Video: 'Japanese Embassy Hostage Crisis - The CNN Documentary with Alberto Fujimori'

(Tuesday, December 17, 1996, just after 8:00 p.m. PET) — Dressed as waiters bearing champagne and hors d’oeuvres, about 30 Peruvian guerrillas slipped into a party at the Japanese Ambassador’s house tonight in Lima, then set off explosions and took as hostages hundreds of diplomats and government officials.

Police officers with assault rifles surrounded the residential compound in the expensive San Isidro district of Lima, and crouched behind their cars as gunfire was heard coming from inside. Witnesses saw smoke and tracer bullets.

All but 72 of the hostages were later released by the rebels; the siege ended April 22, 1997, with a commando raid that resulted in the deaths of all the rebels, two commandos and one hostage.