US diplomats in Peru are reported to be keeping a close eye on the resurgent Maoist Shining Path guerrillas. The US opinion however is that the Peruvian military is too incompetent to stop the movement.

Right now the Shining Path is estimated to be about only 2,000 members many of them have no weapons. However the US still feels that generals in Peru are more interested in making themselves rich than fighting the Maoist guerrillas.

As you may remember the Shining Path or Sendero Luminoso, was a guerrilla movement that began in the Andies from the 80s to the early 90s. Lately it has begun to re surge with the growing effects of neo-liberalism and most definitely the global economic recession.

According to a November 2009 cable released by WikiLeaks, Peru’s President Alan Garcia has given $9 million to retired Israeli brigadier general, Israel Baruch Ziv, to defeat the rebels.

The cable showed that Ziv will train a group special forces to kill or capture the leaders of the Shining Path.

Another cable said that some army experts told the U.S. Embassy that the Shining Path “is increasingly resorting to electronic timers and triggering devices to actuate its IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and booby traps.”