Shining Path of the center and south of Peru and had a large presence in the outskirts of Lima. As the organization grew in power, a cult of personality grew around Guzmán. The official ideology of the Shining Path ceased to be "Marxism–Leninism–Mao Tse-tung thought", and was instead referred to as "Marxism–Leninism–Maoism–Gonzalo thought". The Shining Path fought against Peru's other major guerrilla group, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), as well as campesino self-defense groups organized by the Peruvian armed forces. Although the reliability of reports regarding the Shining Path's atrocities remains a matter of controversy in Peru, the organization's use of
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