By IPS Correspondents
RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 29 1996 (IPS)

In order to win a political war in contemporary politics, one must also win the battle of communications. To convince public opinion that there is an unquestionable winner is as important — perhaps even more important — as defeating the opponent.

That principle, recently incorporated into the manuals of political crisis management, forces the protagonists of a conflict to act on two fronts simultaneously.

One of these fronts is the problem itself, and the other is the way in which public opinion perceives the development and outcome of the episode.

In this sense, a strategy for conflict resolution could be useless if it is not accompanied by a strategy for communication.

In the case of the seizure in the Japanese embassy in Lima, Peru, militants of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) have, until now, accumulated successes, while the government of president Alberto Fujimori has been on the defensive.

The kidnappers captured public attention through the audacity of their action, and their calm management — for the moment — of the situation inside the diplomatic headquarters, and because of their gradual release of hostages.

The insinuation that the seizure could be linked to an attempt to incorporate the guerrillas into legal public life has also contributed to generating a sympathetic public opinion.

This is particularly important, given the special circumstances of the Peruvian case, which is also having repercussions in other political scenarios, thanks to the presence of foreign diplomats among the hostages.

The decision on the part of the judiciary in Uruguay to free two MRTA members jailed in Montevideo — supposedly in exchange for the freedom of one diplomat in Lima — shows that the management of the crisis is not restricted to public opinion in Peru.

In this context, the actions of president Fujimori are inevitably much more complicated than those of his adversaries in the current crisis.

The internationalization of the seizure imposes difficult additional conditions on the Peruvian government, because it is forced to shape its strategies to public opinion in other countries, over which it exercises little control.

In circumstances such as these, foreign governments are concerned primarily about the lives of their citizens rather than the political situation in the country where the conflict is developing.

The reason is simple. To bring a hostage who was captured in a foreign country back home safe and sound always has positive political effects, even if in diplomatic terms the outcome is negative.

The situation president Alberto Fujimori is currently facing is also complicated because of the fact that he has to negotiate quietly, so that he doesn’t compromise the public image of a strong, anti-terrorist regime. Thus his partial achievements are not being made public and everything will depend on one big final move.

This allows the identification of the basic lines of the two communication strategies in course in the Peruvian crisis.

The kidnappers seem to be interested in accumulating partial impacts in order to generate a sympathetic image capable of neutralizing the possible negative effects of the outcome, while president Fujimori does not have many options other than gambling all his chips on a big finale.

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