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| STALEMATE: DAY 41
JANUARY 27, 1997TRANSCRIPT |
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As the ongoing standoff between the Peruvian government and rebels entered its 41st day, Charlayne Hunter-Gault discusses the latest moves in Lima with Jonathan Miller of National Public Radio.
JIM LEHRER: We go first tonight to an update of the Peru hostage story and to Charlayne
A RealAudio version of this NewsHour segment is available.
Online NewsHour links:
January 2, 1997:
Jim Lehrer speaks with journalist Jonathan Miller, reporting live from Peru.
December 23, 1996:
Marxist rebels released 225 hostages from the Japanese ambassador's residence in a "good will" Christmas gesture.
December 19, 1996:
In a stunning attack, a band of Peruvian rebels stormed the Japanese embassy in Lima holding 490 hostage.
Browse the Online NewsHour's Latin America index.
Hunter-Gault, who prepared this report a short while ago before the gun fire at the embassy.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The hostage crisis at the Japanese ambassador's resident in Lima, Peru, is in its 41st day. Seventy-two hostages have now been held since they went to a December
17th party celebrating the Emperor's birthday. Today Japan's prime minister called for a curtailment of the latest police activities around the compound. Those include fresh troops with high-powered rifles and night vision equipment, heavily-armed vehicles, regular helicopter fly-overs, and barricading the rear and side entrances to the residence, leaving the main gate as the only exit. Police also threw stones and garbage into the grounds.
The Japanese officials expressed concern that the new security measures could unsettle the rebels and threaten the safety of their hostages. The guerrillas continued to insist that they will not meet with government officials unless their demand for the release of about 400 jailed comrades is met. After officially releasing 378 of the original 450 hostages, the rebels have released only two captives since early January, both on medical grounds.
For more on this story, we turn to a reporter on the scene, Jonathan Miller. He's been covering the story for National Public Radio.
Jonathan, what has been the Peruvian government's response to the Japanese request to curtail their police activity?
JONATHAN MILLER, Journalist: (Lima, Peru) Well, they've actually gone the opposite direction. Today in the afternoon the police set up some--a sound system, a mixer, and amplifiers, large speakers, right outside the Japanese ambassador's residence, and in the late afternoon they started playing military music at full volume, and they brought out four military vehicles, armored vehicles, fully loaded with men with guns, and they've circling, they circled the residence several times, stopping at the front gate, aiming their weapons, so, if anything, they've turned up the volume of this sort of what the rebels consider to be provocative activities, and what the Japanese consider to be worrying activities there at the ambassador's residence.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what do you think? Do you have any information on why the government is doing this? Are they getting ready to storm the embassy, or preparing to prepare people to do that?
JONATHAN MILLER: President Fujimori has said that this is not a precursor to an attack. The government chief negotiator said that they were just preparing for the eventuality that talks would begin, and they'd need to step up security for that. They've been trying to deny that, or they have been denying that there's any impending attack, any impending rescue effort underway. The rebels feel that they're being provoked.
The Japanese feel that the situation is getting a little bit more tense. And that certainly is the feeling
right around Lima today; that things are getting a little bit more tense. It's been suggested that one of the reasons that the police might be sort of turning up the volume, in fact, literally today turning up the volume on their presence is that they want to disturb the sleep patterns of the hostage-takers. The hostages, of course, have to sleep in shifts during the day, and so the more noise outdoors, helicopter flights are very noisy, they've been going very close to the residence, now this military music, the more noise they can create during the day, the more difficult it is for the hostage-takers to sleep.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, is there any sense about, you know, the Japanese concern that this will unsettle the rebels and lead to a bad situation?
JONATHAN MILLER: The Japanese are concerned both with unsettling the rebels but I think more with unsettling the hostages. One third of the hostages in there now, there are 72, and one third of them are Japanese. Half of those are diplomats. Half are businessmen, and the Japanese government is very concerned about, about their state of mind, their--certainly their safety, but also their psychological state.
So when Prime Minister Hashimoto made his remarks over the weekend that he was very concerned about the unsettling effects that all this police activity might be having, I think he was equally concerned that the hostages, themselves, were going to be unsettled.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Is there any indication that the Peruvians--you say they've escalated their police presence, instead of toning it down. I mean, what's going on between the Japanese and the Peruvians?
JONATHAN MILLER: The Japanese have said that they are fully supportive of what President Fujimori is doing in this crisis. That said, they've also mildly criticized things that he's done over time, if not criticized then at least stated their concern about the way things were going, their worry that if things didn't get resolved more quickly that things might break down a little bit. So one can assume that they are talking, but President Fujimori has said that while is trying to bring the Japanese along on this, it's his call, and what happens here in Peru is the business of President Fujimori and not of the Japanese.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The rebels made a statement today something to the effect of vanquish or die. I mean, what is their situation now and their position?
JONATHAN MILLER: They have said repeatedly that they're prepared to die if they don't get what
they've come for, and people who know their movement say that that's probably true; that they are prepared to die. The leader, Nestor Cerpa, is a man who has a lot of patience but also might be willing, people say, to play a martyr, to be a martyr. That might be something of value to him. That makes negotiation, of course, very difficult.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But what is the status of the talks between the government and the rebels, if there are any talks at all, or communication?
JONATHAN MILLER: There clearly is communication between the two sides. And there are a couple of people who are carrying messages certainly between the two sides, nothing substantive. They're not talking about demands, but the Roman Catholic Archbishop Juan Luis Cipriani, who's a personal friend of President Fujimori, has been going in regularly to visit with the hostages, and also, it can be assumed, carrying messages. And the Red Cross has played that role to some extent as well. So the two sides are talking. In a sense, they're communicating, but they're not really talking. They're not sitting down at the table, not negotiating, and that's where I think the nervousness now is coming in. That's, I believe, behind the Japanese nervousness too of the two sides that have taken an awful long time to sit down at the bargaining table. And there's no sense right now when that's going to happen.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, is there any sense that there's anything to bargain over? I mean, has Fujimori given any indication that there's any bend in his position that he's not going to release prisoners that Tupac Amaru wants released, or have the rebels given any indication that they're willing to bend in their demand?
JONATHAN MILLER: Well, both sides stated their positions really early in this. The rebels stated their
goal, which was to get their comrades in jail released right at the outside, and President Fujimori, it took him a few days, but I think it was the fourth day he said that that is simply out of the question. They have not budged on those positions since then, but things have--time has passed, and things have developed, and more items have sort of percolated onto the agenda. President Fujimori said that he'd be willing to talk about just about anything in negotiations but being willing to talk about it and being to give in on any of these things are a completely different matter according to him. The rebels, for their part, have held even firmer than that. They've said that they came to get their comrades out of jail, and they're not going to leave there until they do, or else they'll accept that they might have to die in this.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: One statement I saw today said was issued by the rebels saying that if the embassy were stormed and their commando units throughout Peru prepared to unleash attacks on targets of the state and various other installations. Is there any indication that they have that capacity?
JONATHAN MILLER: They have some capacity certainly, and I think that over the course of this crisis people have come to realize that they have maybe a little bit more capacity than their military had let on or had even known up until a month or five weeks ago. But they are not really a viable fighting force. They certainly aren't the sort of force that threatens to take over state power to topple the government. They have people in the field in various places. They don't control any territory, and the military estimates they have a few hundred fighters at most.
JONATHAN MILLER: Well, that's a great question of how the two sides will use time in this--in this whole affair. For the hostages, they're surviving. Time is--makes every day I think it gets a little bit more difficult, but they're sort of treading water. For the rebels, they've said that they have as long as it will take to get their objectives accomplished. They are very patient people. They've been fighting this war for a dozen years, and it's been slow going. For the government, time is also--they feel that time is on their side. But it's not certain how long they'll be--they'll be willing to say that. They appear to be in no great rush to get this resolved, but at a certain point certainly they're just going to want to get on with business and have this behind them.
JONATHAN MILLER: The hostages are by all accounts being treated quite well. Several have been sick and have been removed from the residence at the request of the Red Cross, but they're being fed;
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Well, Jonathan Miller, thank you for joining us.
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