Living in Peru : your everyday companion

One of the many explosions during the siege

Sunday marked the 10th anniversary of the taking of the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima by the Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA).

In the evening of December 17, 1996, fourteen armed Marxist rebels took hostage more than 400 high-level diplomats, government and military officials and business executives who were attending a diplomatic cocktail party held by ambassador Morihisha Aoki in celebration of Emperor Akihito's 63rd birthday.

Most of the hostages were freed in the next few days, including Peru's ex-president Alberto Fujimori's mother and sister.

The rebels made a series of demands, most importantly the release of about 400 of their comrades from prisons around Peru.

MRTA rebels express their demands

The rebels said they targeted the home of Aoki because of the "constant meddling of the Japanese government" in the South American nation. Alberto Fujimori, Peru's president at the time, is of Japanese descent and had close ties with Japan.

After being held hostage for 126 days, 71 of the remaining 72 dignitaries were freed in a daring raid by Peruvian Armed Forces commandos on April 21, 1997. One hostage, two commandos, and all of the mainly teenage MRTA rebels, including their leader, Nestor Cerpa Cartolini died.

Roughly ten months after the crisis began, Japan demolished its bombed-out and gutted diplomatic residence located in Lima's residential area of San Isidro.

"We are erasing the last remains of this nightmare," a special policeman on guard outside the residence said at the time. "It's a little bit more relaxed after all that tension."

The colonnaded home, built as a mockup of the antebellum home in "Gone with the Wind", had been a shell since. The mansion's walls were pockmarked with bullets and damaged
by the bombs that exploded from tunnels underneath, while its crater-laden interior was blackened by fire.

Police troops closely monitor the situation at the Japanese ambassador's residence

In March 2006, a Peruvian court sentenced the leader of the MRTA to 32 years in prison. Victor Polay Campos was found guilty of nearly 30 crimes committed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Other four high-ranking rebels also received long prison sentences.

Polay and his fellow commanders, who were charged with crimes ranging from kidnappings to an attack on the US embassy compound, had been imprisoned at a naval base in Callao near Lima since 1992.

They were sentenced to life in prison by a military court in the 1990s. But in 2003, Peru's constitutional tribunal ruled that their conviction was unconstitutional and ordered a retrial at a civilian court.

- related articles -

- Fujimori says Japan consented to forcefully end hostage crisis in 1997 (LIP, Dec. 20, 2006)

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CNN Plus:

• Peru: Soldiers storm Japanese ambassador's compound - Message Board
• Newsmaker Profiles - Fujimori

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