Shining Path Victory in Peru--What Happens Next?

Meerkat92

Banned
Yes, I know, this is like the third thread on Latin American PoDs I've put up recently, but hear me out...

So from what I've been reading about the Shining Path , they were really close to bringing down the government of Peru by the early 90s. But then, in a surprise raid in 1992, the Peruvian police capture the leadership in an apartment in Lima. Without them, the movement splintered and turned on itself, suffering defeat after crushing defeat, from which it never recovered.

But what if the raid had failed? Say, for example, a Shining Path informant in the government tipped the leaders off or something and they get away. Could it be possible that the Shining Path could actually take over Peru? What would happen after that? I expect the consequences would be quite negative for South America, and for the indigenous Peruvians in the countryside, downright hellish. How would the US react to a new, radical Maoist revolution toppling a government in the Western Hemisphere? This is right after the end of the Cold War; could we perhaps see a military intervention, a la Somalia or Desert Storm? My knowledge is limited, but hopefully one of our Latin America experts can help me out here.
 
AFAIK they never had much popular support though, unlike the CCP or (to a lesser extent) the Khmer Rouge: they could maybe bring down the government but not run the country.
 

Meerkat92

Banned
AFAIK they never had much popular support though, unlike the CCP or (to a lesser extent) the Khmer Rouge: they could maybe bring down the government but not run the country.

Yeah, I don't see them lasting too long either.
 
Peruvian Pol Pot is what happens. I'd expect an intervention very quickly to stop the resulting genocide.
 

Meerkat92

Banned
Peruvian Pol Pot is what happens. I'd expect an intervention very quickly to stop the resulting genocide.

I sense a quick moral pick-me-up coming in this TL for that early-to-mid-90s crowd that thought America needed to become the world's policeman.
 
This is coming from someone who is generally supportive of Latin American guerrillas...It would have been an utter disaster and probably gone down like Cambodia as everyone's been saying. The Quechua speaking peoples would have suffered the most, being the main source of casualties anyways during the conflict. It is a testament though to how improvised the people were, how negligent the Peruvian government was in combating such poverty, and how brutal their response was to have much of the rural Peruvian populace consider the Shinning Path a lesser of two evils long enough to allow the guerrillas to grow to such heights.
 
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Meerkat92

Banned
What's the longest you'd see a Shining Path regime lasting before someone (most likely the US) intervenes? I'd give it five years.
 
What's the longest you'd see a Shining Path regime lasting before someone (most likely the US) intervenes? I'd give it five years.

If they directly intervene. It also depends when.

The only time the SP had a chance was during the 80s, so even though the USSR would really hate them, realpolitic might take over enough for the US to resist calls for a direct invasion until after the Cold War. Destabilization tactics similar to the ones used in Central America would be more fitting; and would work better because the surrounding countries would be quite hostile to a SP run Peru, giving such 'contras' shelter, unlike Cambodia.
 

CalBear

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What's the longest you'd see a Shining Path regime lasting before someone (most likely the US) intervenes? I'd give it five years.

Six months, a year at the outside, more likely 60-90 days.

Shining Path was neck deep in the drug trade, mainly collecting taxes from small growers, although the did eventually start providing muscle for the Cartels. No way the U.S., even with Clinton as President, allows a real narco-state in the Western Hemisphere.
 
Shining Path... one of the most brutal guerrilla movements in Latin America and often ignored in favour of the ridiculously overrated Zapatistas (which were a media circus most of the time).

They will not last. They will manage to "overthrow" the government (as in, running them out of Lima), but they had no support from the urban population in Peru. And "Success" for them would be plunging the country straight into a bloody civil war. With many dead, among them multiple child solders.
 
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