Peru rebels end standoff, free hostages

A four-day occupation of a police station and part of a Peruvian town by an armed group of ex-military nationalists demanding the president's resignation ended yesterday when they surrendered and freed their hostages.

An RPP radio reporter in the southern Andean town of Andahuaylas saw the insurgents leave the police post and get into a bus to turn themselves in to a government commission, several hours after their leader was arrested during talks.

The freed hostages got into a separate vehicle. A senior rebel had said the group was holding 19 people, including 10 police officers and four army commandos, though unconfirmed media reports put the number at 21.

The group's leader, former army Maj. Antauro Humala, was arrested late on Monday without a fight when the government rejected his conditions during surrender negotiations.

Humala, who rails against what he calls the "generalised corruption and broken promises" of President Alejandro Toledo's government, was taken to Lima to face criminal charges for his brief uprising.

As he got off the plane dressed in a white T-shirt and track-suit trousers instead of his familiar army fatigues, he raised his handcuffed hands in a salute and smiled, but police escorting him swiftly lowered his arms.

The bodies of four police officers killed by the group on Sunday also arrived in Lima. Receiving them, Mr Toledo declared the operation to end the standoff "a success, in relative terms" and vowed there would be no quarter for the rebels.

At least six people died in the uprising, which began before dawn on New Year's Day with Humala vowing to fight to the last bullet until Mr Toledo quit.

Mr Toledo said 40 of Humala's supporters were arrested after he was detained and a police officer from the tactical operations unit said another 90 turned themselves in.

"We're scouring the area because we have information some have escaped," said the officer, who declined to be named.

Many Peruvians were appalled and baffled by the rebellious action - during which Humala appeared to spend much of his time talking to the media on his cellphone or negotiating surrender.

But his uprising showed the depth of popular discontent with Mr Toledo, whom Peruvians accuse of failing to deliver on jobs promises and rein in corruption that has touched more than a dozen of his relatives and cost seven ministers their jobs.

At one point, Humala paraded at the head of a crowd of several hundred residents cheering him and blasting the government. Mr Toledo's approval rating is just nine per cent more than three-and-a-half years into his five-year term.

The government sent 1,000 police and soldiers into the farm town 900 km southwest of Lima, and troops circled the police post overnight as the government warned of attack.

It was the second such venture involving Humala. In 2000 he joined his brother, Ollanta, in a failed rebellion against President Alberto Fujimori. They surrendered after Fujimori was fired for corruption, were briefly jailed but later pardoned.

Humala's nationalist group, inspired by the ancient Inca empire, a 19th century war hero and a general who took power in a 1968 coup, are military and police veterans of Peru's wars with Ecuador and leftist rebels in the 1990s.