Ayacucho is a small province in southern Peru. The population is primarily made up of indigenous Quechua speakers. This is where Sendero Luminoso began the People's War in 1980.
Ayacucho is a small province in southern Peru. The population is primarily made up of indigenous Quechua speakers. This is where Sendero Luminoso began the People's War in 1980.
- The indigenous people living in Ayacucho and their relatives who have migrated to Lima to find jobs make up most of the 85% of the population that is jobless or underemployed.
- Life expectancy in this region is 45 years old whereas for the rest of Peru is is 55.
- Among the Ashaninka 70% of the children suffer from hunger and malnutrition and more than 95% of adults are illiterate.
- The abuse of these people is constant throughout history. The have experience hunger/malnutrition, mistreatment and forced labor in mines and fields. Daily sackings, rapes, tortures, assassinations and disappearances of men, women and children by the military are commonplace.
- In 1960, a draft reform bill concerning agrarian reform was created. The bill ignored many of the problems and only benefited 8.64% of the land mentioned in the bill.
- Many of the indigenous peoples of Ayacucho have been forced to migrate to Lima for jobs but still manage to maintain ties to their homeland.
- The discrimination and repression of these people has forced them to form a culture of resistance, has strengthened their ethnic identity and their ancient traditions.
- One of the poorest regions in Peru, a high concentration of native peoples, communities that are difficult to reach by land--all of this made Ayacucho the perfect setting for the beginning of a revolution.