Shining Path Guerrillas Reportedly Kill 8 Villagers

Maoist Shining Path guerrillas raided a remote village in the jungle of central Peru, killing eight people in the deadliest reported rebel strike this year, regional military officials said Tuesday.

Guerrillas stormed the village of Azul de Magdalena on Sunday evening in an attack to avenge the 1998 capture of a Shining Path leader in the zone, local inhabitants said.

A column of about 30 rebels rounded up villagers, the inhabitants said. Before killing the eight victims, the rebels publicly accused them of passing information to the authorities, witnesses said.

The attack by the weakened guerrilla movement followed a spate of rebel violence against civilians in the area. Attacks throughout the Upper Huallaga Valley have killed at least 14 people in recent weeks.

Army units flew into the jungle area by helicopter Tuesday and took riverboats from Tingo Maria, the region’s main settlement, in a bid to track down the column that attacked Azul de Magdalena, about 50 miles away.

The attack underlined signs of a resurgence among the rebels, military authorities said.

“Previously, they did not attack civilians. Their leaders have told militants to go out there and just do something to show their strength,” a high-ranking soldier in the region said.

The Shining Path once controlled large swaths of Peru’s provinces. But it lost much of its force after 1992, when authorities captured founder and leader Abimael Guzman.

The Upper Huallaga Valley region is considered one of the last strongholds of the weakened rebel movement.

Many villagers said they believed that the apparent resurgence was linked to increased support from poor farmers swayed by the Shining Path’s commitment to share the nation’s wealth with the worst off.

Despite the group’s weakness, remaining columns of up to 30 armed members still move around the jungle and the Andean highlands.

They periodically take over villages or ambush vehicles to steal supplies, and harass the population into supporting a 19-year-old war that has killed about 30,000 people.