Peru Government

Leftist rebels agreed Wednesday to formal talks to end Peru's month-old hostage crisis on the condition that everything--including freedom for their jailed comrades--be on the table. The announcement--made via two-way radio from the Japanese ambassador's residence--raised hopes of a potential breakthrough in the hostage crisis. The standoff began Dec. 17 when rebels of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement seized about 500 guests during a party at the residence.

Peru's new government has suspended the nation's only coca eradication program, to the surprise of an envoy from the United States, which finances the anti-narcotics program. Ricardo Soberon, new chief of the National Commission for the Development of Life Without Drugs, said Wednesday that the temporary suspension was ordered so the government could "evaluate the policies. " Similar suspensions have taken place in Colombia and Afghanistan, where U.S.-backed eradication programs are in progress, he said.

Peruvian rebels occupying the Japanese ambassador's residence released their first hostage in 17 days Friday. The Red Cross said the hostage needed medical attention. Red Cross representative Michel Minnig identified the hostage as Luis Valencia Hirano, a top official with Peru's anti-terrorism police.

This nation's true-life soap opera, a saga of bribes, lies and videotape, has finally gone into reruns. The intelligence chief who blackmailed much of the Peruvian political elite with secretly recorded tapes is completing his ninth month behind bars. Democracy is flowering again--which means angry crowds are free to take to the streets nearly every working day to demand jobs and food.

According to a theory popularized early this century, wayward Japanese fishermen landed on South America's Pacific shore in the 1400s and stayed to start a dynasty that ruled the Andes. Manco Capac, the legendary founding father of the great Inca Empire, was said to have been an immigrant from Japan posing as a god.

Waging a political counterattack from exile in Japan, former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori said Friday that he believes his fugitive spy chief is alive and well in Peru and retains secret influence there. In an interview in a plush hotel suite, Fujimori responded to a barrage of political and legal attacks that followed his ouster by the Peruvian Congress last week.

Listen to Peru's Great Debate. It echoes the heartbeat of a troubled Latin American democracy. The illustrious orators are President Alan Garcia, one of Latin America's most charismatic young leaders, and novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, one of its most famous literary lions. The burning issue is a government plan to nationalize private banks. It has aroused the conflicting passions of those Peruvians who want a "financial revolution" and others who fear the erosion of basic freedoms.

President Alberto Fujimori, on a trip to Asia and Los Angeles, has been portraying his country as a paragon of democratic progress. But many Peruvians have a darker view. Unsolved cases of human rights violations, unrest in the army and limitations on the autonomy of Congress are raising doubts about the future of democracy in Peru. Fujimori, the son of Japanese immigrants, spent this past week in Japan and South Korea, hoping to drum up new aid, trade and investment.

The Peruvian Congress is putting the finishing touches on a new constitution that could pave the way for President Alberto Fujimori to stay in power until the end of the century. Fujimori's current five-year term expires in 1995. The draft constitution, expected to receive final congressional approval soon, would allow the president to run for reelection to a second, successive term.

President Alberto Fujimori's government called for a return to "cordiality" in relations with the opposition, softening earlier warnings that adversaries would be punished for deadly riots on Fujimori's inauguration day. Pro-government television ran programs all weekend slamming the opposition as terrorists after riots Friday in which six people were killed, dozens were injured and several government buildings were set ablaze.

Former Peruvian intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos, the mysterious spymaster who was the power behind Peru's throne for a decade, was arrested here after a desperate eight months on the run, Venezuelan officials announced Sunday. Venezuelan military intelligence agents captured Montesinos at 10:30 p.m. Saturday at a safe house in a Caracas slum, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said.

During the decade that his leadership of Peru's spy agency won U.S. praise and support, Vladimiro Montesinos built a billion-dollar criminal empire based on drug trafficking, arms dealing and judicial and political corruption, Peruvian investigators alleged Thursday. Describing the progress of a three-month mega-investigation of the regime of former President Alberto Fujimori, aspecialprosecutorpaintedasadlyillustrativepictureofhowglobalization and gangsterism have intertwined in Latin America.

Waging a political counterattack from exile in Japan, former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori said Friday that he believes his fugitive spy chief is alive and well in Peru and retains secret influence there. In an interview in a plush hotel suite, Fujimori responded to a barrage of political and legal attacks that followed his ouster by the Peruvian Congress last week.

Peru's interim president on Saturday took a step toward healing the country's battered democracy in the wake of President Alberto Fujimori's ouster by installing a 15-member Cabinet that within hours ordered a shake-up in the military. Valentin Paniagua and his new ministers aim to root out corruption in the army, police, judiciary and other government institutions before special elections are held April 8. A new president is to be inaugurated in July.

After a marathon debate that became an outpouring of accumulated rage and political grudges, Peru's Congress on Tuesday rejected President Alberto Fujimori's resignation and instead ousted him on the grounds that he is morally unfit to hold office. The ouster was the political equivalent of an indictment and conviction, a symbolic punishment of Fujimori for the collapse of his scandal-plagued regime and for his decision Monday to resign while in Japan and take refuge there.

President Alberto Fujimori's government restored Peruvian citizenship to an Israeli-born businessman who was forced from the country after his TV station aired reports linking the military to torture and corruption. The government stripped Baruch Ivcher of his citizenship and control of his Channel 2 station in 1997 in a case that sparked international outrage and came to symbolize attempts by Fujimori's government to suppress press freedom.

More than 15,000 opponents of President Alberto Fujimori on Thursday staged one of the biggest protests yet against his decade in power, rallying on the eve of his inauguration for an unprecedented third term after a tainted reelection. The peaceful overnight outpouring against Fujimori's inauguration united workers, students and Peruvians from all walks in a raucous, torchlit rally, marked by bottle rockets screaming over a downtown plaza and drums pounding loudly in the cool night air.

President Alberto Fujimori's government restored Peruvian citizenship to an Israeli-born businessman who was forced from the country after his TV station aired reports linking the military to torture and corruption. The government stripped Baruch Ivcher of his citizenship and control of his Channel 2 station in 1997 in a case that sparked international outrage and came to symbolize attempts by Fujimori's government to suppress press freedom.

Responding to the uproar caused by his sudden return from exile, former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos said in a rare public statement Tuesday that he intends to remain in Peru and wants to contribute to peace. His words had the opposite effect, however.