Image from a 2007 Peruvian TV reportA very solid piece of reporting from Reuters yesterday. Here's the link to the note that updates on Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), the Maoist terrorist group that is making a comeback and making serious money via the Peruvian cocaine business. Here's the start, read the rest yourself:
INTERVIEW-Peru: Shining Path expands role in cocaine trade
12 Dec 2008 23:07:53 GMT Source: Reuters
By Diego Ore and Terry Wade LIMA, Dec 12 (Reuters) - The Shining Path rebel group, which led a bloody civil war in the 1980s, has expanded its foothold in Peru's cocaine trade to run lucrative drug labs and coca farms, the country's top counterterrorism official said on Friday. The Maoist insurgency, whose war against the state beginning in 1980 killed 69,000 people, largely collapsed in the early 1990s after its leaders were captured. Holdout members of the group have since provided protection services to drug traffickers. Members have mostly scrapped their ideological struggle but recently stepped up attacks against police and soldiers. Antenor Rosas, director of Peru's counterterrorism police, said the Shining Path was moving increasingly into more profitable parts of the drug trade in the world's No. 2 coca grower, including cultivation and production. In an interview with Reuters, Rosas said yadayada continues here