Peru’s Elections Marred By Scandal, Cartels, and the Shining Path

Keiko Fujimora, a presidential candidate, and daughter of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimora is pledging to rid Peru of violence and terrorism. However, her claims of defeating terrorism may be outweighed by the country’s rapidly growing cocaine cartels.

Keiko Fujimora has been involved with politics for over twenty years dating back to her father’s decade long term in office, and she is viewed as a politician with a tough stance on crime and terrorism. She has a 20 point lead in early projections and will most likely go against Pablo Pedro Kuczynski, a former minister and economist under President Alejandro Toledo in June’s election.

Controversy has plagued the election right from the start, information about Kuczynsk questionable business dealings from 2006 surfaced in the Panama Papers.  He signed a letter of recommendation for Billingsley Global Corp, which supplied passport producing technology to Cuba and Venezuela. However, Cuba and Venezuela were using this technology to make passports for the terrorist group Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has also been known to operate out of Peru in conducting terrorist attacks against Israel and/or Jewish citizens throughout the region ,and participates in international drug trade. Peru is now the second largest producer of cocaine in the world, only behind Columbia.

Fujimora has also had to deal with controversy in her brother who is also a congressman was tied to 100kg of cocaine found in a warehouse he owned in 2013. Her father, Alberto Fujimora, who ruled from 1990 – 2000 and was plagued with civil war, economic recession, and human rights violations. He was jailed for a rigged voting election scandal in 2000.

Despite past family incidents Keiko has promised to eliminate the “Shinning Path” terrorist organization, Peruvian Maoist terrorist organization. Shinning Path killed 69,000 Peruvians between 1980 – 2000,  but was largely eradicated under Alberto Fujimora’s reign. The Shining Path was founded in 1970 by Abimael Guzman and his followers known as Senderistas, wanted to restore a “pure ideology” of Mao Zedong to Peru, and would use violence and terrorism to obtain their objective.  the group remained largely inactive until 2008. Reports indicate that under 400 members, but have the support of hundreds of cartel members.

Attacks since 2008 largely targeted at government forces:

• October 10, 2008: Attack on military convoy kills 12 soldiers and two civilians.
• April 12, 2009: 13 Peruvian soldiers killed in grenade and dynamite attack.
• September 15, 2011: Attack on helicopter kills 2 soldiers.
• August 31, 2012: Attack kills 5 soldiers in the Munzangro region of Junin.
• October 3, 2014: 2 police officers killed and 1 injured during attack on Ballot Convoy.
• April 10, 2016: Government convoy carrying ballots attacked in the Junin district attacked killing 8 soldiers and injuring 5 more.

Reports indicated last year that Shinning Path was now operating in largely rural areas of Peru but enslaving residents to grow cocoa leafs and the group was also  developing child soldiers.

While authorities believe that the new Shinning Path is more a narcotics cartel and have no ties to Abimael Guzman, they are still extremely dangerous and deemed a terrorist organization. Shinning Path is now operating out of the Ene-Apurimac Valley, a lawless area near the Bolivian border where much of the Cocoa used for cocaine is grown. In 2011, the Shining Path and Mexican based Sinaloa cartel announced an agreement to working together in the narcotics trade.

All scenarios seem show that Keiko Fujimora will win the presidency in June. However, her reluctance to address the drug problem which is feeding into a resurgent Shining Path may come back to haunt her if war breaks out.