document: The Maoist Shining Path guerrillas who dominate Peru 's Upper Huallaga River Valley have brought their own law and order to a cocaine-corrupted , violence-ridden region . With a system they call `` revolutionary justice , '' they have banned drug abuse , prostitution , homosexuality and thievery from the villages they control . `` Two years ago you could not travel the roads without being held up , but the ` companeros ' put an end to that , '' said cab driver David Nicolas , referring to the guerrillas by the Spanish term for comrades . `` They killed a few bandits and the rest got the message . '' Much of the appeal of the rebels is rooted in their reputation for almost puritanical honesty . Shopkeepers say the guerrillas never fail to pay for the food and supplies they acquire in the villages . The same shopkeepers complain bitterly about the local police who take what they want without ever offering to pay . In a rare conversation with reporters , a Shining Path political officer , who spoke only on condition he not be identified , gave an example of the kind of law the guerrillas have laid down : `` Do not steal so much as a needle or thread and return what you borrow . '' In a nation where economic chaos reigns and few laws are respected , the Shining Path is setting down clear rules and making them stick . `` In a sense they enforce a hyper-Christian morality _ except they kill you if you break the rules , '' said the Rev. Paul Feeley , a Canadian Roman Catholic priest working in Aucayacu , 255 miles northeast of Lima . In late July four young homosexual men who rendezvoused at a bridge a few miles outside Tingo Maria , 35 miles south of here , were set upon and killed by the rebels . Their bodies were dumped into the river . A few months earlier the rebels executed eight youths near Tingo Maria for smoking cigarettes laced with semi-refined cocaine . `` People have had to discipline themselves , '' said Raul Aranda , an agronomist in Tingo Maria , explaining the effects of `` revolutionary justice . '' `` In rural areas a man must be faithful to his wife and is permitted to go drinking only once a week . Violators are warned only once . '' Villagers say they are told , `` The revolution has a thousand eyes and a thousand ears . '' Peru 's elected officials have painted the Shining Path insurgents as lunatic killers . In the bleak Andean highlands , where the rebels launched their insurgency in May , 1980 , they have slain thousands of peasants in attacks on villages they viewed as traitors to the rebel cause . But here in the jungle-cloaked Upper Huallaga Valley , the world 's largest source of coca leaf , the Shining Path _ `` Sendero Luminoso '' in Spanish _ enjoys the support of tens of thousands of farmers because the rebels protect them against a U.S.-funded coca eradication program . Although they prohibit drug consumption , the guerrillas defend coca production as an important source of income for the peasants . Their only condition is that the semi-refined coca paste be sent out of Peru . The rebels charge coca farmers a `` tax '' of 10 to 15 percent on the earnings from the sale of their crops to drug traffickers , who process the leaf into paste and sell it to Colombian cocaine dealers . The Colombians arrive in small planes at dozens of clandestine airstrips throughout the 150-mile-long valley . People in the Upper Huallaga appear to accept Shining Path 's social order . They say they feel protected from the violence of drug gangs , corrupt local officials and `` abusive '' police . `` Why do you think people have joined the Shining Path ? For the coca and for revenge , '' said Carlos Ferrer , a taxi driver who travels the road between Tingo Maria and Aucayacu . `` When the government began trying to wipe out coca , police came and mistreated people . They robbed peasants ; they raped their women . '' That view of the police as corrupt and abusive of their power is widely held in the valley . Even top government officials in Lima say there is much truth to the complaints . `` A cop in the Huallaga Valley expects to be bribed , '' said a senior Interior Ministry official , speaking on condition of anonymity . `` He figures it 's a right coming to him . He gets off the plane from Lima with his hand out for a payoff . '' Official corruption is a problem throughout Peru , but in the Huallaga Valley it seems rampant . A half dozen peasants complained in separate interviews that to obtain a farm loan from the local Banco Agrario they have to kick back 25 percent of the loan to bank officials . `` What I 've heard is that if you want to be named a teacher in the valley , '' said Feeley , `` it 's three months salary as payment . And if you 're a woman , also the bed . '' The Shining Path has been quick to kill local officials they deemed to be corrupt , according to residents of the valley . `` If the Shining Path has the image of an organization that 's fighting corruption in a very corrupt place , that 's going to win them some points , '' Feeley said . A lawyer in Tingo Maria said his caseload had dropped off dramatically because peasants no longer come into town to seek justice . `` Formal justice here is ineffective , corrupt and time consuming , '' he said . `` The Shining Path 's justice is quick , free and very effective . ''
extractive_keyphrases: maoist shining path guerrillas peru revolutionary justice puritanical honesty rebels coca production corrupt local officials