Hector Bejar, 85, who in his youth participated in a socialist guerrilla movement, had said he believed the Shining Path rebel group had emerged in part because of backing from the US Central Intelligence Agency. About 70,000 people are estimated to have died as government forces battled the Shining Path in the 1980s and early 1990s in large swaths of the country. “I’m convinced, although I can’t prove it, that the Shining Path was in large part created by the CIA and (other) intelligence services,” Bejar had said in a video dated last year. Castillo, a member of a Marxist-Leninist party, has come under fire for naming a cabinet that critics say is filled with fringe and inexperienced ministers. Castillo is scheduled to govern Peru until 2026, although political turmoil has been so intense in recent years that he is the country’s fifth president in five years.

Source: The Guardian August 17, 2021 20:32 UTC