[1980–1992] Internal Conflict and the Return to Democracy

The year is 1980. For twelve long years, Peru had been under the thumb of a military dictatorship. Now, a fragile hope blossoms. In the bustling, coastal capital of Lima, with its colonial-era balconies and burgeoning concrete suburbs, Peruvians are lining up to vote. There is a palpable sense of a fresh start. The indelible ink on a voter's thumb is more than a mark; it is a symbol of a reclaimed future. Fernando Belaúnde Terry, a moderate, architect-turned-politician who had been ousted by the military back in 1968, is swept back into the presidency. Democracy has returned. But on the very eve of that election, in a small, remote Andean village called Chuschi in the department of Ayacucho, a different kind of history was being written. As villagers prepared to cast their ballots, a small group of masked figures stormed the polling station. They did not use guns. They simply took the ballot boxes and the voter lists and set them ablaze in the town square. To the politicians in Lima, it was a minor disturbance, the act of a few isolated radicals. They couldn't have been more wrong. This was the opening act of the "Shining Path," or *Sendero Luminoso*, a Maoist insurgent group that would plunge Peru into a nightmare. Their leader was a man few had ever seen, a former philosophy professor named Abimael Guzmán, who styled himself "Presidente Gonzalo." From the university halls of Ayacucho, he had forged a cult-like ideology of breathtaking brutality. His goal was not reform; it was to obliterate Peru’s existing society—what he called the "old state"—and build a new one from the ashes through a bloody "people's war." His followers, often young students from impoverished highland regions, saw him as the "Fourth Sword of Marxism," after Marx, Lenin, and Mao. The conflict began in the place where the state was weakest: the sierra, the rugged Andean highlands. This was a world away from the coastal elites of Lima. Here, communities of Quechua-speaking farmers lived in a state of profound neglect, their lives dictated by the harvest and ancient traditions. It was this deep-seated inequality, the chasm between the Spanish-speaking coast and the Indigenous highlands, that the Shining Path exploited. They moved through villages, holding "popular trials" where they would execute local mayors, merchants, or anyone deemed a "class enemy." Their methods were barbaric: stoning, throat-slitting, and the use of dynamite became their signatures. They were a phantom menace, striking and then melting back into the unforgiving landscape. The government's response was clumsy, then savage. Believing it was a simple police matter, President Belaúnde was slow to grasp the scale of the threat. When he finally sent in the armed forces, they were unprepared. Unable to distinguish friend from foe among the Quechua-speaking populace, the military's counter-insurgency campaign became a wave of its own terror. Villages were caught in a horrifying crossfire. To cooperate with the military was to invite a death sentence from the Shining Path; to be suspected of sympathizing with the rebels was to risk being "disappeared" by the state. The era of the *desaparecidos* had begun, a dark chapter of mass graves and families left with nothing but photographs and agonizing uncertainty. By the mid-1980s, the war had spilled into Lima itself. The Shining Path's strategy shifted to include the cities. Suddenly, the conflict was no longer a distant problem in the mountains. It arrived in the form of *coches bomba*—car bombs—that ripped through city streets. And it arrived as darkness. The rebels would dynamite the country’s electrical towers, plunging Lima and other cities into sudden, terrifying blackouts known as *apagones*. For hours, a city of millions would be without light or power, the silence punctuated only by the distant echo of a bomb or the desperate sound of ambulance sirens. Life adapted. Families kept candles and kerosene lamps at the ready. Those who could afford them bought generators. The *apagones* became a grim, regular feature of daily life, a constant reminder of the state’s inability to protect its citizens. In 1985, a new president, the young and charismatic Alan García, came to power with a populist message of hope. His initial popularity was immense. But his attempts to fix the economy were catastrophic. He defaulted on foreign debt and printed money with abandon. The result was hyperinflation on a scale that is difficult to comprehend. The Peruvian currency, the Inti, became virtually worthless. Prices would change not just daily, but hourly. A worker’s monthly salary might barely buy a chicken by the time he was paid. People rushed to spend their money the second they received it, before it lost even more value. The inflation rate would eventually peak at a staggering 7,649% in 1990. This economic chaos fueled the conflict, creating a fertile ground of desperation and anger for the Shining Path to exploit. Daily life became a dual struggle for survival: against economic collapse and against political violence. By the turn of the decade, Peru was a nation on its knees. The state seemed to be disintegrating. The conflict had, by this point, claimed over 25,000 lives and caused billions in damages. The 1990 presidential election was held in this atmosphere of profound crisis. The frontrunner was the world-renowned novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, offering a platform of harsh but necessary free-market shock therapy. His opponent was a complete unknown: Alberto Fujimori, a son of Japanese immigrants and an agricultural university rector. His campaign slogan, "Work, Honesty, and Technology," resonated with a populace tired of traditional politicians. To everyone's astonishment, this quiet outsider won. Fujimori inherited a country in flames. For two years, he struggled against the twin demons of terrorism and economic ruin. The car bombs in Lima grew more frequent and deadlier. The Shining Path seemed closer than ever to achieving its goal of total chaos. Then, on April 5, 1992, Peruvians awoke to a stunning development. President Fujimori appeared on television to announce he was dissolving Congress and suspending the constitution. With the backing of the military, he had staged an *autogolpe*, or a "self-coup." Tanks rolled through the streets of Lima, surrounding the Palace of Justice and the homes of opposition leaders. Democracy, so dearly bought in 1980, was being dismantled in the name of saving the nation from itself. A new, uncertain, and authoritarian chapter was about to begin.