Shining Path the Peruvian Army. According to the government, there were approximately 7,226 "comités de auto defensa" as of 2005; almost 4,000 are located in the central region of Peru, the stronghold of the Shining Path. The Peruvian government also cracked down on the Shining Path in other ways. Military personnel were dispatched to areas dominated by the Shining Path, especially Ayacucho, to fight the rebels. Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Apurimacwere, and Huanuco were declared emergency zones, allowing for some constitutional rights to be suspended in those areas. Initial government efforts to fight the Shining Path were not very effective or promising. Military units
Shining Path or disappearance of 31,331 people, 46% of the total deaths and disappearances. According to a summary of the report by Human Rights Watch, "Shining Path… killed about half the victims, and roughly one-third died at the hands of government security forces… The commission attributed some of the other slayings to a smaller guerrilla group and local militias. The rest remain unattributed." The MRTA was held responsible for 1.5% of the deaths. On September 12, 1992, El Grupo Especial de Inteligencia (GEIN) captured Guzmán and several Shining Path leaders in an apartment above a dance studio in the Surquillo district of