may be a reference (although not very likely) to the Peruvian revolutionary movement that employs guerrilla tactics and violent terrorism in the name of Maoism, called sendero luminoso (spanish for 'lightning/shining path'), or to the following quote from the founder of peru's first communist party, Jose Carlos Mariátegui, after which this terrorist army was named: "El Marxismo-Leninismo abrirá el sendero luminoso hacia la revolución" ("Marxism-Leninism will open the shining path to revolution"). sendero luminoso was founded in 1970 in a multiple split in Peru's Communist Party (dating from the 1920s).

The leader and principal founder was Abimael Guzmán Reynoso. He and his followers, known as 'Senderistas', sought to restore the "pure" ideology of Mao tse-tung (see we must take literature and art a component of the... and we should support whatever the enemy opposes and o...) and adopted China's Cultural Revolution as a model for their own revolutionary movement. The party's other models were Stalinist (see joseph stalin) russia and the khmer rouge regime in Cambodia. The Senderistas envisioned revolution as a long military offensive, relying primarily on the peasantry and making ruthless use of terror and violence.

With a following of young intellectuals he gathered in the 1960s, Guzmán recruited armed supporters among Indians in the countryside and the poorer urban districts in the '70s. The Senderistas began their revolutionary campaign in remote areas of the Andes and soon were bombing targets, committing assassinations, and engaging in other terrorist acts in various urban centres. They gained control of poor rural and urban districts in central and southern Peru by violence and intimidation, meanwhile attracting sympathizers and supporters through their tight discipline, their organizing ability, and their emphasis on empowering Indians at the expense of Peru's traditional Spanish-speaking elite. By 1992 the Senderistas' terrorist activities had caused an estimated 25,000 deaths and seriously disrupted the Peruvian economy.

Guzmán, whose organizational and tactical abilities underlay the Senderistas' success, was captured in a police raid in Lima on Sept. 12, 1992, and in October he was sentenced to life imprisonment on terrorism charges. Since Guzman's arrest, the organization has been characterized by internal fighting.