During the Cold War, as the United States and the Soviet Union battled for influence in the developing world, violent civil conflict erupted in Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru. The war in Uganda, which began in 1981, followed the overthrow of Idi Amin and a flawed election that put Milton Obote, a disgraced former president, back in office. Violence came to Mozambique in 1976, less than a year after the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique, or Frelimo) succeeded in ejecting the Portuguese colonialists and just as it began to implement its radical socialist transformation in the countryside. Peru's more than decade-long civil war started quietly in the rural highlands in 1980, soon after the country's first democratic election in many years returned political parties dominated by coastal elites to power.

This chapter introduces the four rebel organizations that emerged to fight these conflicts. It describes the political environments where these groups formed, which were characterized by the exclusion of southern ethnic groups in Uganda, of central and northern groups in Mozambique, and of the rural peasantry in Peru. It shows how the presence of the state and its role as a provider of public goods was limited in the regions that provided shelter to the rebel organizations. And it highlights the barriers that each group faced as it considered launching a violent campaign. Four groups that began on similar footings eventually took very different paths.