Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Hezbollah Militias Involved in Peru Violence | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
Select Page
Media ID: 55362466
Caption:

A poster celebrates the fifth anniversary of Shining Path’s uprising


Lima-The killing of a Peruvian citizen during a workers protest in La Pampa district raised disputes inside the country’s parliament and a number of questions regarding the nature of the operations of militias in Latin America.

It all started a few weeks ago when local citizens from La Pampa staged a protest against government projects. As the protesters were confronting security officers, one of the demonstrators was shot in the head by a sniper.

Local media in Peru directly accused so-called Hezbollah militias of being involved in these violent acts in cooperation with the Shining Path party (Sendero Luminoso).

These accusations were based on evidence that a Hezbollah-backed charity – located in that area – is supported financially and ideologically by Iran and so-called Hezbollah militias.

The charity mainly targets poor neighborhoods and the socially marginalized classes amidst frank incitement expressed by Peruvians to provoke violence under the cover of searching for democracy and clashes with the country’s government.

Notably, Hezbollah operates in Peru in cooperation with political groups such as the Shining Path that target the poor and marginalized.

The party and its affiliates follow the Peruvian communist party and the military and political Maoist communists in Peru.

These parties were formed under the cover of the Shining Path communist party in 1980 to establish the new democratic rule.

Moreover, these parties adopt the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theory and follow the approach of the armed struggle and the launch of people’s war in order to establish the Socialist Republic and the Cultural Revolution to end up with a communist society similar to that found before the arrest of the Shining Path’s Leader Abimael Guzman in 1992.

Some factions from the Shining Path have been calling for the fight to force the government to reach a peace treaty with the rebels.

Several months ago a crisis was ignited in Peru when several citizens decided to become Shi’ites and establish an official party called “Peruvian Hezbollah.”

These citizens, who were trained in Iran, released along with an Argentinian Shi’ite Sheikh a video calling for the formation of the new party, driving the ire over the role Iran plays in the country and the reasons behind its political and religious presence in Peru.