Peasant Vigilante Committees in Northern Peru
In December, 1976, the peasants of Cuyumalca, a small, dispersed rural settlement in the northern Peruvian mountain department of Cajamarca, organized the first of what have become known as the rondas campesinas, village level vigilante committees whose primordial aim was from the first and continues to be that of putting an end to robbery, both professional cattle rustling and petty thievery.' The rondas patrol roads, trails, pastures and fields