IN HIS dealings with the hostage crisis in Lima, President Alberto Fujimori of Peru has lived up to his reputation for secretiveness.
Mr Fujimori's terse taped televised address on Saturday four days after left wing rebels took hundreds of hostages at the Japanese ambassador's residence was typical of his enigmatic style. He firmly rejected giving in to demands by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) that his government free their imprisoned comrades.
"First you act, then you inform," the president has repeated after nearly every important government decision. Mr Fujimori employed this approach after his April 1992 "autogolpe" or "self coup" when he suddenly told the nation he had dissolved Congress, reorganised the judiciary and installed a "national rebuilding government".
The former mathematician and agronomist, the son of Japanese immigrants, became a small provincial university rector before surprising Peru's political circles with his extraordinary rise to the presidency. Running in 1990 on the slogan "honesty, technology and work", the man. Peiuvians still call "engineer Fujimori" beat the favoured candidate, writer Mario Vargas Llosa.
Determined to attract foreign investment to Peru, Fujimori has made some 50 trips abroad in the last six years, focusing on forging a special relationship with Japan. During his visit to Lima last August, Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto, committed Japan to lend more than $600 million to Peru.
Some 20 Japanese companies recently set up shop in Peru, and many of their executives were among the hostages.
Mr Fujimon launched a massive anti terrorism campaign to eradicate the Maoist Shining Path and the MRTA, and recently prematurely judged terrorism in Peru to be vanquished.