Peru Foreign Minister Hector Bejar resigns after suggesting Shining Path rebels had CIA support
Peru’s foreign minister has resigned after footage emerged in which he suggested that a Maoist rebel group that killed tens of thousands of Peruvians had received support from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), making him the first cabinet member to fall under leftist President Pedro Castillo.
Hector Béjar, 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 CIA.
“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,” Béjar had said in a video dated last year. Béjar, 85, has a PhD in sociology and has worked as a university professor.
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.
The foreign minister’s departure is likely to add more political uncertainty to an administration already navigating a highly volatile and polarized first few weeks that saw the country’s sol currency fall to record lows against the dollar.
At: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/peru-foreign-minister-resigns-hector-bejar
Outgoing Peruvian Foreign Minister Héctor Béjar.
Béjar resigned after a 2020 interview surfaced, in which he indicated that the Navy had committed false-flag terrorist acts during the "Shining Path" insurgency era in the 1980s - with training from the CIA.
President Castillo, who took office just three weeks ago, has come under fire for naming a cabinet that critics say is filled with fringe and inexperienced ministers. His backers say the cabinet represents Peru’s marginalized masses.
