Posted on 04/22/2009 9:08:25 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
A brutal Maoist guerrilla group that terrorized Peru during the 1980s but pretty much disappeared when top leaders were captured in the 1990s is making a resurgence.
In the latest of several recent attacks by the Sendero Luminoso, known in English as the Shining Path, 14 government soldiers were killed in an ambush this month. It was, a Sendero leader said afterward, "the strongest blow" against the government in quite a while.
It also was not an isolated incident.
"It's like that horror movie, 'Friday the 13th,' " said Bernard Aronson, President George H.W. Bush's assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs from 1989 to 1993. "You think you've killed the beast, and the beast returns."
Sendero declared war on the government in 1980, carrying out bombings and assassinations that by official accounts killed more than 30,000 Peruvians during the next 20 years. Another 30,000 Peruvians died at the hands of the government and paramilitary groups in the fight against the Sendero, a government commission determined in 2003. ....
At the heart of Sendero's power lies its alliance with Peru's drug trade, which often pays the guerrillas for security, intelligence and logistics. Marxist guerrillas in Colombia known as the FARC have struck a similar alliance with that country's narcotraffickers.
McCaffrey calls it "a convergence between terrorism and crime." The drug trade in Peru, he said, "produces a mountain of cash, and Sendero will exploit that."
Aronson reiterated a point that U.S. officials have made before: The war on drugs cannot be separated from the fight against terrorism.
"It just shows why fighting drugs isn't just about fighting drugs," Aronson said. "It's about combating forces of violence that are attacking democracy."
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
How long before O’Bama shakes hands with them?
I work with a fellow from Peru. His younger brother was killed in a Shining Path attack. He wasn’t a target, just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Will Alberto Fujimori be pardoned to use any method to wipe out the Shining Path again?
Ring a bell in the good ol' USA? Ultra-liberal professors poisoning the minds of young kids...
The prosecuted Fujimori for successfully getting rid of the Shining Path. Now they have the Shining Path again.
(Sometimes be careful what you ask for...)
So did I for some reason. They had been crossing my mind a lot lately.
Chavez moves on Colombia from the south. His own people, from the north.
At least most of the Chileans respected Gen. Pinochet for saving them from Communism which would have killed MORE people and destroyed MORE wealth...
With no Fujimori, and no GW Bush, there is nothing to stop them. Societies that are ashamed of their warriors are societies that have no way to deal with the cancer.
Obama will be delivering his apology with a bow and a curtsy any day now. Fujimori rots in jail. The O wants to prosecute the administration that kept Al Qaeda at bay for 8 years. A society that can’t tell the difference between flawed but moral leaders, leaders who knew how to fight and knew what they were fighting for, versus the conmen and frauds who have swept into office in their wake... Such a society is doomed to face whats coming without the very people she needs. This is true of Peru, and this is true of our own country.
Pinochet actually made the largest wealth increase in Chilean history possible. Regardless of what one thinks of his measures against political enemies... he was economical gold.
Don’t worry. The reds will give Obama a book and he will smile while they kills thousands more.
Hey, one red doesn’t betray another red, capish?
He’s just been pardoned
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.