dnapping, sales of cocaine, selective assassinations, and targeting businessmen (including Americans) (Sendero Luminoso (SL), 2001). With about 1,500 to 2,000 armed militants, Shining Path also enjoys a larger number of supporters, mostly in rural areas. Kay (1999) noted that the relationship between Shining Path and coca growers in the Huallaga Valley provided financial support for the organization, which received no external funding. Since the 1992 capture and arrest of Guzman (who offered to negotiate a 1993 peace settlement with the Alberto Fujimori government), Shining Path has been split into two factions that continue to vie for dominance (Izaguirre, 1996).
With Guzman, the founder and intellectual force behind Shining Path, imprisoned as of 1992, the organization is believed to be under the control (externally) of Oscar Ramirez Durand, "Comrade Feliciano," the only member of Guzman's original "permanent committee" still at large (The Shining Path comes back, 1996). Under Durand, Shining Path appears to have become less violent in its tactics than in the past; however, the group did kill several of its m
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