Buke's $70,000 Ransom and the Uchiza Massacre
Kept secret for decades, a 1989 intelligence update shows how the paid release of a Colombian trafficker paved the way for a Maoist-cartel alliance to execute a police captain
By Desmond Okafor ·
Shining Path
Huancayo’s Morgue and the US Embassy’s Audit of the Dead
US Embassy political officers visited the Mantaro Valley in 1991 to find a city abandoned by its police but filled with corpses, a reality preserved in a 15-page cable.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Maria Elena Moyano and the "Loud Silence" of Lima's Shantytowns
An Afro-Peruvian feminist was murdered to instill "raw fear" in a coastal district, according to a 1992 cable that monitored the collapse of public order in Peru
By Desmond Okafor ·
Ayacucho's 1988 Death Squads and the Military's License to Kill
Peruvian peasants were trapped between Maoist strikes and state-backed death threats in a region where the law ceased to exist for the military.
By Theo Marchetti ·
CIA’s Fatal Math and the Ayacucho Jailbreak
A 1982 intelligence review predicted a Maoist insurgency would be 'shattered' by the military, prioritizing a 'favorable human rights image' over the reality of the coming slaughter.
By Harlan Pryce ·