Peru Rebel Chief Vows to Free Most Hostages

In a first, dramatic public statement, the rebel leader who is holding more than 300 VIP hostages in a tense standoff here pledged Saturday evening to free all his captives except those linked to the government.

However, Nestor Cerpa Cartolini declared he will not release his Peruvian government prisoners--the foreign minister, senior police commanders, Supreme Court judges and others--unless authorities open wide-ranging peace talks.

In response, President Alberto Fujimori sternly rejected the rebels’ demand. In his first public statements on the crisis, Fujimori said he would consider some kind of accord if the rebels’ freed all their hostages.

Cerpa, who led a bold attack Tuesday night on the Japanese ambassador’s house during an elegant party and seized hundreds of guests, said, “The gentlemen who have no connection to the government we will gradually release.”

In a walkie-talkie conversation with television reporters that was broadcast live, the rebel leader added: “The gentlemen connected to the government we will treat in the best conditions, within our possibilities. Their liberation will depend only on the willingness of the government to reach a solution that could possibly be a milestone in the political life of this country.”

It was the first time during the crisis that the mysterious left-wing rebel leader who led the audacious hostage-taking had identified himself publicly.

And hours later, Fujimori responded to the challenge, breaking a four-day official silence on the crisis in a speech broadcast on nationwide television.

“They are trying to initiate a peace dialogue . . . with an AK-47 held to the neck of the hostages,” Fujimori said.

The president ruled out releasing convicted terrorists or holding peace talks with the rebels. However, he said, if they laid down their arms and freed their hostages, a solution “could be studied.”

Cerpa is one of the country’s most famed and feared guerrillas, and reportedly has a two-decade record of kidnappings and bloody attacks.

He is the highest-ranking member of the 12-year-old Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement who is not in jail.

After Cerpa’s statement, captive Foreign Minister Francisco Tudela took the walkie-talkie, pleading with the government to “establish some communication” with the rebels. He said they are well-trained and well-armed but have treated their hostages well.

The captive Japanese ambassador, Morihisa Aoki, then added a plea over the walkie-talkie, saying it is “indispensable” that the government negotiate with the guerrillas.

The messages ratcheted up the tension in the crisis, which has held the nation spellbound and shocked governments worldwide.

The guerrillas, in what they called a goodwill gesture, released about 200 women and elderly party guests the night they seized the ambassador’s residence. They freed 38 additional hostages late Friday.

Still trapped inside the reportedly messy, stinking building are about 340 people, including foreign ambassadors. Six American diplomats are believed to be there, along with a wide variety of other elite officials.

A Peruvian television station Saturday showed photographs of hostages inside the compound, Reuters reported. One of the photographs was of Tudela and another showed at least seven men, some sitting on chairs or on the floor and some standing, dressed in elegant shirts and pants and looking relaxed.

The television station did not say when the still was taken nor how it was obtained, Reuters said.

The rebels have demanded that the government free their guerrilla comrades in jails around the country and open talks to incorporate the rebel group as a political force.

During the walkie-talkie messages, the lights in the Japanese diplomatic compound suddenly went dead, as did lights in surrounding houses. There was no immediate explanation for the outage, but neighbors have blamed previous outages in recent days on the government.

Cerpa went on the air about an hour after someone in the curtained ambassador’s residence held a cardboard sign to a window urging TV reporters to ready their walkie-talkies. They had earlier held up a sign saying the telephones weren’t working.

Government officials declined to provide information on Cerpa, continuing a virtual information blackout. But his former hostages, experts on guerrillas and Peruvian press reports paint a picture of a shrewd, meticulous former union organizer, nearly as adept with a press release as a pistol.

He appears to have choreographed every step of the hostage drama, culminating in the prime-time revelation of his identity Saturday.

Cerpa’s meticulous planning was on display in a videotape the rebels released early Saturday, in which they showed their preparations for Tuesday’s attack.

In one scene, masked guerrillas studied a toy-sized, architectural model of the Japanese diplomatic mission. Another showed guerrillas gazing at photos of important guests expected to be at the party.

Cerpa released a similar video last February, after authorities arrested several Tupac Amaru members, thereby foiling what was to be an attack on the Peruvian Congress. Among those arrested at that time was Lori Berenson, an American who allegedly belongs to the rebel group.

In the earlier video, sent to the Lima newspaper La Republica, Cerpa vowed to attempt another, similar assault soon in an effort to free his fellow guerrillas in jail. Tupac Amaru, he reportedly said, had been rebuilding in the past three years.

In another sign of the careful planning for the invasion of the ambassador’s residence, Tupac Amaru rebels started sending communiques by e-mail to foreign journalists in Lima several weeks before the attack. The communiques deplored prison conditions for the group’s jailed guerrillas.

“He’s reasonably well-educated, very convinced of his own ideas, very clear. But he’s a reasonable man, someone you can hold a long conversation with,” said Francisco Sagasti, an academic who met Cerpa in the embassy and was in the group of hostages freed Friday night.

A former textile worker and union activist, Cerpa is believed to have helped form Tupac Amaru in 1984. He has led the left-wing group since its top leader--Sorbonne-educated Victor Polay--was jailed in 1992, according to newspaper reports.

The Houdini of Peruvian guerrillas, Cerpa has repeatedly dodged police and soldiers who have combed the jungle and the city searching for him. In recent years, he has been reported to be in Bolivia, Chile, Panama--and dead.

“He wants to project the prototype of the romantic Latin American guerrilla--although that’s not what they are,” said Gustavo Gorriti, a journalist and expert on Peruvian rebel movements.

“They have killed among themselves and have developed a kidnapping industry.”