Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement The Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement ( , abbreviated MRTA ) was a Marxist revolutionary group active in Peru from the early 1980s to 1997 and one of the main actors in the internal conflict in Peru . It was led by Víctor Polay Campos ( comrade " Rolando " ) until his incarceration and by Néstor Cerpa Cartolini ( comrade " Evaristo " ) until his death in 1997 . The MRTA took its name in homage to Túpac Amaru II , an 18th - century rebel leader who was himself named after his ancestor Túpac Amaru , the last indigenous leader of the Inca people . MRTA was considered a terrorist organization by the Peruvian government , the US Department of State and the European Parliament but was later removed from the U . S . list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations on October 5 , 2001 . At the height of its strength , the movement had several hundred active members . Its stated goals were to establish a socialist state and rid the country of all imperialist elements . Origins . The MRTA originated in 1980 from the merging of the Marxist - Leninist Revolutionary Socialist Party and the militant faction of the Revolutionary Left Movement , " MIR El Militante " ( MIR - EM ) . The former gathered several ex - members of the Peruvian armed forces that participated in the leftist dictatorial government of Juan Velasco Alvarado ( 1968 - 1975 ) , and the latter represented a subdvision of the Revolutionary Left Movement , a Castro ist guerrilla faction which was defeated in 1965 . The MRTA attempted to ally with other leftist organizations following the first democratic elections in Peru after a military government period ( 1968 – 1980 ) . Operations . The first action by the MRTA occurred on 31 May 1982 , when five of its members , including Victor Polay Campos and Jorge Talledo Feria ( members of the Central Committee ) robbed a bank in La Victoria , Lima . During the hold up , Talledo was killed by friendly fire and became the first loss of the movement . On 31 May 1989 , a group of six members of the guerrilla shot dead eight transsexuals , in the city of Tarapoto . The weekly " Cambio " , official organ of the MRTA , claimed the move as a subversive group ’ s decision because the police allegedly covered " these social ills , which were used to corrupt youth . " This was reported by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission ( TRC ) in its final report ( August 28 , 2003 ) . The date has been considered by the Peruvian LGBT movement as a historical landmark . Peru ' s counterterrorist program diminished the group ' s ability to carry out terrorist attacks , and the MRTA suffered from infighting as well as violent clashes with Maoist rival Shining Path , the imprisonment or deaths of senior leaders , and loss of leftist support . ln 2001 , several MRTA members remained imprisoned in Bolivia . On 6 July 1992 , MRTA fighters staged a raid on the town of Jaen , Peru , a jungle town located in the northern department of Cajamarca . One policeman , Eladio Garcia Tello , responded to the calls for help . After an intense shootout , the guerrillas were driven out of the town . Eladio Garcia perished in the firefight . Its last major action resulted in the 1997 Japanese embassy hostage crisis . In December 1996 , fourteen MRTA members occupied the Japanese Ambassador ' s residence in Lima , holding 72 hostages for more than four months . Under orders from then - President Alberto Fujimori , armed forces stormed the residence in April 1997 , rescuing all but one of the remaining hostages and killing all fourteen MRTA militants . Fujimori was publicly acclaimed for the decisive action , but the affair was later tainted by subsequent revelations that at least three , and perhaps as many as eight , of the MRTistas were summarily executed after surrendering . Trials and convictions . In a case that attracted international attention , Lori Berenson , a former MIT student and U . S . socialist activist living in Lima , was arrested on 30 November 1995 , by the police and accused of collaborating with the MRTA . She was subsequently sentenced by a military court to life imprisonment ( later reduced to twenty years by a civilian court ) . In September 2003 , four Chilean defendants were retried and convicted of membership in the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and participation in an attack on the Peru – North American Cultural Institute and a kidnapping - murder in 1993 . On 22 March 2006 , Víctor Polay , the guerrilla leader of the MRTA , was found guilty by a Peruvian court on nearly 30 crimes committed during the late 1980s and early 1990s . Truth and Reconciliation Commission . Peru ' s Truth and Reconciliation Commission determined that the group was responsible for 1 . 5 % of the deaths investigated . In its final findings published in 2003 , the Commission observed :