U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Terrorism 2005 - Peru

Peru's top counterterrorism concern is preventing the re-emergence of the militant Maoist Sendero Luminoso (SL or the Shining Path), a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization that convulsed the country in the 1990s at a cost of more than 35,000 lives.

Although previous Peruvian administrations nearly eliminated the SL in the 1990s, the organization, now intertwined with narcotics trafficking, remains a threat. The SL – estimated to number approximately 200 armed combatants at present – conducted several deadly attacks in remote areas in 2005. While the new SL seems shorter on revolutionary zeal than its predecessor did, reports suggest it is attempting to rebuild support in the universities, where it exercised considerable influence in the 1980s. Meanwhile, the drug trade provides SL a greater source of funding to conduct operations, improve relations with local communities in remote areas, and gain recruits. Lack of a government presence in these areas and a deterioration in Peruvian security capabilities has complicated efforts to counter or disrupt SL activity.

SL's attacks, which targeted the Peruvian National Police (PNP) and the U.S.-Peruvian counternarcotics program, included the ambush and murder of three highway police officers, an attack on three counternarcotics helicopters, and the killing of three police officers with an electronically-detonated explosive device. In November, a group of heavily armed SL members kidnapped ten employees of a USAID economic development contractor. The abductors released the employees, but threatened to kill them if they returned to the area. SL forces ambushed and killed five counternarcotics police officers in December.

President Toledo and the Peruvian Congress allocated more than $55 million to security, national defense, and socio-economic development activities and projects in areas where SL and remnants of other terrorist groups operate. The government has also sought to improve interagency cooperation and strengthen prosecutors. Police units specializing in counterterrorism and counternarcotics conduct operations together with the Peruvian Army.

Authorities arrested 143 suspected SL and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) members, including SL leader Toribio Castaneda Quijano and the last at-large original leader of the MRTA, Julio Cesar Vasquez. Toledo has repeatedly reauthorized a 60-day state of emergency in parts of Peru's five departments where SL operates, suspending some civil liberties and giving the armed forces authority to maintain public order.

The Government of Peru aggressively prosecuted terrorist suspects, led by special counterterrorism prosecutors. A special court is retrying approximately 750 of the 1,900 SL and MRTA members whose convictions were overturned by Peru's Constitutional Tribunal in 2003. The government is also retrying SL founder Abimael Guzman and 20 co-defendants. Peru's judicial system convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms an SL leader and three associates for the 2002 bombing of the El Polo shopping center and for membership in the SL. Seven co-defendants were acquitted.

There is no evidence that neighboring Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) operates in Peru. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), uses remote Peruvian territory for rest and arms purchases. According to the Peruvian police, the FARC has forced indigenous groups in remote jungle areas to cultivate coca crops. Peru, Colombia, and Brazil are party to a 2004 border security agreement to cooperate against terrorism and arms trafficking.