MUTINY'S LEADER SAYS TOP MILITARY OFFICIALS SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED FOR TIES
TO DRUGS, ARMS

LIMA, Peru -- An obscure army lieutenant colonel in southern Peru led a
mutiny Sunday, temporarily seizing a mining town and demanding the
resignation of President Alberto Fujimori and the prosecution of top
military officers and former intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos.

There was no sign that other soldiers were rallying to the mutineers' side,
or that the uprising posed a threat to Fujimori, who purged the military
Saturday of four top officers with close ties to Montesinos, a former
Fujimori ally turned political rival.

Although the rebels were believed to be fleeing to a remote area in the
Andes more than 13,000 feet above sea level and some 700 miles from the
capital, the insurrection underscores the power of the military in Peruvian
politics, which has been in turmoil since a controversial election July 28.

The mutiny's leader, Lt. Col. Ollanta Moises Humala Tasso, 36, said he was
leading a ``new Peruvian army'' and demanded that Montesinos and top
military leaders be investigated for ties to drug and arms traffickers.

``The illegitimacy of Alberto Fujimori as president of the republic and
commander-in-chief of the armed forces is the cause of the political and
social convulsion in the country from the fraudulent electoral process . . .
Since July 28, 2000, he has usurped power,'' said Humala Tasso in a
communique.

Jorge Santistevan, Peru's respected public defender, compared Humala Tasso
to Venezuela's authoritarian President Hugo Chavez, who led a failed
military coup in 1992 but later was elected president. Santistevan called
Sunday's insurrection a ``wake-up call'' for Fujimori to quickly cashier
other military men whose careers are tied to Montesinos.

Fujimori, late Saturday, had accepted what appeared to be the forced
resignations of armed forces chief Gen. Jose Villanueva Ruesta and three
other Montesinos loyalists. But he replaced Villanueva with Interior
Minister Gen. Walter Chacon, who also is thought to owe his move up the
ranks to Montesinos, the disgraced spy chief.

Rumors of a coup in Peru have persisted for weeks, but coup threats were
generally thought to come from top leaders who owed their positions to
manipulation of the promotion process by Montesinos. Mid-level officers have
long been spied on and controlled by military leaders wary of being toppled
by their subordinates.

Nevertheless, Peruvians awoke Sunday to reports that Lt. Col. Humala Tasso
had led some 60-to-100 soldiers from an anti-aircraft artillery unit in a
revolt in the small southern mining town of Toquepala, not far from the
Chilean border. Humala Tasso's younger brother Antauro, 35, a former army
major who was dismissed in 1998 for his political viewpoints, was also said
to be involved in the rebellion.

The reports said Humala Tasso announced his action during a Sunday morning
mass, and had allegedly taken hostages in a mining camp that is
majority-owned by Mexico's giant Grupo Mexico. The army said there were 43
rebellious soldiers and three civilians, who were thought to have stolen
food and gas as they fled toward the town of Puno.

Interviewed on national television, Humala Tasso's mother, Elena, said her
sons revolted because they ``love Peru.'' Her husband, Isaac, said he was
proud of his son and said that while the action amounted to insurrection,
those atop the tarnished military ``who are judging it are definitely worse
than him.''

Sunday's mutiny was the latest twist in Peru's bizarre political crisis,
which deepened on Oct. 23 when a manhunt began for Montesinos, once
Fujimori's closest and most powerful aide, who returned unexpectedly from
Panama, where he had sought asylum.