November 24, 2007:
Yet another
defeated terrorist movement takes the drug trafficking option. The Shining Path
organization were Peruvian radical communists, that attacked civilians and
security forces for twelve years, until the group was taken down in the early
1990s. After that, remnants of the organization laid low, and some hired out as
muscle for local drug gangs. Eventually, former members of the Shining Path
reconstituted themselves as cocaine traffickers, with some of the old-time
politics on the side.
This is not the first rebel
group that morphed into a well-armed
drug gang. One of the more spectacular examples, of recent vintage, were the
Chinese Nationalist forces that retreated into northern Burma after losing the
civil war to the communists in the late 1940s. For over three decades, that
bunch supplied most of the world's heroin supply. They have since been replaced
by former Taliban and anti-Russian guerillas in Afghanistan. In between we have
the IRA (Irish Republican Army), as well as Kosovan, Corsican and Colombian
rebels who made the switch. But the idea goes further back, with groups like
the Mafia going into criminal business when the revolution failed. It's old,
and it won't go away.