On 3 April 1983, Shining Path rebels killed 69 people in and around the town of Lucanamarca in the Department of Ayacucho, Peru.

In March 1983, the local ronderos vigilantes captured Olegario Curitomay, a Shining Path commander in Lucanamarca, a small town in the Huanca Sancos Province of Ayacucho.

[2] On 3 April 1983, Shining Path militants responded to the death of Olegario Curitomay by entering Lucanamarca and the villages of Yanaccollpa, Ataccara, Llacchua, and Muylacruz, and indiscriminately killing 69 indigenous people in a revenge attack.

At the party's Third National Conference in July 1983, Abimael Guzmán (Shining Path's leader) criticized the massacre as a strategic mistake: “What happened in Lucanamarca should never happen again...That is an expression of bad politics, that’s not how to behave...It’s erroneous to apply this line of attack because it can generate grave political consequences...Excesses can be accepted, but extremism never.

On 10 September 2002, Guzmán told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission "We, doctors, reiterate that we will not avoid our responsibility [for the Lucanamarca massacre].