Safety
Until the group's effective defeat in 1992 the Cordillera Huayhuash was used as a remote base by the Shining Path. On July 28, 1988, a group of Canadian and Peruvian climbers were held hostage for 12 hours after a failed assassination attempt on a group of military police. None of the climbers or police were hurt, though one Senderista was killed. In the late 1980s a party of European trekkers were robbed and ordered to return to Huaraz with the message that future intruders would be killed. The remains of a guerrilla camp can be seen near Laguna Viconga.
Two foreign trekkers are known to have been murdered in Cajatambo in August 2002, though this is thought to have been motivated by robbery. Four hikers who resisted armed robbery were shot in 2004, one dying of blood loss before rescue. Since this last incident, the local communities began to charge a "protection" fee for passing in the private properties. Since then, the area is considered generally safe.
Near the north shore of Laguna Viconga, the remains of an old Sendero Luninoso base camp can be still visited, including a shooting range, barracks and a training field.
Read more about this topic: Cordillera Huayhuash
Famous quotes containing the word safety:
“A lover is never a completely self-reliant person viewing the world through his own eyes, but a hostage to a certain delusion. He becomes a perjurer, all his thoughts and emotions being directed with reference, not to an accurate and just appraisal of the real world but rather to the safety and exaltation of his loved one, and the madness with which he pursues her, transmogrifying his attention, blinds him like a victim.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)
“If we can find a principle to guide us in the handling of the child between nine and eighteen months, we can see that we need to allow enough opportunity for handling and investigation of objects to further intellectual development and just enough restriction required for family harmony and for the safety of the child.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“Once women begin to question the inevitability of their subordination and to reject the conventions formerly associated with it, they can no longer retreat to the safety of those conventions. The woman who rejects the stereotype of feminine weakness and dependence can no longer find much comfort in the cliché that all men are beasts. She has no choice except to believe, on the contrary, that men are human beings, and she finds it hard to forgive them when they act like animals.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)