The Lucanamarca massacre was a massacre

Massacre

A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...

 of 69 peasants in and around the town of Lucanamarca, Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 that took place on April 3, 1983. The massacre was perpetrated by the Shining Path

Shining Path

Shining Path is a Maoist guerrilla terrorist organization in Peru. The group never refers to itself as "Shining Path", and as several other Peruvian groups, prefers to be called the "Communist Party of Peru" or "PCP-SL" in short...

, the Maoist

Maoism

Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...

 guerrilla

Guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...

 organization that launched the internal conflict in Peru

Internal conflict in Peru

It has been estimated that nearly 70,000 people died in the internal conflict in Peru that started in 1980 and, although still ongoing, had greatly wound down by 2000. The principal actors in the war were the Shining Path , the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and the government of Peru.A great...

.

Background

On May 17, 1980 the Shining Path went to war against the Peruvian state

Government of Peru

Peru is a presidential representative democratic republic with a multi-party system. Under the current constitution, the President is the head of state and government; he or she is elected for five years and cannot seek immediate re-election, he or she must stand down for at least one full...

. The Shining Path was based in the Ayacucho Region

Ayacucho Region

Ayacucho is a region of Peru, located in the south-central Andes of the country. Its capital is the city of Ayacucho. The region was one of the hardest hit by terrorism during the 1980s during the guerrilla war waged by Shining Path known as the internal conflict in Peru.A referendum was held on...

. In March 1983, ronderos

Ronda Campesina

Ronda Campesina ,was the name given to autonomous peasant patrols in rural Peru. The rondas were especially active during the early 1980s in northern Peru and during the insurgency by the Maoist group Sendero Luminoso and by the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.The rondas were originally...

 killed Olegario Curitomay, a Shining Path commander in Lucanamarca, a small town in the Huanca Sancos Province

Huanca Sancos Province

Huanca Sancos is a province in central Ayacucho, Peru. On April 3, 1983, Shining Path rebels entered the town of Lucanamarca and killed 69 people.-Political division:The province extends over an area of and is divided into four districts....

 of Ayacucho. The ronderos took Curitomay to the town square, stoned

Stoning

Stoning, or lapidation, is a form of capital punishment whereby a group throws stones at a person until the person dies. No individual among the group can be identified as the one who kills the subject, yet everyone involved plainly bears some degree of moral culpability. This is in contrast to the...

 him, stabbed

Stabbing

A stabbing is penetration with a sharp or pointed object at close range. Stab connotes purposeful action, as by an assassin or murderer, but it is also possible to accidentally stab oneself or others.Stabbing differs from slashing or cutting in that the motion of the object used in a stabbing...

 him, set him on fire, and finally shot him.

The massacre

In April 1983 Shining Path militants responded to the death of Olegario Curitomay by entering the province of Huancasancos and the towns of Yanaccollpa, Ataccara, Llacchua, Muylacruz, and Lucanamarca, and killing 69 people. Of those killed by the Shining Path, eighteen were children, the youngest of whom was only six months old. Also killed were eleven women, some of whom were pregnant. Eight of the victims were between fifty and seventy years old. Most victims died by machete and axe hacks, and some were shot at close range in the head. Shining Path members also scalded villagers with boiling water. This was the first massacre by Shining Path of the peasant community. Abimael Guzmán

Abimael Guzmán

Manuel Rubén Abimael Guzmán Reynoso , also known by the nom de guerre Presidente Gonzalo , a former professor of philosophy, was the leader of the Shining Path during the Maoist insurgency known as the internal conflict in Peru...

, the founder and leader of the Shining Path, admitted that the Shining Path carried out the massacre and explained the rationale behind it in an interview with El Diario

El Diario

El Diario is a newspaper of Bolivia, published in La Paz. Founded in 1904, it is Bolivia's oldest newspaper currently still published. The newspaper traditionally published a conservative position in line with its founders, the Carrasco family, one of La Paz's most influential families of the 20th...

, a pro-Shining Path newspaper based in Lima. In the interview, he said:

Aftermath

Ultimately, the Shining Path's war against the Peruvian state faltered, and Abimael Guzmán and several other high-ranking Shining Path members were captured in Lima

Lima

Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...

 in 1992. On September 10, 2002, Abimael Guzmán told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Peru)

The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in 2001 after the fall of president Alberto Fujimori, to examine abuses committed during the 1980s and 1990s, when Peru was plagued by the worst political violence in the history of the republic...

 "We, doctors, reiterate that we will not avoid our responsibility [for the Lucanamarca massacre]. I have mine, I'm the first one responsible, and I will never renounce my responsibility, that wouldn't make any sense."

On October 13, 2006, Guzmán and Elena Iparraguirre

Elena Iparraguirre

Elena Iparraguirre, also known as Comrade Miriam, is a high-ranking member of the Peruvian Maoist revolutionary and terrorist organization Sendero Luminoso . Iparraguirre was captured in Lima in 1992 along with her lover, Shining Path founder Abimael Guzmán. In 1992, she received a sentence of life...

 were sentenced to life imprisonment

Life imprisonment

Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...

 on a number of charges that included ordering the Lucanamarca massacre. Guzmán was additionally ordered to pay S./

Peruvian nuevo sol

The nuevo sol plural: nuevos soles; currency sign: S/.) is the currency of Peru. It is subdivided into 100 cents, called céntimos in Spanish. The ISO 4217 currency code is PEN. It is most commonly referred to just as sol...

250,000 to the victims. In January 2008, the Supreme Court of Peru

Supreme Court of Peru

The Supreme Court of Justice is the highest judicial court in Peru. Its jurisdiction extends over the entire territory of the nation. It is headquartered in the Palace of Justice in Lima.The supreme court is composed of three Supreme Sectors:...

confirmed that Guzmán had ordered the killings and upheld his life sentence.