Peru & Democracy

Although the trend in Latin America has been toward democracy within the last twenty years, the battle for an egalitarian society has been fraught with difficulty. One of the most serious threats to democratization has been within subcultural cleavages and guerrilla and terrorist threats. Two cases which show this cleavage to a great extent are Nicaragua and Peru.

In Peru, the cleavage is between the descendants of the Spanish conquerors and the indigenous Indian populations. Social and cultural problems between these two groups engendered the Incan descendants to turn toward radical Marxism or terrorism as a means to gain political control, or to at least disrupt the current government. The most visible of the Peruvian terrorists is the socalled "Shining Path" or Sendero movement, originally centered in the southern highlands of Peru.1

In the 1960s and 1970s in Nicaragua, the debate focused between the forces of Anastasio Somoza and the Sandinista rebels. The conflict itself was more than ideology it centered around a mass movement that demanded more equality: both economic and social.2 This paper will give a brief overview of the Sandinista Movement, a brief overview of the

"Shining Path" terrorist group, and will then focus on a ____________________

1 Cynthia McClintock, "The Prospects for Democratic Consolidation in a 'Least Likely' Case Peru," Comparative Politics 212 (January 1989): 129.

2 John A. Booth, The End and the Beginning: The Nicaraguan Rev

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framework . . . for the march toward full national liberation and socialism."8 It is perhaps more correct to view the Sandinistas as adopting a MarxistLeninist revolutionary perspective in order to achieve their political goals. In fact, after 1979, Sandinista leaders have become more sophisticated in their understanding of the peculiar difficulties within Latin America. Although they maintain close ties with the Communist world, they also understand that they must deal with the capitalist world clearly an indication of their pragmatism.9 The Shining Path embraces no concrete ideology, but is more affected by the nationalistic and political desires of its members against the Peruvian government. Desiring the complete overthrow of both the privileged and middle classes, the Shining Path movement would replace the government with a peasant oriented system. They wish to unite their country linguistically, returning to their native Incan tongues rather than Spanish. Moreover, their foremost goal seems to be the ____________________ 8 Booth, 146. 9 Valenta, 313. protection of the campesino (Peruvian peasants) through a radical overthrow of established power.10 Since the Shining Path is essentially a nationalistic mov

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