It was a car bomb, they said. People were scared, they didn’t know what was going on, it might have been paramilitary groups attacking terrorist groups, or it might have been terrorists attacking public places to set the terror, no one knew what the reality was. Car bombs were usually followed by blackouts but it was also the other way too. There was such uncertainty that no one knew what would happen next.
Peru, in South America, suffered the striking attacks of the most dangerous terrorist group in the country—the Shining Path. Led by Abimael Guzman and by his ideology based on Mao Tse Tung, Karl Marx, and Lenin, with a radical extremism, this group attempted to take over the country to have complete control of all power. According to them, the proletariat would only get their rights respected when full power was achieved.
Guzman was captured on September 12th 1992. Massive media coverage showed Peruvians the results of an extensive investigation to track down Guzman who was hiding in a middle-class house in the suburbs of Lima. In order to show Peruvians that the government had defeated the terrorists, the then-President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) ordered that Guzman be dressed in black striped clothes and be shown to the media (this was not common among other prisoners). This, he said, would show all people that the hardest to capture and most dangerous leader of the terrorists was subdued to the justice.
Just like any other kid, I would have enjoyed watching cartoons and simply not be aware of what was going on, yet blackouts terrified everyone. They could take a few hours, they could take more than that. Usually, terrorists used this method for the rest to believe that they were there, causing terror and panic. This is the situation I grew up in. Being ten years old in 1995 was also being part of the uncertainty. I remember watching the breaking news about the car bomb in Tarata (a known street in Miraflores-Lima) and new attacks. I also still remember hearing the explosion of another car bomb that killed many people in a local TV station (video is in Spanish). My mediated experience was a constant confrontation with the violent reality; my experience was not based on a single circumstance, but a phenomenon. The media played a key role in portraying the acts of terrorists but also in transmitting the countless images of dead people and car wreckage constantly. This coverage led to countless documentaries and TV shows that came up in Peru and in international TV shows as well. All this massive coverage had a powerful impact on people's perception of 'insurgents' (this is how Shining Path followers called themselves). People simply considered them as criminals.
Terrorists leaders were finally incarcerated. Car bombs are now in the past but the terrifying experiences and testimonies of those who first-hand witnessed everything and who became victims are still in the present.
The irony of the story: the Shining Path darkened thousands of lives in Peru between 1980 and 2000. According to a commission that investigated the impact and effects of what is now known as the internal war in Peru, thousands of people died.
Peru, through this internal war, experienced the most dramatic moments in its history. I believe that the media coverage was crucial in depicting not only Abimael Guzman as a diabolic person but also in depicting them as a defeated force, all dressed in black striped clothes. Though Guzman talked about a reformism and a new and equal redistribution of goods, facts clearly demonstrated his violent means.
Further Resources:
Visit the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (This commission was in charged of investigating and documenting the facts and effects of the internal war in Peru as well as the number of victims and the testimonies of those who survived the war in Peru)
