Shining Path police guards as hostages. They had been working in the Camisea gas pipeline project that would take natural gas from Cusco to Lima. According to sources from Peru's Interior Ministry, the rebels asked for a sizable ransom to free the hostages. Two days later, after a rapid military response, the rebels abandoned the hostages; according to government sources no ransom was paid. However, there were rumors that US$200,000 was paid to the rebels. Government forces have captured three leading Shining Path members. In April 2000, Commander José Arcela Chiroque, called "Ormeño", was captured, followed by another leader, Florentino Cerrón Cardozo,
South African Communist Party country belonging to the Natives, that is, the Blacks. The resolution was influenced by a delegation from South Africa. James la Guma, the Party Chairperson from Cape Town, had met with the leadership of the Communist International (Dr Raymond van Diemel, ""I have seen the new Jerusalem": Revisiting and re-conceptualising Josiah T. Gumede and Jimmy La Guma’s USSR visit of 1927" (2001)). The Party thus reoriented itself at its 1924 Party Congress towards organising black workers and "Africanising" the party. By 1928, 1,600 of the party's 1,750 members were Black. During this period, the party has been accused of dismissing