Populism

Political violence has been relatively low in Peru since the end of the long conflict with the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (SL) guerrilla movement in the 1990s. Illicit coca cultivation and trafficking remains a major security threat, however. Profits from drug trafficking, illegal mining, and logging have funded a small resurgence of SL and other groups in isolated areas of the country, including the VRAEM - the valley of the Apurímac, Ene, and Mantaro rivers. Domestic criminal groups work in collusion with Mexican and Colombian cartels.