THE RED Cross delivered 500 chicken-and-rice dinners, about 20 fans and 10 chess games to left-wing rebels holding hundreds hostage at the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima late last night, a Red Cross spokesman said. The hostages had been surviving on fruit and water.
The roughly 400 hostages were being "treated carefully", one of the diplomats freed from the stand-off said earlier yesterday as a second round of talks was held.
In the evening four hostages two Japanese and two Peruvians were released for medical reasons, the Red Cross said.
Earlier in the afternoon two shots were heard from inside the residence while Red Cross officials were inside negotiating.
President Alberto Fujimori of Peru promised in a letter to President Clinton that the safety of the hostages would be his number one priority, local television reported last night.
Ecuador, which fought border skirmishes with Peru earlier this year, said it was ready to grant temporary political asylum to the rebels assuming Peru "decides to make some kind of concession to the terrorists".
Altogether negotiating teams from up to 12 countries were arriving in Lima yesterday. Britain sent SAS anti terrorist troops and police negotiators. The Canadian ambassador, Mr Anthony Vincent, one of the hostages freed as part of a negotiating committee on behalf of the rebels, said the captives were being well treated, but were sleeping on the floor. There had been "no physical violence" by their captors.
Mr Vincent met the Education Minister, Mr Domingo Palermo, following a two hour meeting between President Fujimori and Mr Palermo, his designated negotiator for talks with rebels of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA).
Mr Vincent and four other diplomats were acting as mediators for the left wing MRTA rebels. But Mr Vincent told reporters that a Red Cross delegation chief, Mr Michel Minnig, had been named the "official negotiator". In Geneva the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was acting only as a neutral intermediary. A spokesman said Mr Minnig had handed Peru's government a document from the rebels.
Meanwhile, heavily armed police forces maintained a tight security cordon around the Japanese ambassador, Mr Morisha Aoki's residence in an elegant Lima neighbourhood, where some 20 MRTA rebels seized diplomats and senior Peruvian government officials late on Tuesday.
The heavily armed rebels have threatened to kill their hostages, beginning with a Japanese diplomat, if the government did not release around 400 of their jailed comrades, including the MRTA founder, Mr Victor Polay Campos.
The rebels are calling for changes in Peru's economic policy to pay more attention to the poor who make up half the population of 24 million. In their communiques since the residence takeover, MRTA rebels have denounced Japanese "interference" in Peruvian affairs.
In Washington, President Clinton said the Peruvian government was dealing with the crisis in an "appropriate way". But Mr Warren Christopher, the US Secretary of State, reiterated the US policy of making no concessions in such cases. The UN Security Council condemned the incident.
The US State Department said a group of American security advisers arrived in Lima yesterday to help. Later in the day, Japan's Foreign Minister, Mr Yukihito Ikeda, arrived in Lima.
A Red Cross official, Mr Jens Amlie, said there were 380 hostages, while Mr Vincent said there "about 400." Among the captives were ambassadors from Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Malaysia, Panama, Spain, South Korea, Uruguay and Venezuela.