Cameron Diaz is apologizing after offending Peruvians with her handbag over the weekend. Cameron, Mao Zedong and Peruvians just don’t mix.

“I sincerely apologize to anyone I may have inadvertently offended. The bag was a purchase I made as a tourist in China and I did not realize the potentially hurtful nature of the slogan printed on it,” Diaz said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press.

“I’m sorry for any people’s pain and suffering and it was certainly never my intention to reopen what I now know is a painful wound in this country’s history and wish for their continued healing,” she said.

And just why were the good people of Peru so offended?

The voice of Princess Fiona in the animated “Shrek” films visited the Incan city of Machu Picchu in Peru’s Andes on Friday wearing an olive green bag emblazoned with a red star and the words “Serve the People” printed in Chinese, perhaps Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong’s most famous political slogan.

The bags are marketed as fashion accessories in some world capitals, but in Peru the slogan evokes memories of the Maoist Shining Path insurgency that fought the government in the 1980s and early 1990s in a bloody conflict that left nearly 70,000 people dead.

Yikes! She is lucky she didn’t get a bullet in her gut or a knife through her aorta.