By Andrew Cawthorne, Reuters
LIMA (October 14, 1997) - Japan on Tuesday began demolishing its bombed-out and gutted diplomatic residence in Peru, empty since the violent culmination there in April of Latin America's longest hostage crisis. Bulldozers and dump-trucks squeezed through the elegant white-washed mansion's wooden gates to begin shifting debris and knocking down walls from mid-morning. The demolition, expected to last three days, is the postscript to an international crisis that tormented the governments of Lima and Tokyo for 126 days. "We are erasing the last remains of this nightmare," said a special policeman on guard outside the residence where he also stood for most of the 126 days Marxist rebels held the building. "Today 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", has been a shell since crack Peruvian troops burst in April 22 to rescue alive all but one of the 72 VIP captives. The mansion's walls are pockmarked with bullets and damaged by the bombs that exploded from tunnels underneath, while its crater-laden interior is blackened by fire. "The (Japanese) embassy wants to demolish the building as soon as possible because it houses a bad memory of those events on December 17," said Gaston Barua, the mayor of San Isidro, the middle-class district of Lima where the residence lies. The mansion was thrust into the international spotlight on that date in 1996 when heavily armed rebels from the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) blew their way through a back wall into a high-society banquet. They took more than 500 hostages, releasing most in the early days of the crisis, but holding 72 inside the sweltering and increasingly dirty and rat-infested mansion -- where telephone, electricity, and water services were cut off -- until Peru's government sent in troops. In a burst of explosions and gunfire, 140 troops, many emerging from tunnels, swarmed into the residence to rescue all but one of the hostages. A captive judge, two soldiers, and all 14 rebels died in the battle. The imminent disappearance of the building, which became familiar worldwide, has stirred emotions here. "It brings up many deep feelings, thinking of that place where we lived through so many things, locked up inside," Jesuit priest Juan Julio Wicht, a former hostage, told local media. "Peru and the world knew the house and the marquee outside .. but I especially remember the circular staircase where I held half-way up the first mass we had on December 22 .. the same place where four months later (MRTA leader Nestor) Cerpa and (second-in-command Rolly) Rojas died." San Isidro authorities want to turn the land into a peace park as a testimony to Peru's desire to put behind it 17 years of guerrilla conflict, and to its close ties with Japan. But Tokyo has not yet said what it will do with the 6,000 square meter site, estimated to be worth $4 million and $5 million. Neighbors greeted Tuesday's demolition with poignant relief. "On the one hand, it's sad to have to destroy such a beautiful house. But now it's a desolate place, with sad memories, so I am happy it is coming down," said Bertha de Moya, watching the work from her house a few meters across the road where she watched the crisis. Japan's new ambassador to Peru, Yoshizo Konushi, is in a Lima hotel while a replacement for the home of his predecessor, Morihisa Aoki, is sought. ---- Con las Masas y las Armas, Patria o Muerte ... VENCEREMOS! MRTA Solidarity Page - http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm