In the documentary, “State of Fear, the film reveals insights on the Peruvian Truth Reconciliation Commission. With personal testimony, history and exclusive footage, the documentary illustrates the escalating violence in Peru and how the fear of terrorism damaged democracy. The specific events exploit Peru being a dictatorship where official corruption replaced the rule of law. The terrorist attacks by the Shining Path insurgents provoke many issues for the government. Inevitably, the most important factor of the rise, consolidation and the fall of the guerilla terrorist group is the Communist Party of Peru-The Shining Path during the 1970s through the 1990s.
During the 1960s, Abimael Guzman initially founded the Shining Path. Guzman was a professor of philosophy at San Cristobal of Huamanga University in Ayacucho, which is a small city in the southern Peruvian Andes. Influenced by Maoism, Marxism and Lenninism, Guzman traveled to China to further develop and expand his ideologies for change. Guzman believed that the subjugated class was the key element to help the society to prosper. The ideology of Guzman was to increase the living conditions of Peru’s poor members of society. He ultimately recruited an army to use violence against the Peruvian government to change their way of life. At the time, the Peruvian government was very corrupt. The government was a subpar democracy that neglected human rights of Peruvians. The upper class Peruvians possessed most of the money and education in Peru. It was clear that the current system of capitalism and feudalism was not efficient. Since some indigenous places outside of Peru have been excluded and discriminated from the political engagements from the government, Guzman decided to implement his own ideology, which was a mixture of Marxism and Maoism. As his message and teachings continued to spread, more people started to join his new movement called the “Shining Path”.
Guzman’s philosophy was nonetheless attractive to his followers because it promoted being free from discrimination. His power was reflected by his leadership style along with being armed with weapons. Surely, this tactic also resulted to the recruitment of young children wanting to be soldiers. Guzman and his group initially appeared to be promoting a somewhat civil approach by emphasizing the importance of freedom and inequality. However, the group’s tactics started to become more violent as they started to exploit aggressiveness in the small Indian villages of Peru. Members of the group decided to kill those who were opposed to their movement or those who refused to participate. Rather by being civil and convincing the villagers, Guzman’s followers used force and violence in order to achieve their specific demands. Due to the increase of violence, The Shining Path finally caught the attention and concern of the Peruvian government. In December 29, 1981, the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency in the highlands of Peru. The government also allowed the military to sustain any persons that they believed to potentially cause harm. Since this conflict was domestic and civil, it became difficult to determine who was a member of the Shining group from an ordinary citizen. Another crucial factor was the language barrier that contributed the increase of violence. The confusion resulted to the brutal interrogation and torture of countless innocent people by the soldiers from the Peruvian government. Unfortunately, the violence caused by the soldiers caused a jolt of momentum for the Shining Group. More villagers started to join the group in order to defend themselves from interrogation. Between 1980 and 2000, roughly 700,000 people were killed during the uprising, which started in the mountains and countryside. In 1990 an election was held and President Alberto Fujimori became the new president of Peru, he vowed that he would crack down on the perpetrators of the crime while in office. While the Lima police was investigating, Fujimori’s army was also working to lower the attacks. What led to the capturing of Guzman and the downfall of the shining path was the fact that Guzman felt that army was his biggest threat and not the police. Because of this, Guzman paid more attention to the military men and overlooked the police work. The investigating police officers gathered a lot of their information from the ex-members who were willing to bring down the shining path and Guzman. One of the incriminating pieces of evidence that these investigators were able to attain, was a video tape. This videotape showed that Guzman was actually in Lima, and it also showed the faces of the top officers who worked closely with Guzman. With this the officers were able to then conduct a thorough investigation, to find out where Guzman was hiding which also led to an arrest of Guzman and his top officers. After the arrest of Guzman and his followers, the shining path immediately lost all momentum. And those officers who were arrested began giving the police information about the other officer who was also involved. This continued until the shining path’s criminal activity dwindled, and the most influential members were jailed. A lot of working and intelligence went into the capturing of Guzman and his members, and the police team was mainly responsible for the capture of Guzman because of their work. Although the police was responsible for the capture, president Fujimori took all the credit of the capture of Guzman and his team. And was given all the praise for a job well done, even though the police work was what clearly led to the capture.