ABSTRACT
The official myth of a “narco-guerilla” movement saw its inception under the reign of ex-President Alan Garcia Perez and it gained international recognition through the work of French researcher Alain Labrousse. The local drug-traffickers and producers of coca were threatened by the new policy of crop eradication which was set into motion under the Upper Huallaga Valley Coca Reduction Program (CORAH), funded in large measure by the United States government. The Peruvian state first came to deal with the problems attending the production of coca leaves through the consumer end. “El Negro” was a member of armed oiganizations that fought against programs run by CORAH aimed at the eradication of coca plant cultures. The new “Shining Path” myth that developed in the High Huallaga during the early eighties was in many ways similar to the “Pyshtaco” myth that developed in the early sixties in Tingo Maria-Aucayacu.
