MARXIST rebels holding 74 hostages at the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima yesterday called on world opinion to press for a bloodless end to the country's 16 day stand off.
"We ask the progressive men and women of the world to continue demanding of the Peruvian government a political solution which will bring the freedom of [rebel] political prisoners and the prisoners of war taken by our commando unit," the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) said in a statement.
"It is the Peruvian government's turn to speak."
The communique, from "somewhere in the central jungle" of Peru, reached news media after the release on Wednesday of seven more hostages by the rebels, but appeared to have been written at the end of December.
The government of President Alberto Fujimori, still angered by an impromptu news conference given by the rebels inside the compound on New Year's Eve, did not send its negotiator, Mr Domingo Palermo, to receive the seven freed men and remained silent on the situation.
Both sides have waged a propaganda battle throughout the crisis. The government has cut off the residence's communication links and mostly kept journalists two blocks away from the compound, while the MRTA has used methods from cardboard placards to the Internet to get its demands across.
The seven hostages released on Wednesday were four Japanese businessmen and three Peruvians, including a leading privatisation official, Mr Juan Assereto. All of them appeared in good health as they strolled out of the Japanese ambassador's residence clutching plastic bags containing dirty clothes.
The release did little to change the overall balance of the hostage crisis, with the MRTA rebels maintaining their original demand that the government pardon about 400 jailed comrades.
They still hold 74 hostages whom they consider to be the most valuable - including high ranking government officials and military officers, two foreign ambassadors and about two dozen Japanese diplomats and businessmen.
Mr Fujimori, whose brother Pedro is also among the hostages, was furious at the rebels' propaganda coup on Tuesday and spent New Year's Day cloistered at Government Palace with security advisers.
"He's annoyed - and wouldn't you be? They took the initiative and made a mockery of him, managing to send their faces around the world in minutes," a palace source said.
Dressed in combat gear and carrying an automatic rifle, Mr Nestor Cerpa, leader of the approximately 20 rebels who stormed a party at the residence on December 17th, held court for about two hours on Tuesday after reporters slipped into the compound, and harangued the government as a "dictatorship".
Mr Cerpa reiterated that the rebels would not surrender until their prisoners had been released and said he was in no hurry to end the stand off.
He added, however, that the doors of the residence were open to government negotiators and that he was willing to consider mediation by Cuba or Russia.
Mr Fujimori has flatly rejected the rebels' demands, though he has said that "several options" were being looked at to try to end the crisis. His government says the MRTA are "terrorists".
In Lima, hundreds of people marched on Wednesday calling for the hostages to be freed.