Shining Path succeeds

What if Abimael Guzman and Sendero Luminoso had achieved political victory and overthrew the government of Peru during the early Eighties?[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Some sort of US-backed counter-coup, probably. Maybe a civil war if the counter-coup fails, but doesn't fail enough. America never did quite cotton to leftwingers coming into power in the Americas :rolleyes:
 
Nothing good. Shining Path was violently Marxist. Expect lots of purges and other fun stuff, though I doubt they'd last long. Especially since it was all centered around Guzman-with him out of the picture it all falls apart.
 
The Reagan Administration imposes trade sanctins They have to depend I the declinng Soviet. Union for aid.They would then have to obey the Soviiets.That would be hard for Maoists.
 
I couldn't see it happening as soon as the early 80s, not without the countercoup mentioned before. Your best chance would be when Reagan is distracted by Iran Contra, or when Bush Sr is occupied with the Gulf War.

And then you're looking at the worst case for Peru. Think Khmer Rouge levels of butchery. IOTL the SP was very unpopular, maybe 1/5 of the public supporting it. They'd have to win by sheer attrition.

That'd leave Peru as a broken nation once the US can finally turn its attention to it. SP mostly slaughtered Indians peasants, elders and organizers esp. It'd take several generations to recover. The racist oligarchy that's run the country for most of its history would ironically be greatly strengthened once it got back into power.
 
What if Abimael Guzman and Sendero Luminoso had achieved political victory and overthrew the government of Peru during the early Eighties?[FONT=&quot][/FONT]

Brrrrrr....*shivers*
A Peruan version of the Killing Fields, likely.

Another nasty thing would be that criminals the likes of Pinochet or Garcia Meza would be hailed as heroes of the free world for putting that to an end.
 

Deleted member 5719

Brrrrrr....*shivers*
A Peruan version of the Killing Fields, likely.

Another nasty thing would be that criminals the likes of Pinochet or Garcia Meza would be hailed as heroes of the free world for putting that to an end.

And that would be the greatest irony of all, because the form of the Sendero's insurgency was in part a reaction to the fact that democratic social change was crushed wherever it was attempted... by the likes of Pinochet and Garcia Meza!
 
OK, I know I'm going to get burned for bringing back a three year old post, but I think this raises an interesting question...

I always though the SP never posed a serious threat to actually take over Peru, more likely they would just become a virtual FARC and control large sections of the less populated countryside while dragging Peru into a 30-year civil war (this was my picture of the worst case scenario). But I have been reading up on the SP, and I never realized how close they really came to taking over, even controlling some of the outskirts of Lima.

But i do agree, if they took over it would be a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions. a flood of refugees would flee into Bolivia, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador. I would guess over 2 million. A South American Killing Fields would follow. And possibly the outlaw of thr Spanish language and making Quecha the national language (in an attmept to shore up rural support). Expect purges of the military, making Peru
Susceptible to foreign intervention. My guess is within 10 months of taking power, Ecuador and Chile invade. Chile to remove the SP, and Ecuador to make a claim on the disputed territories.
 

Incognito

Banned
OK, I know I'm going to get burned for bringing back a three year old post, but I think this raises an interesting question...

I always though the SP never posed a serious threat to actually take over Peru, more likely they would just become a virtual FARC and control large sections of the less populated countryside while dragging Peru into a 30-year civil war (this was my picture of the worst case scenario). But I have been reading up on the SP, and I never realized how close they really came to taking over, even controlling some of the outskirts of Lima.

But i do agree, if they took over it would be a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions. a flood of refugees would flee into Bolivia, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador. I would guess over 2 million. A South American Killing Fields would follow. And possibly the outlaw of thr Spanish language and making Quecha the national language (in an attmept to shore up rural support). Expect purges of the military, making Peru
Susceptible to foreign intervention. My guess is within 10 months of taking power, Ecuador and Chile invade. Chile to remove the SP, and Ecuador to make a claim on the disputed territories.
Are you thinking of including this in your TL?
 
The SL overthrowing the government is very unlikely. I doubt the Soviets would've helped those Khmer-wannabe nutters.

Chile is in no condition to invade. Not without US support, anyways (perhaps a US Carrier in Cape Horn, to keep the Argentinian Junta on their toes?).

If there is military support, though, the invasion could only be succesful if the terror that the Sendero Luminoso provokes among Peruvians ouweight the terror that Peruvians feel for the Corvo knife. There's still a lot of animosity between Chile and Peru.

And Chile invading and succesfully destroying the SL would be the best case scenario. Which is horrible.
 
The Shining Path could never be successful due to its own policies, which worked against it and often alienated the very people who could potentially support it.
 
Are you thinking of including this in your TL?

No, the thing is the Shining Path was all but finished by 1993 (where my TL is now at) even if the world didn't yet know it. The September 12, 1992 capture of Abimaiel Guzman was really the end of the Shining Path, even though in the short term they became more active. What I have considered is a scenario where perhaps MRTA (Tupac Amaru) survives and the UIS is linked to the Japanese Embassy hostage crisis in 1997. But I can't see the Shining Path taking over Peru in the 90s. There brutality is too well known, and really the early 80s was where there might have been a small window where they could have taken over the country. By 1993 it was too late.
 
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