Japanese Embassy Hostage Crisis

On the night of 17 December 1996, 14 members of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), led by Néstor Cerpa Cartolini, blasted through a wall and stormed the Japanese ambassador's residence in the San Isidro District of Lima, Peru, during a party marking Emperor Akihito's 63rd birthday. Hundreds of diplomats, government officials, military officers, and business executives were taken hostage, including Japanese ambassador Morihisa Aoki and relatives of Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. Foreign female hostages were released the first night, and most foreign nationals were freed within five days amid ongoing threats. Over the following months the MRTA gradually released hostages, leaving 72 dignitaries held by the time of the eventual raid.

The MRTA demanded the release of imprisoned members, changes to Peru's economic policies, and criticism of Japan's aid programs and Peruvian prison conditions. Negotiations, mediated in part by the International Committee of the Red Cross and a "guarantors commission" that included Canadian ambassador Anthony Vincent, stalled by mid-January 1997. Peruvian authorities covertly dug tunnels beneath the residence while publicly maintaining negotiations, and reportedly consulted with U.S. military forces on a possible joint raid, according to Peruvian newspaper reporting and contemporaneous New York Times coverage.

On 22 April 1997, after 126 days, 140 Peruvian commandos executed "Operation Chavín de Huántar," detonating explosive charges and storming the residence through tunnels and ladders. All 14 MRTA militants were killed, along with one hostage—Supreme Court member Carlos Giusti Acuña, who had a pre-existing heart condition—and two Peruvian soldiers, Colonel Juan Valer Sandoval and Captain Raúl Jiménez Chávez. The operation was widely celebrated in Peru and internationally, and Fujimori's approval ratings rose sharply.

Subsequent investigations produced evidence that some MRTA members were summarily executed after surrendering. Japanese diplomat Hidetaka Ogura testified he saw militant Eduardo "Tito" Cruz Sánchez alive and restrained after the raid began; Cruz was later found dead of a neck wound. Forensic exhumations found that Cruz had been shot once in the back of the neck while defenseless, and that eight guerrillas overall showed similar wounds consistent with execution after capture or incapacitation. In 2002, arrest warrants were issued for 11 senior army officers, but Peru's Supreme Court ruled the matter fell under military rather than civilian court jurisdiction. In 2007, former intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos, former armed forces chief Nicolás de Bari Hermoza Ríos, and retired Colonel Roberto Huamán stood trial for allegedly ordering the killings; all three were acquitted in 2012 for lack of proven chain-of-command responsibility. In 2015, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that Cruz Sánchez, along with Victor Peceros (25) and Herma Meléndez (17), had been victims of extrajudicial killing and that the Peruvian state had violated international human rights law.