Rebels plan spate of new attacks

THE Marxist Tupac Amaru rebels plan to attack military and economic targets in response to the storming of the Lima residence…

THE Marxist Tupac Amaru rebels plan to attack military and economic targets in response to the storming of the Lima residence, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

"There are economic and military targets that will be attacked, Mr Isaac Velazco, international spokesman for the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), told Reuters in a telephone interview from Hamburg, Germany.

Mr Velazco said the MRTA had identified the targets before the crisis began, but did not elaborate.

According to anti-terrorist police reports, the MRTA had moved a number of armed members and explosives into Lima during the hostage crisis in preparation for attacks following a military assault on the residence.

READ MORE

Police believe the group will target government, diplomatic and media buildings in Peru as well as the property of large private firms.

Another rebel, who is to remain anonymous and said he was speaking from Peru on behalf of the MRTA rebels also told Reuters the group planned specific attacks.

"We are not afraid that our comrades have died. The MRTA is not going to die," the rebel in Peru said.

The rebel added that Japan, whose ambassador's home was the site of Latin America's longest hostage siege, would not be especially targeted in any reprisal attacks.

Mr Velazco said Tokyo should take responsibility for the rebels deaths as the decision to effect a military intervention could not have gone ahead without the Japanese government's permission.

Japanese Prime Minister Mr Ryutao Hashmoto, denied that Peruvian President, Mr Alberto Fujimori, had informed him there would be an attack.

Analysts have said however the MRTA's hostage taking was its last attempt to resuscitate a dying movement estimated to have less than 200 armed members.

With the death of the rebel hostage takers, the movement will reorientate its leadership according to guidelines agreed on before the MRTA stormed the residence on December 17th.

Mr Velazco added that the group would concentrate its activity in the central jungle, where it has its only permanently armed platoons.

The MRTA rebel in Peru said the success of the hostage-taking lay in the fact that the group had attracted the attention of the world's journalists to the existing poverty in Peru.

Mr Velazco said he was informed of the-security forces military intervention by his Peruvian comrades in the first moments of the attack.