Rebel suspects arrested in Peru

By Hannah Hennessy
BBC correspondent in Lima

Shining Path's leader Abimael Guzman is serving a life sentence

Police in Peru have captured 17 members of the left-wing Shining Path and MRTA rebel groups, the government says.

The Interior Ministry said eight of them were working as teachers in schools throughout Peru when they were detained in simultaneous raids.

The arrests imply that the Shining Path and MRTA could be trying to recruit a new generation of rebels.

The groups staged a violent uprising in the 1980s and early 1990s in which some 69,000 people died or disappeared.

Since the capture of the Shining Path leader in 1992, analysts say the group has been a shadow of its former self.

Interior Minister Javier Reategui told Peru's CPN radio that some of those arrested were members of the country's leading teachers' union, the left-leaning Single Union of Education Workers.

Mr Reategui said the Shining Path had been trying to infiltrate the school system for some time and he said if the government did not act now, there could be major problems for Peru in the future.