Pacto de Alianza: The Indigenous Peasant Coalition against the Shining Path, 1983–86

Conventional views portray noncombatants, such as Indigenous peasants, as helpless victims of warring sides in civil wars. However, they often participate in the conflict and switch support from one side to another to protect their community and bring alternative order in wartime. This paper examines Peru’s internal armed conflict (1980-1992) between Maoist Shining Path insurgents and government forces from a micro-dynamic of wartime violence and resistance in the Andean village of Huamanquiquia. It asks, how did the Indigenous peasants shift from supporting to rejecting the insurgents and sustain their resistance against them? This paper uses archival and oral history research, examining communal record books called libro de actas and conducting oral history interviews with wartime peasant leaders. In dialogue with the theoretical framework of scholars on the local dynamics of civil war and civilian resistance, I argue that Indigenous peasants voluntarily supported the Shining Path early years of insurgency; some even welcomed it into their communities. They embraced the movement’s social justice promises and benefited from the insurgents’ radical resolution to local abusive power relations and corruption due to state neglect. In some cases, villagers also took advantage of the armed actors’ intervention to solve their intra- and intercommunal disputes. However, Indigenous peasants became tired of the Senderistas’ growing authoritarianism, such as killing their local authorities, prompting a gradual and violent community resistance to the movement. Indigenous resistance involved making the anti-guerrilla and pro-state coalition, called the Pacto de Alianza entre Pueblos, which brought internal security and order, allowing villagers to maintain daily life and protect their local affairs in wartime violence. The Pacto de Alianza was not limited to the counterinsurgency goals; its functions extended to local governance, social cohesion, and post-conflict reconstruction.