By Margaret Gleeson
On April 22, Peruvian president Fujimori ended the 127-day occupation of the Japanese ambassador's residence by Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) guerillas.
"The end of the crisis showed that Fujimori exclusively relies on military means", said Norma Velazco, European spokesperson for the MRTA. All 14 of her comrades were murdered when the Peruvian military attacked. Two soldiers were killed and one hostage died of a heart attack.
Plastic explosives were used to blast into the residence from tunnels beneath the diplomatic compound. While existence of the tunnels became public knowledge in March, construction had been under way since the MRTA occupation began.
Four MRTA members were killed in the explosion, others during a brief defensive struggle. At least seven guerillas who died had reportedly surrendered. The government is pressuring ex-hostages to keep quiet about what happened and has refused to allow any of the bodies to be viewed by relatives or the media before burying them in secrecy and without autopsies.
Both US President Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto claimed to have no prior knowledge of the military raid.
The US cable network CNN reported on April 23 that the CIA gave the Peruvian government "technical assistance" to carry out the assault, including advisers and espionage equipment. A former FBI agent also said that he had helped train Peruvian troops for the assault in December in the US.
Although the Japanese government had advocated a peaceful solution, it is unclear whether permission was given for the intrusion into Japanese territory entailed by the construction of the tunnels. Hashimoto nevertheless thanked the Peruvian government "from the bottom of my heart for their punctual and great rescue operation".
The Colombian attorney general stated: "I see with alarm that all the captors were killed. All are human lives and deserve equal respect." Former Venezuelan president Carlos Perez said that "many Latin Americans are happy with the murder of the terrorists, and they are not going to perceive the serious fact that this was an act of official terrorism, terrorism of the state", he said.
The MRTA had dropped its original demand for the release of over 400 MRTA political prisoners to 20. A peaceful solution was at hand: Japan was pressing for a deal in which the MRTA commandos would go to Cuba, a number of minor prisoners freed and the situation of the rest of the prisoners improved.
However, just days before the assault, public opinion polls showed Fujimori s approval rating at its lowest ever (having dropped from 60%-75% to 38%). Polls conducted the day after the operation showed Fujimori s rating back up to 67%. The director of one polling firm said that while this gives the president a "breather" after the 126-day crisis, his support was likely to drop again as economic factors regained prominence in the polls.
There is likely to be an intensification of the militarisation of Peruvian society as the government continues its economic austerity program. Resistance will therefore also continue. In a communique released during the siege, the MRTA stated its "willingness to continue struggling for peace with social justice ... but if this peaceful path is closed one more time, we have decided to continue the struggle by other means, and we are grateful for the international solidarity of all the people in the world that have seen in our struggle the re-validation of their own struggles, the hope of building a better world, without hunger, without unemployment, without neo-liberalism."