Shining Path Domingo García Rada, the president of the Peruvian National Electoral Council, severely injuring him and mortally wounding his driver. In 1988, Constantin (Gus) Gregory, an American citizen working for the United States Agency for International Development, was assassinated. Two French aid workers were killed on December 4 that same year. In August 1991, the group killed one Italian and two Polish priests in the Ancash Region. The following February, it assassinated María Elena Moyano, a well-known community organizer in Villa El Salvador, a vast shantytown in Lima. By 1991, the Shining Path had gained control of much of the countryside
Shining Path that sometimes included "slitting throats, strangulation, stoning, and burning." Peasants were offended by the rebels' injunction against burying the bodies of Shining Path victims. The Shining Path followed Mao's dictum that guerrilla warfare should start in the countryside and gradually choke off the cities. The Shining Path banned continuous drunkenness, but they did allow the consumption of alcohol. In 1991, President Alberto Fujimori issued a law that gave the "rondas" a legal status, and from that time they were officially called "Comités de auto defensa" ("Committees of Self Defence"). They were officially armed, usually with 12-gauge shotguns, and trained by