Commandos Free Peru Captives : One Hostage, All Rebels Killed in Risky Raid

Commandos stormed the diplomatic compound Tuesday where leftist rebels were holding 72 captives, ending Latin America’s longest such standoff with a daring daylight attack that liberated 71 hostages and left one dead, along with two soldiers and all the rebels.

The raid by 140 commandos of the Peruvian marines, navy and army began at 3:20 p.m. at the residence of the Japanese ambassador. As explosions sent up clouds of smoke and masked soldiers charged into the stately, colonnaded mansion firing their weapons, commandos rushed disheveled hostages--some wearing sweatsuits and shorts, their faces bloodied--out of a roof-level exit, down a side stairway and out of the compound to waiting ambulances.

Among the freed hostages was the slightly injured Japanese ambassador, Morihisa Aoki, who entered an ambulance under his own power and was at his office working within two hours. The Peruvian foreign minister, Francisco Tudela, who was injured in his ankle, pumped a fist in the air victoriously as soldiers carried him away on a stretcher.

The raiders killed all 14 guerrillas of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement during the 40-minute gunfight, President Alberto Fujimori told reporters. “There was no other way out,” Fujimori said, despite his repeated vow not to use force against the rebels unless they harmed hostages.

The commandos caught the rebels by surprise, striking as guerrilla leader Nestor Cerpa Cartolini, his three lieutenants and several other rebels were playing soccer in the spacious living room of the mansion, said freed hostage Jorge Gumucio, the Bolivian ambassador to Peru. The rebels routinely played soccer in the afternoon in an area they had cleared for that purpose.

Teams of attackers set off the first explosion beneath the floor of the living room and swarmed up, guns blazing, from tunnels previously constructed by the government. Cerpa, the combat-hardened guerrilla who had survived a decade of terrorist acts and clashes with security forces, apparently died on the makeshift soccer field, according to Gumucio.

“At least eight of them were playing soccer at that moment, and the explosion was inside the tunnel that had been built beneath the soccer area,” Gumucio said in a television interview hours after the raid. “And then other officers came up from other tunnels onto the first floor who must have finished off that group” of rebels.

Gumucio was in corner of a bedroom with Tudela on the second floor, where the hostages were being guarded by two guerrillas. The rebels on the second floor fought a protracted gunfight with raiders who swooped in from the roof within two minutes of the explosion, Gumucio said.

Gumucio said the hostages--some of whom later said they were playing mah jong when the raiders struck--had been notified days earlier of a possible attack. He would not elaborate, but there was speculation earlier in the siege that security forces were passing coded messages to the hostages through letters delivered by the Red Cross. Again without giving details, Gumucio said the hostages were notified 10 minutes before the attack to be ready.

“We were informed that they might come to get us, to do nothing, to follow instructions and stay on the floor,” Gumucio said. “We could hear the combat but we could not see. We were on the floor.”

The attack that ended the 18-week siege came soon after the hostages had finished lunch and less than two hours after a visit to the mansion by Ambassador Anthony Vincent of Canada, one of the negotiators who had shuttled between the two sides for months.

“You pick the best time for maximum surprise,” a foreign diplomat monitoring the crisis said. “The middle of the afternoon might not seem the best time, but actually it worked out to be a pretty good time.”

Fujimori identified the dead hostage as Supreme Court Justice Carlos Giusti, who died of a heart attack after suffering a gunshot wound. His voice breaking with emotion during a speech to the nation delivered from the back of a pickup truck at the scene, Fujimori said the two dead soldiers were Lt. Raul Jimenez and Cmdr. Juan Valdez, commandos who were bodyguards for the president’s son, Kenji.

About 26 hostages suffered wounds, all minor except in the case of one whose life was nevertheless in no danger, Fujimori said. The president’s brother, who was among the hostages, also survived the ordeal.

“Gentlemen, in Peru we are not going to accept terrorism,” Fujimori shouted. “In Peru, we are going to strengthen the principles of democracy. We have given an example to the international community that you cannot permit terrorist blackmail, you must not surrender.”

Minutes after the shooting had stopped, Fujimori strode into the diplomatic compound-turned-battlefield wearing a black, bulletproof vest over a white dress shirt and surrounded by commandos with masks and painted faces.

In an extraordinary scene on the front steps of the mansion that was televised around the world, Fujimori congratulated hostages and cheering soldiers, who brandished their weapons in triumph, sang the national anthem and tore down the red flag the rebels had affixed to the roof.

“The operation was designed so that there would be no victims,” Fujimori said, expressing his condolences to the family of the slain supreme court justice. “Unfortunately, there was one victim.”

The guerrillas took over the compound during an elegant reception Dec. 17, capturing hundreds of elite international hostages and demanding that the Fujimori government release imprisoned Tupac Amaru comrades. Most of the rebels were jungle-trained youths in their teens and twenties, two of them female.

The rebels gradually released most of their captives, including a group of American diplomats, early in the siege. There were no Americans in the compound on Tuesday.

The raid that ended the four-month siege appeared to be “an almost total triumph,” said Peruvian sociologist Raul Gonzalez, an expert on terrorism.

The military solution seemed the only option as far as Gumucio, the former hostage, was concerned. He said Cerpa was a “prisoner of his own lieutenants,” who opposed any compromise with the government.

“We were tremendously anguished,” Gumucio said. “We thought [the military solution] was the only way to get out.”

Meanwhile, Aoki, the Japanese ambassador, traded jokes with reporters at a press conference he gave from a wheelchair, having injured himself slightly while jumping out of his residence “like a ninja.” Aoki said he did had not known that a raid was imminent but was delighted to be liberated--on his wedding anniversary.

“It was a present from the president,” he said.

Ever the diplomat, Aoki thanked the international community for its efforts to solve the problem, the Red Cross for feeding the hostages, and even the TV crews that camped out beside the beseiged residence. Although the bright TV lights disturbed his sleep, Aoki said, they reminded him that the world was still watching.

Asked how he felt about the Peruvian police action, which was contrary to the often-stated Japanese desire for a peaceful end to the crisis, Aoki replied: “A peaceful solution isn’t a solution unless it solves the problem.”

Peruvian commandos had been practicing for the operation at a mock-up of the mansion on the outskirts of Lima since December. Tuesday’s operation benefited from intelligence about activity inside the mansion that was gathered by Peruvian security forces, which wield great power in Peru and had been lobbying for an attack.

“The intelligence services acted with great efficiency,” Fujimori said in describing the security forces as heroes. “The information was so precise . . . that I did not hesitate for even a second in giving the order for this rescue operation.”

In addition to the accounts of former hostages, Peruvian intelligence services with technical assistance from U.S. agents were using long-range eavesdropping equipment to monitor the movements of the guerrillas inside, according to a diplomatic source.

But U.S. diplomats in Washington asserted Tuesday that there was no American involvement in the raid and no official notification by the Peruvian government ahead of time.

“We received no official warning from the Peruvian government as such, but there were some indications that something might be imminent,” Defense Secretary William S. Cohen told CNN. He said the Pentagon had picked up some indications of increased military activity moments before the operation began.

He hinted that the United States provided some limited assistance to the Peruvian government, but he declined to be specific.

“The U.S. played virtually no role,” he said.

Other officials said the guerrillas were primarily responsible for the bloodshed even though most of the blood turned out to be theirs.

“One thing is clear: The [guerrillas] bear the full and complete responsibility for this outcome,” State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said.

Despite Fujimori’s reputation for toughness, there had been widespread doubt that he would order a raid because of the adamant opposition to violence expressed by the Japanese government. Japan is a major donor of foreign aid to Peru and has close political and cultural ties to Fujimori, the son of Japanese immigrants.

The first Japanese reaction to the raid came at an early morning press conference in Tokyo held by Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.

He said the Japanese government had not been informed in advance of the plan to storm the ambassador’s residence and received a phone call just before 5:30 a.m. Tokyo time informing him that a rescue attempt had begun.

“Our country was not informed in advance of the rescue attempt,” Hashimoto said. “I must say I think this is regrettable. However, I must express my heartfelt thanks to President Fujimori and the other in the Peruvian government for seizing the chance and carrying out a splendid rescue.”

Hashimoto extended his condolences to the families of the slain soldiers.

He said Japanese Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda is leaving for Lima today. NHK television reported that the Japanese government was not alone in being kept out of the loop; the rescue plan was known only to a tiny number of people within the Peruvian government.

Families of the hostages greeted the release with joy.

For his part, Fujimori said he did not inform the Japanese prime minister because of the need for absolute secrecy. The decision for the rescue operation came more than a month after direct talks between the government and the Tupac Amaru had broken down.

During recent weeks, a three-member commission had been going fruitlessly back and forth between the two sides, trying to hammer out a compromise to win release of the hostages, who included diplomats, executives, legislators, judges and military and police commanders, mostly middle-aged and elderly men.

Isaac Velasco, a self-styled spokesman for the Tupac Amaru who lives in Germany, condemned the raid Tuesday night in a telephone interview as “a crime against humanity.” He warned that the rebels will carry out acts of retaliation.

Times staff writer Mary Beth Sheridan and special correspondent Mariana Sanchez Aizcorbe contributed to this report from Lima; Times staff writer Sonni Efron contributed from Tokyo; and Times staff writers Norman Kempster and Elizabeth Shogren contributed from Washington.

More on Peru

* TYPICAL FUJIMORI: Daring assault fits the style of Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. A15

* JAPANESE REACT: Peru’s leader is a hero, but Tokyo government doesn’t share in glory. A15

* GRAPHICS, PHOTOS: A14, A15

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Storming the Mansion

The Lima hostage crisis, which began on Dec. 17, came to a spectacular end Tuesday, as Peruvian military forces stormed the Japanese Embassy compound where guerrillas were holding 72 hostages. During the dramatic afternoon raid, there were gunbattles, explosions and fires.

A) Dozens of hostages, under watchful guise of Peruvian troops, clambor off roof.

B) After embassy compound appears secured, President Alberto Fujimori exhorts Peruvian forces and leads cheering.

C) Several powerful explosions come from this area of embassy compound. Later, fires break out.

D) This street, like other boulevards surrounding embassy compound in quiet residential neighborhood, is clear. Police long ago had created a secure zone in area.

Source: El Comercio newspaper