Abimael Guzman, Shining Path’s leader died a year ago. The terror he unleashed on Peru lives on

in the intense conflict; Guzmán’s followers were responsible for about 54% of the deaths.

Gavilán has lived many lives in half a century, but for him, the single most remarkable feat is that he survived to tell the tale. He soon found there was nothing glorious about Sendero’s struggle. His companions were a rag-tag band, mostly children. “We had some shotguns, and homemade dynamite which we packed into tin cans. We were very poor, we had no change of clothes. We all had fleas.”

“Instead of defending us, the military would kill us too. They would jail us, disappear us, rape us,” she recalled, weeping.

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