The Shining Path: Love, Madness, and Revolution in the Andes

On May 17, 1980, on the eve of Peru's presidential election, five masked men stormed a small town in the Andean heartland. They set election ballots ablaze and vanished into the night, but not before planting a red hammer-and-sickle banner in the town square. The lone man arrested the next morning later swore allegiance to a group called Shining Path.



Described by a U.S. State Department cable as "cold-blooded and bestial," Shining Path orchestrated bombings, assassinations, and massacres ac...