Category Archives: Peru

RATM and Shining Path

What follows was a originally a comment by LS on my post, Documentary: The People of the Shining Path:

On the topic of Sendero, folks may be interested in a video that Rage Against the Machine made for their song Bombtrack in 1993. The video is openly pro-Sendero. It has visual commentary about Sendero throughout the video. It features the band playing inside a cage – a direct reference to Gonzalo’s ’speech from the cage’ after his capture (there are brief clips of Gonzalo speaking from the cage in the video too). It also features footage of street battles with the police in Raucana shantytown, one neighborhood where Sendero had a strong base, as well as footage from Sendero-controlled prisons and Sendero combatants training, which may be taken from this video. The prison footage may be taken from this video, I’m not sure.

Documentary: The People of the Shining Path

“The People of the Shining Path” is an excellent 1992 documentary that gives a sympathetic look at Sendero Luminoso and the People’s War in Peru from just before the capture of their founding leader, Chairman Gonzalo (Abimael Guzmán). The PCP seems to have declined significantly since Gonzalo’s capture, and the current state of the PCP is unclear. I am including an interesting article from the bourgeois media about the Communist Party of Peru (Sendero Luminoso) from September 18th to help bring things up to speed. See also the People’s War in Peru document archive. 

The People of the Shining Path

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