Guatemalan Ambassador Released Cat Suspected Of Setting Off Land Mine Supposedly Set By Rebels At Embassy

Hours after a mysterious explosion rocked the besieged Japanese ambassador’s residence early on Thursday, the Marxist rebels holding more than 100 hostages released one of six captive senior diplomats, Jose Maria Argueta the ambassador of Guatemala.

Red Cross officials said it appeared that an animal, probably a cat, had tripped a booby trap or land mine planted by the guerrillas after they stormed a diplomatic cocktail party at the residence on Dec. 17. Though no one was injured by the blast, which occurred at 1:45 a.m., local police officers and diplomats expressed concern that more unstable explosives could be set off by mistake, potentially with more deadly results.

Despite the early specter of danger, and few signs of concrete advances toward breaking the standoff, there were some tantalizing signs of movement. Bishop Juan Luis Cipriani of Ayacucho, who visited the hostages on Christmas Day for six hours, ostensibly to celebrate Mass, suggested that a peaceful solution was possible.

“Little by little we need to understand each other,” Cipriani, a conservative ally of President Alberto Fujimori, said Thursday afternoon.

Cipriani said he was not a mediator. But a Western diplomat monitoring the hostage-taking noted, “That was a long Mass all right.”

Fujimori has not budged from his demand that the 20 guerrillas occupying the residence release every remaining hostage and drop their arms before safe passage might be considered. The Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement has clung to its original demand that 300 or more of its members be freed from Peruvian prisons.

Argueta said that his release “was an acknowledgment of the historical accomplishments of Guatemala reaching a peace agreement to be signed on Dec. 29” that will end a 40-year-old guerrilla war.

Several freed hostages have said that the guerrillas spoke of longing to integrate into Peru’s political system, the way the Guatemalan guerrillas and so many other rebel groups have done around Latin America in recent years. The freeing of Argueta without any other hostages seemed to highlight that desire.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: WHO’S LEFT? The release of Guatemalan ambassador Jose Maria Argueta leaves behind the ambassadors of Japan, Malaysia, Bolivia, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, along with five Peruvian generals, two Cabinet ministers, several supreme court judges and congressmen, and scores of Japanese and Peruvian businessmen.