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![]() Sunday, December 21, 1997 Published at 12:30 GMT ![]() ![]() ![]() World ![]() Power struggle in Peru ![]() President Alberto Fujimori
President Alberto Fujimori of Peru has ordered regional military commanders,
visiting the capital Lima for a military ceremony, to return to their posts
immediately amid rumours of a coup plot.
The order was contained in a terse, one-sentence message to the
armed forces chief, Genera Nicolas Hermoza Rios.
It follows a highly public disagreement between the President
and General Hermoza over who deserves the credit for planning the military operation which ended a four-month hostage crisis at the Japanese embassy in Lima earlier this year.
In April 140 army commandos stormed the embassy to free 72 hostages who were being held by members of the Tupac Amaru revolutionary movement. All 14 of the hostage takers and one hostage died during the rescue.
In an interview with the daily newspaper El Comercio he is quoted as saying General Hermoza participated in neither the design nor the strategy of the rescue
but only in executing the operation.
"I know perfectly how the operation was developed. It was I who
designed it," the newspaper quoted President Fujimori as saying.
Senior
generals responded by warning that any attempt to discount the role of General Hermoza
would be regarded as an insult against the whole of the armed forces.
President Fujimori retaliated with a reminder that he is the country's supreme military commander and by ordering regional military commanders back to their bases.
Allies turned enemies
The crisis is a rare moment of disagreement between the President and his military leaders. The armed forces have strongly supported President Fujimori since he
took power in 1990.
In 1992, led by General Hermoza, they backed the President when he suspended the Constitution, Congress, and the
Constitutional Tribunal. And at the end of 1994, after a successful campaign against the
Shining Path and Tupac Amaru rebels, President Fujimori called General Hermoza a
"victorious general."
President Fujimori has been considering making changes to the structure of the
military's leadership which could affect General Hermoza.
However, Mr Fujimori retains the support of Vladimiro Montesinos, the defacto
head of military intelligence, who has placed officers
loyal to him in key positions in the military hierarchy.
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