Between 1989 and 1992, the Shining Path and the MRTA killed up to 500 "non-heterosexual" people. According to one woman who was kidnapped by the Shining Path in 1981, a homosexual man's penis was cut into pieces before he was murdered. The Peruvian government did not reveal the name of the victim. The Shining Path defended its actions by saying that LGBT individuals were not killed because of their sexual identity, instead, they were killed because of their "degrading and promiscuous practices" and "the people" requested that they be executed. These killings continued throughout the twentieth century. The Shining Path has denied such allegations, stating, "It is probable that the PCP has executed a homosexual, but rest assured that it was not done because of their sexual orientation but because of their position against the revolution.... Our view is that homosexual orientation is not an ideological matter but one of individual preference.... Party membership is open to all those who support the cause of communist revolution and the principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, regardless of what their sexual preferences may be." The Militarized Communist Party of Peru (MPCP), a splinter of the Shining Path, killed 18 people (ten men, six women and two children) in San Miguel del Ene, a rural area in the Vizcatán del Ene District of Satipo Province, on 23 May 2021. The Ministry of Defense said that the attack was perpetrated by the Shining Path faction led by Comrade José. It gave the death toll of 14 people. Along with the corpses, some of which were burned, leaflets signed by the MPCP were found, featuring the hammer and sickle and defining the attack as a social cleansing operation. According to the leaflets found in the attack location, the perpetrators call upon to "clean VRAEM and Peru" of outcasts, "parasites and corrupts" as well as "homosexuals, lesbians, drug addicts" and "thieves". In popular culture American hard rock band Guns N' Roses quotes a speech by a Shining Path officer in their 1990 song "Civil War", as saying "We practice selective annihilation of mayors and government officials, for example, to create a vacuum, then we fill that vacuum. As popular war advances, peace is closer." American rock band Rage Against the Machine released a music video for their 1993 song "Bombtrack" as a response to the arrest of Abimael Guzman the previous year. The video expresses support for