RANK or title mean nothing inside the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima, where the VIP captives held by Marxist guerrillas have shared household duties, a local daily reported yesterday.
"We practised a real democracy," Mr Jose Carlos Mariategui, a Peruvian Foreign Ministry official who was released on Sunday, told the Expreso newspaper. "We designated commissions of food and cleaning, establishing shifts with no distinctions of rank, profession, nationality or race."
The Peruvian Foreign Minister, Mr Francisco Tudela, for example, had to clean the bathrooms on the first day, Mr Mariategui said.
Former hostages have said the men, hoping to pass the time and avoid the spread of infections, spend much of the day cleaning the elegant home which Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MTRA) rebels stormed on December 17th.
The MRTA still held 104 captives - including Mr Tudela and other top government officials, Japanese businessmen and a handful of diplomats - for a ninth day yesterday.
The rebels have booby-trapped entrances and guard hostages with a fearsome arsenal of explosives and guns, former hostages and police say.
The guerrillas, numbering about 20, demonstrated their firepower when they stormed the fortified compound on December 17th, blowing a hole in the perimeter wall with explosives before swarming in, guns blazing, to capture 500 mainly VIP guests at a reception.
Respect for their military capacity has grown since then with revelations of meticulous six-month training in Peru's Amazon jungle, thorough preparations inside the residence for a possible attack from outside, and a large stock of weapons.
"We're not underestimating them. They are hard, really hard, but not just that. They are smart as well," one source in the anti-terrorism police said.
The Austrian ambassador, Mr Arthur Schuschnigg, who was freed on Sunday along with a big group of other hostages, told reporters each rebel had 15kg (33lb) of explosives strapped to his or her belt, with a ring to detonate them.
Other freed captives said the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) rebels had mined the entrances to the residence to deter an attack from Peruvian security forces.
Three or four snipers with infrared telescopic night sights stand guard round the clock at strategic windows, police said. Each rebel has an AKM (Kalashnikov assault) rifle and a commando knife.
Rebels also have the advantage of the embassy residence's wealth of security features designed to deter intruders. These include windows doubly protected by bars and thick-meshed wire grilles, plus a high perimeter wall.
The Peruvian government stationed 900 police officers around the residence and has crack troops on hand to storm the building as a last resort.
President Alberto Fujimori has spoken publicly only once since the crisis began, urging the rebels to lay down their arms and free all the hostages before a "way out" could be considered.
He has spent most of his time in war cabinets with a small inner circle of generals, intelligence officers, ministers and close advisers.
Anti-terrorism police sources believe a strike on the residence would need at least 10 commandos for each rebel, could last between three and five minutes, and result in the death or injury of up to 20 per cent of the 104 captives.
Police sources said they had a healthy respect for the muscular, well-trained rebels, mostly aged between 16 and 20, who include two women.