Fujimori’s Raid a Gamble That Pays Off

After more than four months of negotiations, rumors, threats and rhetorical posturing by the government and the guerrillas, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori ended the marathon hostage standoff at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima in characteristic style.

The president ordered a secretive, surprising and extremely risky military raid, the speed and skill of which matched the prowess of the attack by the leftist rebels who took over the mansion Dec. 17.

Fujimori bided his time and stuck to his hard line. He gambled. And the astoundingly low fatality rate among the hostages--one out of the 72 was killed--gave him a victory that had seemed unthinkable.

As the smoke cleared in front of the battle-scarred mansion Tuesday afternoon in the Peruvian capital, evaporating along with it was the common wisdom and armchair analysis generated during the weeks of crisis: An attack would be a disaster. An attack would never work because the Peruvian security forces were not up to the job. An attack would produce a blood bath and destroy Japanese-Peruvian relations, Peru’s international image and Fujimori’s increasingly shaky political future.

Instead, in one stroke of brilliance and luck, Fujimori’s image rocketed back upward.

He regained the mantle of the anti-terrorist warrior who has brought order to Peru. That was clear Tuesday afternoon from the moment of his swashbuckling arrival at the scene in a bulletproof vest, the smoke of the raid’s aftermath wafting behind him.

Fujimori could have been talking about himself when he told Peruvians in a speech delivered in vintage fashion from the back of a pickup truck: “We are going to grow stronger out of this experience.”

Fujimori keeps a keen eye on opinion polls. He made the most fateful decision of his career at a time when his popularity ratings had sunk to near-record lows of about 45%.

In addition to the grinding toll of the 18-week siege, Fujimori had been battered recently by new crises.

The most serious was a scandal that erupted this month when the military intelligence service was accused of torturing and killing its own agents, which worsened the cloud of suspicion hanging over the often-maligned security forces.

“It was the worst crisis of his government,” political commentator Fernando Rospigliosi said.

Clearly, though, the voter approval polls were not Fujimori’s only guide, because the majority of Peruvians told pollsters that they opposed military intervention.

In practical terms, the negotiations with the rebels of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement had ground to a halt, blocked by an impasse over the rebels’ demand for the release of hundreds of imprisoned terrorists. The standoff boiled down to a test of wills between two very tough men, Fujimori and rebel chief Nestor Cerpa Cartolini, neither of whom intended to back down. The president steadfastly refused to release Tupac Amaru prison inmates, a measure widely rejected by Peruvians.

“It was an act of national responsibility against the intransigence of the Tupac Amaru,” commentator Jaime de Althaus said. “Cerpa underestimated the president.”

“I have Oriental patience,” Fujimori told the press at one point during the siege.

But there were recent signs that the president believed that the time for action had come.

On Monday, a weary Bishop Juan Luis Cipriani, the most visible member of the neutral negotiating commission, told reporters that he did not know how much more of the fruitless process he could take. His face and words were notably bleak.

“There was a sensation during recent days that a negotiated outcome was not going to happen,” said a foreign diplomat who has been monitoring the crisis.

Worsening the outlook, Cerpa assumed an especially stern tone in recent declarations over the radio. He said he would reduce access by Red Cross doctors to the hostages, some of whom were in delicate health.

There was another portent over the weekend. Fujimori replaced his interior minister and Gen. Antonio Ketin Vidal, chief of the national police, who is considered a hero of the fight against terrorism.

Analysts believe that the two were replaced by more hawkish commanders partly because the security forces failed to anticipate the Tupac Amaru’s takeover of the Japanese ambassador’s residence.

Even as Fujimori’s chief negotiator told the press Monday that the talks were making progress, the president was approving the final plans for the solution with which he was far more comfortable than with negotiating: the use of force.

In making this decision, the president resorted once again to the military and security forces--the pillar of his power since he temporarily dissolved Congress in 1992 to step up the war on terrorism.

He acted this week as he did during that “self-coup,” almost alone, aided by a small and hermetic circle of advisors. He came out looking like the illustrious commander in chief of elite special forces units.

“I think his popularity will go up and so will the popularity of military and the intelligence services, who govern in partnership with him,” Rospigliosi said.

He said he feared the security services will use the success to distract attention from the current scandals.

Many analysts believe that if the Japanese had not been involved, Fujimori would have ordered a rescue much sooner.

The Peruvian-Japanese connection was the sensitive nerve at the core of the crisis. Peru’s reliance on Japanese foreign aid and political support was seen as the central obstacle to the use of force.

Unless Fujimori received some sort of secret or tacit approval from Japanese officials, who said Tuesday that they had no advance knowledge of the action, he apparently decided that the chances of a successful operation merited the risks.

Although the Japanese prime minister expressed displeasure at not having been advised, it appears unlikely that the outcome will hurt Japanese-Peruvian relations.

“It shouldn’t damage things,” the foreign diplomat said. “They would have preferred a negotiated outcome, but it’s hard to argue with the results.”

Although the Peruvian economy has sagged somewhat since attaining world-leading growth levels three years ago, the resoundingly successful resolution of the most internationally prominent crisis of his presidency--and one of the thorniest challenges a leader could face--bodes well for his electoral aspirations. The president is widely expected to seek election for the third time in the year 2000.

“This greatly strengthens his international image,” Althaus said. “He has defended order not only in Peru but in the world.”