Lima, Peru (AP - December 17, 1997) A leftist rebel group that
seized the Japanese ambassador's mansion last year marked the
first anniversary of the hostage crisis Wednesday, raising a
revolutionary banner outside the capital.
     The Tupac Amaru rebels also issued a statement protesting
the plight of rebel inmates and the government's recent
reenactment of the bloody rescue raid that ended the standoff.
     On December 17, 1996, a band of 14 rebels stormed a
diplomatic cocktail party at the ambassador's mansion, taking
hundreds of guests hostage.
     All the rebels died in a hail of bullets 126 days later as
military commandos freed the last 72 hostages in a dramatic
rescue broadcast around the world. Two commandos also died in the
raid and one hostage died on the way to a hospital.
     But the anniversary of the hostage taking went largely
uncommemorated in Peru, where people appeared to want to leave
their violent past behind.
     "It was very disagreeable. It will be difficult to forget
because of the victims, but thank goodness those days of tension
are over", money-changer Ana Panaifo said.
     In an interview published Wednesday in the local newspaper
El Comercio, President Alberto Fujimori said that rebel leader
Nestor Cerpa wanted to accept a government offer for a peaceful
solution, but was voted down by his fellow rebels.
     A red and white banner with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary
Movement initials was raised on a hill overlooking the Pan
American highway, 22 miles north of Lima, witnesses said. The
banner was soon taken down.
     Tupac Amaru inmates in Castro prison in Lima released a
statement calling Peru's penitentiaries "prison tombs" and
criticized the government's triumphant attitude about the raid on
the ambassador's mansion, saying a peaceful solution was not
seriously considered.
     Last week, Fujimori unveiled an exact replica of the
Japanese ambassador's mansion used to prepare commandos for the
raid. He called the mission "an example of military
professionalism."
     The government, which had cut off visits by the Red Cross to
rebel prisoners following the hostage taking, allowed the visits
to start again on December 8.
     The rebels have protested that they are harassed by prison
officials, subjected to humiliating physical inspections and
arbitrary cutoffs of family visits.

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