Changes

The Shining Path aggressively pursued obedience and loyalty from the inhabitants of Villa El Salvador, using violence and terror to achieve the townspeople’s cooperation. Moyano would not endorse the People’s War and gave an interview to journalist Mariella Balbi in 1991, after the Shining Path had blown up a food ware house that supplied ninety-two soup kitchen.<ref>Kirk, <I>The Monkey’s Paw</I>, 106.</ref> “Until a little while ago, I thought the Shining Path was wrong-headed but that they in some way wanted to fight for some kind of justice,” she said, “…now they have touched grassroots organizations, made up of the poorest people. Who participates in the soup kitchens and the ‘glass of milk’ program? People who can’t afford to eat in their houses, so I don’t understand this unbalanced group. They want to snuff out survival organizations so that levels of malnutrition and death rise.”<ref>Maria Elana Moyano, “There have been Threats,” <I>The Peru Reader</I>, 372.</ref> Moyano led a march to protest the violence of the Shining Path and gave interviews like the one cited above criticizing the movement’s tactics. On February 15, 1992, Moyano was murdered by female Shining Path members at a community chicken barbeque she had organized.<ref>Kirk, <I>The Monkey’s Paw</I>, 106.</ref>

Senderistas attempted to disrupt the march and intimidate those advocating peaceful solutions, but they were expelled by the female marchers. Without the support of women, the Shining Path struggled for legitimacy and control, in the face of explicit opposition from Peruvian women, the group asserted their influence though violence and repression. The potential contribution of Peruvian women may have been overlooked by the masculine organizations that formed in the 1970s, but within the extraordinary conditions of the war, women’s foundational position within society became clear.

The movement acquired greater ideological legitimacy and a dark air of mystery and danger associated with indigenous female warriors, adding even more to the movement’s credibility. Women were visible sacrifices to the movement, and the martyrdom of Edith Lagos drew support from many quarters. Women played a crucial role when communities began to resist the Shining Path and form alliances with state representatives, and also began to act publicly by forming substantial social organizations that addressed matters of nutrition and child welfare. Finally, the testimonies of women will continue to verify claims of the Shining Path that the Peruvian state’s victory was sullied by the systematic application of sexual violence during the war.

===References===

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