Since the news came from Peru Wednesday night that its former strongman President Alberto Fujimori died at age 86, the resulting obituaries were unflattering — to say the least.
“Peruvian Leader Who Violated Human Rights, Dies At 86,” blared the headline of the Washington Post. "Ex-Leader of Peru Imprisoned For Rights Abuses, Dies," echoed The New York Times.
Similar openings led to stories in The Associated Press and other outlets that focused on the intimidation and torture of opponents attributed to Peru’s first-ever president who was the son of Japanese immigrants.
Fujimori’s dramatic market-based economic agenda (“Fujishock”) brought down four-digit inflation to a manageable rate and he smashed the murderous Shining Path terrorists and their feared leader Ernesto Guzman.
Known as “Fuji” or “El Chino” (“the Chinaman,” despite being of Japanese heritage), the former rector of the National Agrarian University came out of nowhere to campaign for the presidency in 1990 wearing a karate robe and riding a tractor called the “Fujimobile." In a stunning upset, he defeated the internationally acclaimed novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.
Two years later, he declared martial law, dissolved Congress, and was re-elected in 1995. He amended the constitution to seek a third term in 2000. But public outcry forced him to step down, and Fujimori spent his twilight years in court and in prison.
There is, as the saying goes, good and bad to everyone. One who saw particular good in Fujimori was Francisco Tudela, who served as a congressman, ambassador, and foreign minister under the controversial president.
On Dec. 17, 1996, the world’s eyes were suddenly riveted on Peru’s capital city of Lima. Fourteen heavily armed members of the notorious Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) suddenly seized the Japanese ambassador’s residence during a garden party celebrating Emperor Akihito’s birthday. Among the hundreds of hostages were President Fujimori’s brother and mother, future President Alejandro Toledo, and scores of top government officials — among them Foreign Minister Tudela.
“Those terrorists that held us as hostages were hardened criminals that would have killed us all,” Tudela recalled to Newsmax Thursday.
Nearly all of the foreign hostages were released after five days of death threats from their captors, leaving 72 in their hands. The MRTA demanded release of all of their members in Peruvian prisons (including U.S. activist Lori Berenson) and an end to what they considered Fujimori’s unfair free market economic reforms.
The President rejected all of the demands but kept negotiations with MRTA going through Roman Catholic Archbishop Juan Luis Cipriani and Canadian Ambassador Anthony Vincent. Fujimori even spoke to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, which led to speculation Cuba would offer asylum to the MRTA.
Privately, the Peruvian president made a decision to rescue the hostages and ordered Operation Chavin de Huantar (the name of an underground archaeological site in Peru). One hundred and forty special operations commandos trained for the mission and were reportedly told by Fujimori to “take no MRTA alive.”
“Fujimori knew that if the rescue operation failed, his government would fall, Tudela told us, “but he also knew that if we were killed by the terrorists, he would be a lame duck forever. He was very courageous to take that risk. He himself gave the order to begin the attack taking all responsibility for the results on himself.”
The commandos dug a tunnel beneath the ambassador’s residence and, as the captors voiced their suspicions about noises coming from underground, the soldiers outside began to play loud military music to muffle the subterranean tunneling. Microphones and cameras were smuggled into the residence in books and food supplies and the messengers who delivered the covertly packed supplies placed them in key locations.
From their surveillance, the commandos knew that the hostages were all on the second floor and that at least three of the MRTA regularly played soccer in the foyer of the residence.
On April 22, 1997, three explosives went off and killed the three terrorists during their soccer match. The commandos then came up through a hole in the floor and began to hunt down the remaining MRTA before they reached the second floor to kill the hostages. Leading three fellow commandos to rescue hostages was Colonel Juan Valer.
“The risks were huge, and he was leading his men from the front,” said Tudela, “I saw him fall. He was killed at the head of his detachment of three commandos. In the middle of the battle, I ordered his body to be passed over ours so he could reach a medic. but the wound was fatal. Colonel Valer was a hero.”
The only other casualty among the commando unit was Captain Raul Jimenez, who had been bodyguard to Fujimori’s children. At his subsequent funeral, Fujimori would say: “When a soldier dies for his country, a hero is born.”
The mission took about 15 minutes. Thirteen of the fourteen terrorists were killed during the rescue and the remaining MRTA, Roli Rojas, was spotted trying to blend with the hostages leaving the residence. He was promptly executed with a bullet to the head. The lone casualty among the hostages was Supreme Court Justice Carlos Giusti Arcuna, who had a pre-existing heart condition and died of a heart attack.
Despite applause from the Peruvian public for the rescue mission, Fujimori would be called a murderer by human rights activists worldwide and be the subject of demonstrations at Peruvian embassies in other capitals. Ambassador and hostage negotiator Vincent told reporters he was on the verge of an agreement with the MRTA when the attack was ordered.
But there were no further hostage situations in Peru.
“Fujimori wasn’t a Rambo, as the left wanted to portray him,” said Tudela, “he was a statesman who took risks that a common politician would have skipped. I am honored to have been his vice president [briefly in 2010] and foreign minister. And I owe him my life.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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