Inocencia: Shining Path and the Recruitment of Minors, Ayacucho in the 1980s

Abstract

Abstract This article uses a unique source to examine the role of young people in the Peruvian Maoist group the Shining Path. The Archivo Regional de Ayacucho contains the records of trials from 1980 to 1985 against minors accused of belonging to and supporting the Shining Path. About one-third of the detainees were women, and the majority were children of Indigenous migrants to the city of Ayacucho. These trials provide a ground-level view of how the guerrillas recruited and employed them, how these young people attacked “enemies of the people,” ransacked stores, set off dynamite, and dodged the police. They help explain why these young men and women joined a violent movement that was being met with similar brutality. The trials also illustrate how the police, the military, and the courts reacted to this guerrilla movement. The analysis of the trials contributes to debates about young people and insurgency, providing insights into the motivations for militancy and changing subjectivities. They also provide snapshots of Ayacucho in the early years of the struggle: the attacks that first bewildered and then petrified; the initial naivete about the Shining Path; and the panic of families when their children were detained as well as the families’ desperate efforts to defend them. The final section of the article tracks the fate of some of those detained. These trials tell the harrowing story of youth and the internal armed conflict in Peru in the 1980s.