TORONTO - The `new' postwar Japan is often denounced by nationalist critics as soft, timid, lacking in soul, and driven only
by money. The spineless response of PM Ryutaro Hashimoto's government to the agonizing hostage crisis in Peru has done
nothing to allay such criticism.
On Feb 1, Hashimoto rushed to Toronto for an emergency meeting with Peru's president, Alberto Fujimori, who is of
Japanese ancestry. The two leaders were a study in contrasts between the `new' and `old' Japan.'
Hashimoto pled for more negotiations with marxist Tupac rebels who had seized hundreds of hostages in the Japanese
Ambassador's residence in Lima last December. Hashimoto vetoed military action, fearing that deaths of Japanese hostages
would cause him political grief at home. Japan's consistent policy in recent years has been to pay ransom to takers of
Japanese hostages. As a result, Japanese businessmen have become prime targets for thugs, notably in Latin America.
By contrast, no-nonsense Fujimori wanted to storm the residence - even though his brother Pedro, and other senior officials,
were among the hostages. He refused demands by Tupac Amaru that 400 of its men - almost the entire organization - be
released from maximum security prisons.
Fujimori is old-school Japanese: tough, diligent, , fearless. His government transformed Peru from a wretched,
rebellion-racked backwater into one of Latin America's success stories. Fujimori did this by first crushing the murderous
guerrilla movements - Sendero Luminoso and Tupac Amaru - that had Peru on the brink of national collapse. And then by
dismantling Peru's crushing state socialism and bureaucracy. Freed of rapacious government, Peru's economy, long driven
underground, came to life and boomed.
The Tupac guerrillas, a bunch of bourgeois marxists armed, financed and organized by Cuba, had three objectives in seizing
the residency. First, to free their 400 comrades from prison, and so reignite the rebellion. Second, sabotage Peru's
free-market economy, and replace it by Cuban-style state socialism. Third, gain sympathy for their cause of so-called `social
justice' from the liberal media in the US and Canada.
Right on cue, liberal stalwarts like the `New York Times' featured long stories about cruel conditions suffered by Tupac and
Sendero prisoners in Peru's harsh prisons. Unreported was the fact that in the 1980's, Sendero and Tupac prisoners had
virtually run the prisons in which they were incarcerated, using them as training camps for new recruits and military
headquarters. The marxists staged mass escapes from the porous prisons, mocking the feeble government of President Alan
Garcia. That was until 1992, when Fujimori cracked down, broke the marxist prison gangs, and isolated them in mountain
penal colonies.
Fujimori knows releasing Tupac prisoners will restart the bloody war that was almost ended. If the Tupac succeeds, the even
crazier, more murderous Sendero fanatics will be next to stage major outrages to free their jailed leader, Abimael Guzman.
One might as well release smallpox back into the world.
But Japan, to its dishonor, keeps stalling and trying to buy its way out this mess. Canada, which somehow also got involved,
has reportedly been trying to arrange safe passage of the Tupac hostage-takers to Cuba. I hope this is not true: Canada has
no business acting as a facilitator for marxist terrorists or their mentor, Cuba.
Storming the residence in Lima could result in many deaths among the remaining 75 hostages. That's awful, but perhaps
inevitable. I was once held hostage on an aircraft. In spite of the risk, I wanted security forces to assault the plane. I say the
same about Lima: storm the residence. Never allow kidnappers to dictate.
Fujimori also faces the anguish of knowing any military action he authorizes may cause his brother's death. He is acting with
the courage and spirit of old Japan. Too bad his counterpart in Tokyo seems to have forgotten Japan's ancient virtues.
copyright eric margolis 1997
Reprinted with Permission
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Eric Margolis
Syndicated Columnist/Foreign Affairs Analyst
The Toronto Sun
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