International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 2, Spring 2020 | Page 74

The Shining Path: An Important Resource for Terrorism Studies
The counterinsurgency has attracted fewer studies, but there are a number of
excellent analytical works whose scope often goes beyond the Peruvian case. Several
criteria can be used to distinguish between the successive phases of the state’s
response to the SP. Particularly important are the nature of the forces involved and
the counterinsurgency/counterterrorist doctrines applied.
1. A first phase (1980–82) in which the new elected civilian government underestimated
the insurgency (describing them as “criminals,” “cattle thieves,”
etc.), and unsuccessfully tasked various police units with suppressing it.
2. Beginning in late 1982, the army intervened. Its approach was often brutal
and indiscriminate (particularly as a result of poor intelligence), sometimes
amounting to state (counter)terrorism. This helped the SP’s recruitment. It
was successful in some ways, however, including the largely spontaneous
emergence of peasant self-defense mechanisms (the famous rondas campesinas),
which radically changed the nature of the conflict.
3. Toward the end of the 1980s, the army learned some difficult lessons from
the counterinsurgency, having initially been prepared only for conventional
warfare. The period was punctuated by numerous scandals related to massacres,
and led gradually to a change in approach, which came to emphasize
protecting the population and turning them into allies in the fight against
the SP. 7 At the same time, the intelligence services were rationalized and
professionalized, enabling a more selective repression of the movement,
and leading, most importantly, to the capture of Abimael Guzmán on September
12, 1992.
4. Beginning in 1992, the SP declined rapidly. Its withdrawal toward coca/
cocaine-producing zones during the second half of the 1990s defined the
broad shape of Peru’s counterterrorist approach. So too did the amnesty law
of May 1992, which gave the intelligence services valuable (although not
always reliable) information. The country was characterized by institutional
instability, which grew after 2000 and the end of Fujimori’s presidency.
The development of Peru’s counterinsurgency strategy cannot be isolated
from the development of the SP itself, something too many researchers tend to forget.
One useful approach to the topic is offered by Taylor (2017), who sheds light
on current developments in drug-producing zones where more or less “orthodox”
SP-derived groups still survive, and who offers a good critical overview of the earlier
phases of the conflict. This follows on from another essential text by Taylor
(1998), covering the period from 1980 to 1996. These texts can be supplemented
by the overview by Bolívar (2002), written from the informed viewpoint of a spe-
7 Yaworsky (2009) describes a little-known attempt at psychological operations, which began in 1988
with the collaboration of the US Army.
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