A Peru-born journalist in the United States, who travels regularly to his home, warns that Peru's military hawks have won the day. The Lima raid marks the opening of a campaign designed to remove any elements that threaten Peru's flourishing economy. PNS associate editor Andres Tapia writes regularly on Peru.

As we Peruvians celebrate the hostage rescue, we should realize that the blood-spattered walls of the Japanese ambassador's residence signal the beginning of a no-holds-barred campaign.

This campaign is aimed at destroying what remains of insurgent movements like Tupac Amaru and the Shining Path. It also reflects the fact that Fujimori and his generals are determined not to be humiliated again.

There were several signs that hawks had gained the upper hand in the Fujimori administration during the four-and-a-half month hostage crisis. Only days before the final raid, Antonio Ketin Vidal, the general director of Peru's National Police, and Juan Briones Davila, the Interior Minister who oversees the National Police, resigned. Both had argued against the use of terror to control terrorism.

Respected Peruvian journalist Cesar Hildebrant reports that these men were forced to resign and that Briones' replacement, Gen. Cesar Saucedo Sanchez, is a close personal friend of known hard-liner Gen. Vladimiro Montesinos, Fujimori's right-hand man.

Montesinos led Fujimori's antisubversive campaign during the president's first term. Despite rumors that he was on his way out, the government is making sure he receives credit for helping plan the raid, and his appearance at Fujimori's side -- Montesinos is almost never seen in public -- suggests that he has consolidated his power.

In the course of the raid, the execution of two teenage girls who were ready to surrender, and the dismemberment of some hostage-takers sends a clear message that anyone suspected of terrorism or being soft on terrorism can expect a similar fate.

Four weeks ago, an army intelligence agent, Leonor La Rosa, accused fellow officers of torturing her in the basement of the Peruvian military command, the "little Pentagon." Her lawyer was suspended from practicing for six months on the charge that he "slandered" the military tribunal trying her case. A few days before, the body of Mariella Barreto, also an officer with army intelligence, was found with head and hands chopped off near a shantytown. Four intelligence officers are in custody in connection with these crimes.

New reports published since the raid have detailed three similar murders. Though the motives are unclear, these crimes take place in the context of a power struggle in part over how best to deal with terrorism.

Fujimori says he will not tolerate human rights violations. But he has said this before -- as when the Peruvian military tortured and executed several students and a professor at La Cantuta University. Today, three years later, those convicted murderers are free -- indeed, these are the officers implicated in the crimes against La Rosa and Barreto.

Most Peruvians, poor and well-off, support Fujimori -- his approval rating jumped 30 points to 68% after the raid, with 84% approving the military solution itself. And many Peruvians feel that Fujimori is the key to defeating terrorism and a flourishing economy. The successful raid almost guarantees that the public will support changing the Constitution to allow him to run for a third consecutive term.

Fujimori saw the hostage-taking as a personal affront. This is why he would not concede a single demand to Tupac Amaru leader Nestor Cerpa, and why he was at the compound even before the smoke had cleared. The raid was meant to show that those who try to humiliate Fujimori will be annihilated. "Ahora comienza la cazeria -- now the manhunt begins," a businessman said to me.

"The lesson we should learn is to not fall into gloating that this group is finished," Fujimori said in a recent interview. "This is not the end."