THE leader of the guerrillas holding hostages at the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima is an angry revolutionary with a violent past, police sources say.
The former textile factory worker, Nestor Cerpa (43), who uses the nom de guerre Comandante Huertas, is leading some 20 rebels who took the mansion by assault during a cocktail party on Tuesday of last week.
Cerpa is the only clandestine chief of the Marxist Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) who has so far eluded capture. His leadership of the embassy attack came as a surprise. Counter terrorism experts describe him as an unlikely leader who almost fell into his role, only gaining prominence once other, more famous MRTA leaders had been captured and jailed.
Cerpa's political activities began when he joined a group of union leaders organising workers at the Cromotex textile factory near Lima in 1977. The factory went bankrupt and its owners tried to close it down. Led by a hardline revolutionary, Hemigidio Huertas, workers armed with sticks took the premises over and held out for a week, killing a police captain.
Police stormed the factory to end the siege, killing six workers including Huertas. Cerpa was arrested and jailed for 10 months but after his release went underground and started to organise the MRTA.
A string of attacks followed on targets ranging from a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet to a Catholic church. He also led or took part in attacks on a luxury hotel, a restaurant and a newspaper.
After narrowly escaping capture in a house in the northern city of Chiclayo last year, Cerpa shot back into the limelight last week with the assault on the Japanese embassy, using the alias of his hero and mentor Huertas. It was Huertas who taught the "angry" Cerpa who "never thought of becoming a leader" to dream of revolution 24 hours a day, the sources said.