Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán celebrating five years of war.

The book offers an insight into the attitudes of the indigenous Quechua “campesino” peasants, who were both the recruits and the victims of the Maoist movement which reached its zenith in the 1980s. The descendants of the Incas, they are also devout Roman Catholics as a result of hundreds of years of Spanish occupation. The Shining Path was a brutal movement that advocated global revolution under its tutelage, and considered other communist movements including even China and Cuba’s as deviationist and reactionary.

Much is made of the Inca legacy, particularly that of Tupac Amaru II, the great grandson of the last Incan ruler. He was born Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui, but adopted his great-grandfather's Incan name and organized a rebellion against Spanish rule in 1780, seizing and executing governor of Tinta.

Túpac Amaru II's rebellion was the first major uprising against the Spanish colonists in two centuries. It was suppressed after some successes like the Battle of Sangarara and he was soon captured. He was sentenced to witness the execution of his wife, his eldest son, his uncle his brother-in-law and some of his captains before his own death. He was sentenced to be tortured and put to death by dismemberment, in which four horses would have to tear apart each limb from his body, one limb tied to each horse -- an action the Spanish were not able to carry out.

Unable to accomplish this execution, he was later drawn and quartered on the main plaza in Cuzco, in the same place his great-grandfather had been beheaded. When the revolt continued, the Spaniards executed the remainder of his family, except his 12-year-old son Fernando, who was instead imprisoned in Spain for the rest of his life. It is not known if any members of the Inca royal family survived this final purge. The Spaniards buried the parts of his body in different sections of the country to prevent his resurrection.

Red April says the campesinos believe that those parts are now still growing and will eventually rejoin within the earth. When they reach the head, the Inca will then rise again, and, crush those who bled them. “The earth and the sun will swallow the God the Spaniards brought in from outside -- and the cycle will be complete, the roles or ruler and ruled will be reversed.” The Senderos presented themselves as a resurgent force, and used symbols in this way to appeal to the peasantry.

SUPERSTITION: In another Andean superstition, the book says, starting on Holy Wednesday, the day of Christ’s Calvary, God is dead. He no longer sees and no longer condemns for three days. There are three days set aside simply for sinning – which is one reason why the rebels always attacked during Holy Week.

Ayacucho is famous for its 33 churches which represent one for every year of Jesus’ life. Holy week coincides with a Pagan festival that pre-dated the Spanish and celebrated the Harvest. Ayacucho has held large religious Holy Week celebrations for 500 years in the old tradition of Christianity, the longest in the world -- for example they mark the Day of Sorrows and the Seven Silver Daggers of the Virgin Mary, the seven sorrows that the passion of Christ produced in his mother.

Vestiges of human settlements more than 15,000 years old have been found in the cave 25 km north of Ayacucho. In the 6th and 12th centuries, the region became occupied by the Huari Culture, which became the first expansionist empire known in the Andes before the Incas – and never surrendered to the Incas but just faded away.

The city is named after the historical Battle of Ayachuo, the last armed clash between Spanish armies and patriots during the war of independence. The battle developed on Dec. 9, 1842.The patriot victory sealed the independence of Peru and South America... Upon seeing so many casualties on the battlefield, the settlers named the area Ayakuchu, aya meaning "soul" or "dead" and kuchu meaning "corner" in the Quechua language.

The modern colonial establishment of Ayacucho was led by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro on April 25, 1540. Due to the constant Incan rebellion led by Manco Inca against the Spanish in the zone, Pizarro was quick to populate it with a small number of Spaniards brought from Lima and Cusco. In 1544, by Royal decree Ayacucho received its title of "La Muy Noble y Leal Ciudad de Huamanga." In 1825 by decree of Simon Bolivar, the city's name was changed to the original "Ayacucho.”

THE MOVEMENT: A little background: The Shining Path was founded in the late 1960s by former university philosophy professor Abimael Guzman (referred to by his followers by his nom de guerre Presidente Gonzalo), whose teachings created the foundation for its militant Maoist doctrine. It was an offshoot of the Communist Party of Peru -- Bandera Roha or red flag, which in turn split from the original Peruvian Communist Party, a derivation of the Peruvian Socialist Party founded by Jose Carlos Mariategui in 1928.

The Shining Path first established a foothold in San Cristobal of Huamanga University in Auacucho, where Guzmán taught philosophy. The university had recently reopened after being closed for about half a century, and many students of the newly-educated class adopted the Shining Path's radical ideology. Between 1973 and 1975, the Shining Path gained control of the student councils many universities, including the National University of Engineering in Lima and the National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in the Americas.

Sometime later, it lost many student elections in the universities, including Guzmán's own San Cristóbal of Huamanga, and decided to abandon the universities and reconsolidate itself. Beginning on March 17, 1980, the Shining Path held a series of clandestine meetings in Ayacucho, known as the Central Committee's second plenary. It formed a "Revolutionary Directorate" that was political and military in nature, and ordered its militias to transfer to strategic areas in the provinces to start the "armed struggle." The group also held its "First Military School" where militants were instructed in military tactics and weapons use.

They also engaged in the "cristicism and self-criticism," a Maoist practice intended to purge bad habits and avoid repeating mistakes. During the First Military School, members of the Central Committee came under heavy criticism. Guzmán did not, and he emerged from the First Military School as the clear leader of the Shining Path.

THE WAR: When Peru's military government allowed elections for the first time in a dozen years in 1980, the Shining Path was one of the few leftist political groups that declined to take part -- and instead opted to launch a guerrilla war in the highlands of Ayacucho Region. On May 17, 1980, the eve of the presidential elections, it burned ballot boxes in the town of Chuschi, Ayacucho. It was the first "act of war" by the Shining Path. However, the perpetrators were quickly caught, additional ballots were shipped to Chuschi, the elections proceeded without further incident and the incident received very little attention in the Peruvian press.

Throughout the 1980s, the Shining Path grew in both the territory it controlled and the number of militants in its organization, particularly in the Andean highlands. It gained support from local peasants by filling the political void left by the central government and providing popular justice. This caused the peasantry of many Peruvian villages to express some sympathy for the Shining Path, especially in the impoverished and neglected regions of Ayacucho, Apurimac and Huancavelica. At times, the civilian population of small neglected towns participated in popular trials, especially when the victims of the trials were widely disliked.

THE RESPONSE: The Shining Path's credibility was also bolstered by the government's initially tepid response to the insurgency. For over a year, the government refused to declare a state of emergency in the region affected by the Shining Path's actions as the Interior Minister, José María de la Jara, believed the group could be easily defeated through Police actions.

Additionally, the civilian president, Fernando Belaunde Terry, who returned to power in 1980, was reluctant to cede authority to the armed forces, as his first government had ended in a military coup. This gave the impression that the President was unconcerned about the activities of the Shining Path.

The result was that, to the peasants in the areas where the Shining Path was active, the state gave the appearance of impotence or lack of interest in the region. However, it became evident that the Shining Path represented a clear threat to the state. On December 29, 1981 the government declared an "emergency zone" in the three Andean regions, and granted the military the power to arbitrarily detain any suspicious persons.

The military used this power extremely heavy-handedly, arresting scores of innocent people, at times subjecting them to torture and rape. Police, military forces and members of the Popular Guerrilla Army (Ejército Guerrillero Popular, or EGP) carried out several massacres throughout the conflict. Military personnel took to wearing black ski-masks in order to protect their identities and, therefore their safety and that of their families. Masks were also used to hide the identity of military personnel as they committed crimes.

In some areas, the military trained peasants and organized them into anti-rebel militias, called rondas. They were generally poorly-equipped despite being provided arms by the state. Nevertheless, the Shining Path guerrillas were militarily resisted by the rondas.

MASSACRES: The first such reported attack was in January 1983 near Huata, when ronderos killed 13 senderistas; in February in Sacsamarca, rondas stabbed and killed the Shining Path commanders of that area. In March 1983, ronderos brutally killed Olegario Curitomay, one of the commanders of the town of Lucanamarca. They took him to the town square, stoned him, stabbed him, set him on fire, and finally shot him.

As a response, in April, the Shining Path entered the province of Huanca Sancos and killed 69 people in what became known as the Lucanamara massacre. This was the first massacre by the Shining Path of the peasant community. Other incidents followed in the Ayacucho Region. In that community, the Shining Path killed 47 peasants, including 14 children aged between four and fifteen. Additional massacres by the Shining Path occurred, such as the one in Marcas on August 29, 1985.

While the Shining Path quickly seized control of large areas of Peru, it soon faced serious problems. The Shining Path's Maoism was never popular. It never had the support of the majority of the Peruvian people. According to opinion polls, 15% of the population considered subversion to be justifiable in June 1988 while 17% considered it justifiable in 1991. In June 1991, "the total sample disapproved of the Shining Path by an 83 to 7 percent margin, with 10 percent not answering the question.

Among the poorest, however, only 58% stated disapproval of the Shining Path; 11 percent said they had a favorable opinion of the Shining Path, and some 31 percent would not answer the question." A September 1991 poll found that 21 percent of those polled in Lima believed that the Shining Path did not kill and torture innocent people. The same poll found that 13% believed that society would be more just if the Shining Path won the war and 22% believed society would be equally just under the Shining Path as it was under the government.

Many peasants were unhappy with the Shining Path's rule for a variety of reasons, such as its disrespect for indigenous culture and institutions, and the brutality of its "popular trials" that sometimes included "slitting throats, strangulation, stoning, and burning." While punishing and killing cattle thieves were popular in some parts of Peru, the Shining Path also killed peasants and popular leaders for even minor offenses. Peasants were also offended by the rebels' injunction against burying the bodies of Shining Path victims.

The Shining Path also became disliked for its policy of closing small and rural markets in order to end small-scale capitalism and to starve Lima. As a Maoist organization, it strongly opposed all forms of capitalism, and also followed Mao's dictum that guerrilla warfare should start in the countryside and gradually choke off the cities. Peasants, many of whose livelihoods depended on trade in the markets, rejected such closures. In several areas of Peru, the Shining Path also launched unpopular campaigns, such as a prohibition on parties and the consumption of alcohol.

COURSE CHANGE: In 1991, President Alberto Fujimori issued a law that gave the rondas a legal status, and from that time they were officially called Comités de auto defensa ("Committees of Self Defense"). They were officially armed, usually with 12-gauge shotguns, and trained by the Peruvian Army. According to the government, there were approximately 7,226 comités de auto defensa as of 2005; almost 4,000 are located in the central region of Peru, the stronghold of the Shining Path.

The Peruvian government also clamped down on the Shining Path in other ways. Military personnel were dispatched to areas dominated by the Shining Path, especially Ayacucho, to fight the rebels. Ayacucho itself was declared an emergency zone, and constitutional rights were suspended in the area.

Initial government efforts to fight the Shining Path were not very effective or promising. Military units engaged in many human rights violations, which caused the Shining Path to appear in the eyes of many as the lesser of two evils. They used excessive force and killed many innocent civilians. Government forces destroyed villages and killed campesinos suspected of supporting the Shining Path.

They eventually lessened the pace at which the armed forces committed atrocities such as massacres. Additionally, the state began the widespread use of intelligence agencies in its fight against the Shining Path. However, atrocities were also committed by the National Intelligence Service and the Army Intelligence Service, notably the La Cantuta and Barrios Altos massacres. After the collapse of the Fujimori government, interim President Valentin Paniagua established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate the conflict. The Commission found in its 2003 Final Report that 69,280 people died or disappeared between 1980 and 2000 as a result of the armed conflict.

About 54% of the deaths and disappearances reported to the Commission were caused by the Shining Path. A statistical analysis of the available data led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to estimate that the Shining Path was responsible for the death or disappearance of 31,331 people, 46% of the total deaths and disappearances.

According to a summary of the report by Human Rights Watch, "Shining Path… killed about half the victims, and roughly one-third died at the hands of government security forces… The commission attributed some of the other slayings to a smaller guerrilla group and local militias. The rest remain unattributed."

GUZMAN’S CAPTURE: On September 12, 1992, Peruvian police captured Guzmán and several Shining Path leaders in an apartment above a dance studio in the Surquillo district of Lima. The police had been monitoring the apartment, as a number of suspected Shining Path militants had visited it. An inspection of the garbage of the apartment produced empty tubes of a skin cream used to treat psoriasis, a condition that Guzmán was known to have. Shortly after the raid that captured Guzmán, most of the remaining Shining Path leadership fell as well.

At the same time, the Shining Path suffered embarrassing military defeats to self-defense organizations of rural campesinos -- supposedly its social base. When Guzmán called for peace talks, the organization fractured into splinter groups, with some Shining Path members in favor of such talks and others opposed. Guzmán's role as the leader of the Shining Path was taken over by Oscar Ramirez, who himself was captured by Peruvian authorities in 1999. After Ramírez's capture, the group splintered, guerrilla activity diminished sharply, and previous conditions returned to the areas where the Shining Path had been active.

RESURGENCE? Although the organization's numbers had lessened by 2003, a militant faction of the Shining Path called Proseguir (or "Onward") continued to be active. It is believed that the faction consists of three companies known as the North, or Pangoa, the Centre, or Pucuta, and the South, or Vizcatan. The government claims that Proseguir is operating in alliance with drug traffickers.

On March 21, 2002, a car bomb exploded outside the American embassy in Lima just before a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush. Nine people were killed and 30 were injured; the attack was blamed on the Shining Path. On June 9, 2003, a Shining Path group attacked a camp in Ayacucho, and took 68 employees of the Argentinian company Techint and three police guards as hostages.

They had been working in the Camisea gas pipeline project that would take natural gas from Cusco to Lima. According to sources from Peru's Interior Ministry, the terrorists asked for a sizable ransom to free the hostages. Two days later, after a rapid military response, the terrorists abandoned the hostages; according to government sources no ransom was paid. However, there were rumors that 200,000 was paid to the rebels.

Government forces have successfully captured three other leading Shining Path members. In April 2000, Commander Jose Arcela Chiroque, called "Ormeño", was captured, followed by another leader, Florentino Cerrón Cardozo, called "Marcelo" in July 2003. In November of the same year, Jaime Zuñiga, called "Cirilo" or "Dalton," was arrested after a clash in which four guerrillas were killed and an officer wounded. Officials said he took part in planning the kidnapping of the Techint pipeline workers. He was also thought to have led an ambush against an army helicopter in 1999 in which five soldiers died.

In 2003, the Peruvian National Police broke up several Shining Path training camps and captured many members and leaders. It also freed about 100 indigenous people held in virtual slavery. By late October 2003 there were 96 terrorist incidents in Peru, projecting a 15% decrease from the 134 kidnappings and armed attacks in 2002. Also for the year, eight[ or nine people were killed by Shining Path, and 6 senderistas were killed and 209 captured. 

In January 2004, a man known as Comrade Artemio, and identifying himself as one of the Shining Path leaders said in a media interview that the group would resume violent operations unless the Peruvian government granted amnesty to other top Shining Path leaders within 60 days. Peru's Interior Minister, Fernando Rospigliosi, said that the government would respond "drastically and swiftly" to any violent action. In September that same year, a comprehensive sweep by police in five cities found 17 suspected members. According to the interior minister, eight of the arrested were school teachers and high-level school administrators.

Despite these arrests, the Shining Path continues to exist in Peru. On December 22, 2005, the Shining Path ambushed a police patrol in the Huanuco region, killing eight. Later that day they wounded an additional two police officers. In response, then President Alejandro Toledo declared a state of emergency in Huánuco, and gave the police the power to search houses and arrest suspects without a warrant.

On February 19, 2006, the Peruvian police killed Héctor Aponte, believed to be the commander responsible for the ambush. In December 2006, Peruvian troops were sent to counter renewed guerrilla activity and, according to high level government officials, the Shining Path's strength has reached an estimated 300 members. In November 2007, police claimed to have killed Artemio's second-in-command, a guerrilla known as JL.

In September 2008, government forces announced the killing of five rebels in the Vizcatan region. This claim has subsequently been challenged by Peruvian human rights groups, which believe that those who were killed were in fact local farmers and not rebels. That same month, Artemio gave his first recorded interview since 2006. In it he stated that the Shining Path would continue to fight despite escalating military pressure.

In October 2008, in the Huancavelica Region, the guerrillas engaged a military convoy with explosives and firearms, demonstrating their continued ability to strike and inflict casualties on military targets. The conflict resulted in the death of 12 soldiers and two to seven civilians. It came one day after a clash in the Vizcatan region, which left five rebels and one soldier dead.

In November 2008, the rebels utilized hand grenades and automatic weapons in an assault that claimed the lives of 4 police. In April of this year, the Shining Path ambushed and killed 13 government soldiers in Ayacucho. Grenades and dynamite were used in the attack. The dead included eleven soldiers and one captain and two soldiers were also injured, with one reported missing.

Poor communications were said to have made relay of the news difficult. The country's Defense Minister, Antero Flores Araoz claimed many soldiers "plunged over a cliff". His Prime Minister Yehude Simon said these attacks were "desperate responses by the Shining Path in the face of advances by the armed forces," and expressed his belief that the area would soon be freed of "leftover terrorists". In the aftermath, a Sendero leader called this "the strongest [anti-government] blow... ...in quite a while." 

MYSTERIOUS MOUNTAINS: In the book, Rongagliolo’s plot is set in 2000, when the prevailing view is that the terrorist insurrection is over. A series of murders gives rise to fears that the rebels are still very much of a threat, which the above chronology indicates is in fact the case. Intertwined with Andean history and folklore, the overwhelming conviction is that the violence and death that has plagued the region for millennia will haunt the mysterious mountains for ever

In it a priest says: “We humans are the only animals who have an awareness of death. The rest of God’s creatures do not have a collective experience of death, of if they have one it is extremely fleeting. Perhaps each cat or dog thinks it is immortal because it hasn’t died. But we know we will die and are obsessed with fighting death, which makes it have a disproportionate, often crushing presence in our lives. Human beings have souls to the exact extent that we are conscious of our own deaths.”

The Inca legacy, overlaid by the Spanish occupation and the deep Christian experience, gives rise to a complex, puzzling and ultimately extremely depressing regional psychosis, which the author so effectively captures. (Definition: “Experiencing different realities often related to religious or paranormal perceptions, influenced by a person's background or current situation, including hostility, suspicion, hallucination and grandiosity,” all prevalent in the Peruvian highlands to this day). In a time when it is so hard to find something truly interesting to read, that is well written and invovles a compelling topic – this book is an excellent choice.