From then to now there are identifiable traits and patterns observed from different (terrorist) groups which have allowed for the conceptualization of the term modern terrorism. This concept therefore, can be best explained in the context of being a wave or having a life cycle. That means it is a cycle of activity demarked by phases from inception and expands along the way then eventually it declines. The world, thus far, has experienced four waves of modern
Political violence is the leading cause of wars today. Personal agendas have led to many of the political objectives that cause violence today this has caused many problems throughout the world and will continue to do so until a solution to this issue is found. Political objectives have been advanced involuntarily dependent upon the kind of government a nation exercises. For instance, in a democratic nation political groups must worry about convincing the majority in order to advance ethically. Those who try to influence the majority through acts of violence are considered today as “terror” organizations. Though perhaps if it were not because of the recent 9/11 terror attacks that maybe such warrants would not be seen as terror attacks,
Since 1980, terrorism has become a growing threat in Latin America. In the 1980’s, Latin America experienced more terrorist attacks (17,293) than all other regions combined (13,643), and nearly four times as many as the next most active region—Western Europe (4,729) (Jensen pg 1). Most terrorism in Latin America comes from within with groups like the Shining Path in Peru, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) (Jensen pg 1). Violence decreased dramatically in the mid-1990s, after a number of governments waged successful anti-terrorism attacks at these insurgency groups. (Jensen pg 1). Although terrorism is a less prominent problem now, there are still threats,
Colombia is a Latin American country located in South America that has been ravaged by violence, starvation, and large-scale inequality between higher and lower classes. The chaos in Colombia has been between rebel forces and the government and has lasted for over fifty years. These rebel forces have fought to achieve their Liberalist lead goals of overthrowing the current democratic government of Colombia and replacing it with a communist government. La Violencia was the main contributor to the conflict between the resistance fighters of Colombia and the Colombian government that has brought on violence and terror from the violent actions between the Liberal and Conservative parties in the 1950’s. , which has directly brought on the violence and terror from the guerrilla groups.
During the 1970s a wave of terrorism invaded many western European countries . These countries experienced forms urban violence, which tried to overcome democracy. These terrorists are called urban terrorist because they operated mainly in the cities. However, they prefer to label themselves as “guerrillas” or “freedom fighters”, to be placed within national-liberation movements around the world .