 During the internal conflict in Peru, the bloody campaign by the Peruvian Maoist group Shining Path was responsible for the deaths of thousands of inhabitants of the rural regions of Peru.The Military of Peru, which had been dispatched to put down the insurgency, was also responsible for the deaths of thousands of Peruvians, as it treated "campesinos" as potential terrorists or terrorist sympathizers.At the beginning of his 1985–1990 term, President Alan García demonstrated an interest in changing the counter-subversive strategy of his predecessor, Fernando Belaúnde Terry, with the purpose of reducing human rights violations against the civilian population, by calling on the civil society to propose solutions to the problem of political violence in Peru.