The following article has been excerpted, with permission, from the May 5, 1997 issue of Maclean's Magazine. It offers the Canadian perspective on an international incident and provides some background information about Peru's political climate.  Rescue in Lima A bold assault sends a message to terrorists by Tom Fennell with Lucien Chauvin and Showwei Chu Anthony Vincent, Canada's lanky ambassador to Peru, thought rebel leader Nestor Cerpa seemed distracted. Still, he urged Cerpa once again to give up the 72 hostages that his 13 Tupac Amaru fighters had held in the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima since December 17. As they talked, eight young rebels dressed in the brightly colored T-shirts of their favorite soccer teams began to kick a makeshift ball of tape and cloth around the building's massive tile foyer. With the siege in its fifth month, their game had become a daily ritual to relieve the boredom and grinding tension. As they played, other rebels leaned over a second-floor banister to watch. Unknown to any of them, Peruvian commandos had tunneled under the building and placed powerful plastic explosives directly under the players' feet. As he left, Vincent literally walked over the heads of heavily armed soldiers who were jammed into the tunnels, waiting to attack Cerpa and his followers. "'Hasta luego' were the very last words I said to them," the ambassador recalled last week. "They looked quite preoccupied." Perhaps the rebels sensed the end was coming. Two hours later, at approximately 3:13 p.m., President Alberto Fujimori finally gave the signal that his keyed-up soldiers had been training for weeks to expect. The explosives were triggered in a massive explosion that killed some of the rebels and wounded Cerpa, who cried out, "We're screwed, we're screwed." Hundreds of soldiers swarmed into the building and an interior garden from the blown-out tunnels. Others smashed through the front door and lobbed in tear gas through a side window. In a hail of bullets and hand grenades, they cut down almost all the guerrillas, including two young females who reportedly begged for mercy. Some soldiers said another insurgent who was captured was quickly taken away and shot, although Fujimori later denied it. The shocked rebels still managed to kill two soldiers and wound Supreme Court Justice Carlos Giusti, who died later of a heart attack in hospital. But in just 15 minutes, the commandos wiped out all 14 guerrillas and rescued all of the hostages, whom they led from the smoldering compound. The soldiers weren't finished. To send a grim message to other would-be terrorists, they bent over each of their dead or wounded opponents and shot them in the forehead. When Fujimori arrived minutes later, he bluntly declared: "The rebels have been annihilated." Fujimori, wearing a black bulletproof vest over his signature white shirt, toured the shattered compound like a conquering general. In a spectacle televised around the world, he stepped over the rebels' bullet-riddled bodies to shake hands with his victorious troops. As they gathered around him, they punched their fists into the air and broke into a spontaneous version of the national anthem: We are free, and we will be forever. The tough-guy president had good reason to celebrate. He had spent his seven years in office battling terrorists, drug traffickers and an economic collapse with a fearsome resolve, and before the Tupac raid he appeared to be winning. Hundreds of rebels had been arrested. Foreign investment was increasing. The rebel attack, however, shattered Peru's newfound confidence. Now, with his dramatic victory behind him, political analysts say Fujimori will be able to entrench his sweeping economic and political reforms. "By this one very audacious action," said Max Cameron, a political scientists and expert on Peru at Carleton University, "he restored his image of strength." Fujimori's "crisis of embarrassment" began without warning on December 17, when the Tupac Amaru rebels - named for an 18th century native who led an uprising against the Spanish - seized the palatial embassy residence during a party marking the Japanese emperor's birthday. The rebels blew a hole in the back of the building while white-clad waiters, who had been pouring champagne, suddenly produced automatic weapons and ordered 450 guests to lay on the floor. The rebels had captured dozens of important diplomats and businessmen, including ambassador Vincent and his wife Lucie. Hours later, the guerrillas released about 80 women. The following day, Vincent was freed along with the ambassadors of Greece and Germany with orders from Cerpa to help negotiate the release of 450 imprisoned Tupac fighters. Over the next few weeks, most of the other hostages were let go. Those left behind were mainly Peruvian government and military officials and 20 Japanese nationals. ... [On the day of the rescue] Canada's Vincent was ... taken by surprise. Arriving at the Canadian embassy, he took an urgent call from his wife. "She was frantic," he said, "because she had seen the beginning of the intervention on television and she thought I might still be in the residence." Vincent said the lives lost in the action had to be balanced against Peru's bloody history of violent attacks. "I think the terrorists are looked on by Peruvians as an enemy - a dangerous enemy," he said. Still, the ambassador said the negotiators were saddened because they had come to know many of the rebels. At a news conference following the battle, his fellow negotiator, Peruvian Archbishop Juan Luis Cipriani, broke into tears over their deaths. "Many of them were quite young," explained Vincent. "Somehow they had gotten involved in this, which turned out to be a hopeless situation." Most Peruvians, however, expressed little sympathy. After the rescue, Fujimori's approval rating shot up to 67 per cent from 28 per cent. But in Cameron's view, the price will be more power for the armed forces. "The way in which the hostage crisis was resolved," he said, "could embolden the military and accentuate the more authoritarian feature of the Peruvian political system." The international community, however, was quick to back Fujimori. Prime Minister Jean Chretien said that while the violence was unfortunate, the government had a "responsibility" to act. Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto said it was regrettable that Japan, which had earlier called for a peaceful resolution, was not informed in advance. But he added: "How can I criticize Fujimori? He successfully rescued the hostages." Whether the victory over the rebels has finally put an end to guerrilla attacks in Peru is open to question. A Tupac spokesman in Hamburg said the group plans to strike back at the government. But terrorism expert John Thompson, director of Toronto's Mackenzie Institute, said many insurgents now realize that modern technology, such as eavesdropping and thermal imaging equipment, makes it easier for governments to fight back. "Most terrorists have already learned that you just can't take hostages anymore," he said. "It's not a winning proposition." Certainly not in Fujimori's Peru.
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