Shining Path Rebels’ No. 2 Leader Captured, Peruvian Police Claim
The nation’s anti-terrorism police said Saturday that they had captured the second-ranking leader of the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla movement.
Police sources said that Elizabeth Cardenas Huayta, alias Comrade Sunrise, was arrested earlier last week in the highland city of Ayacucho after a surveillance operation spanning more than two months.
“This is a resounding blow against Shining Path’s military apparatus given that she is a crucial element of the party who has been a leader since the beginning of the conflict,” said one anti-terrorism source, who asked not to be named.
The sources said Cardenas will be presented to the public at the anti-terrorism police’s headquarters Monday prior to her trial for treason, a charge that carries a life sentence if she is convicted.
Although greatly weakened since its heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Shining Path has been increasingly active this year with a series of car bombings, assassinations and clashes with security forces.
An estimated 30,000 Peruvians have died since the insurgents launched their terrorist campaign against the government in 1980.
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