PERU QUASHES MUTINY, SEIZES REBELLIOUS SOLDIERS

LIMA, Peru -- Peru's military said a mutiny of soldiers against
President Alberto Fujimori was all but over Monday, even as the nation
still awaited fallout from the armed insurrection challenging the
president's authority.

The army said it rounded up more than 40 soldiers and civilians Monday
who were involved in an uprising of renegade troops in the remote
southern Andes.

Those involved in the revolt, reportedly 51 soldiers, demanded
Fujimori's ouster and imprisonment for his former spy chief, Vladimiro
Montesinos. Eight remained at large, the army reported, including a
disgruntled lieutenant colonel and his brother, a former army major,
who led the uprising.

Soldiers, general rescued

The army said it rescued an unspecified number of the soldiers who had
been forced to take part in the rebellion and captured those who did
not come willingly. Peruvian forces also rescued a brigadier general
held hostage by the group.

While military experts and political leaders agree there is little
chance the uprising will spark a larger military rebellion, many say
they share the rebel soldiers' disgust with Fujimori's government.

``This can be seen as a message that the president and the government
cannot ignore,'' retired Army Gen. Daniel Mora said. ``The political
crisis we have seen for weeks is not over yet.''

Expressing disgust with Fujimori and Montesinos, the rebel soldiers
seized, then abandoned, a copper mine before dawn Sunday, took the
brigadier general and four workers hostage and then fled north into
the frigid, high Andes.

The exact location of the rogue soldiers remained unclear, but radio
reports said the group had changed course and was heading west Monday
afternoon.

The Southern Peru Copper Corp. said Monday that the four company
employees were released near Suches lake, 25 miles northeast of where
the rebellion started.

One of the ringleaders, Lt. Col. Ollanta Humala, 38, is a highly
decorated officer who established his credentials in heavy jungle
combat with Maoist Shining Path guerrillas in the early 1990s.

His brother Antauro Humala earned similar accolades. After his
promotion to major in 1997, he was accepted to the prestigious
Superior War Academy, once considered a fast track to the army's upper
echelons, entering as one of the academy's top 10 applicants.

But just one month after he began his studies, he was forced into
early retirement -- a fate suffered by dozens of midlevel officers who
were unwilling to toe a political line dictated by Montesinos over the
past decade.

Ollanta Humala said in a statement that the military high command
handpicked by Montesinos was ``a cancer to the nation'' that had
tarnished Peru's proud military with corruption, narcotics trafficking
and arms dealing.

Promotion changes

During the 1990s, Fujimori eliminated a time-honored promotion system
based on seniority and merit, and handed control of Peru's armed
forces to Montesinos, who installed loyalists in most key posts.

Eduardo Toche, an analyst for the Lima-based think tank Desco, said
the rebellion ``is an example of the frustrations'' felt by low- and
middle-level army officers who for years were passed over for
promotion or forced to retire in Montesinos' military.

Congress President Martha Hildebrandt, a staunch supporter of
Fujimori, said the uprising was ``a sincere reaction from officers
with clean careers,'' but that their methods could not be tolerated.