Yesterday's announced surrender by the Major Antauro Humala and his rebel troops in Andahuaylas, Peru, didn't happen at noon. The rebels objected to aggressive military actions by the government, including the placement of snipers on rooftops near the police station they had seized, and President Alejandro Toledo's order to send 1,000 troops to the town.

Instead, the rebel Major led a parade around the town, followed by ("hundreds" say Peruvian newspapers, "thousands" say international wire services) local townspeople supporting the rebellion.

The rebel "Ethno-Cacerista Movement" (named after General Andrés Cáceres, who led a guerrilla insurgency by Peru's indigenous and farmers against Chilean troops from 1879-1883) calls for nationalization of industry and legalization of the coca leaf, and speaks of rebirth of the ancient Incan civilization and of a Peru led by its majority indigenous.

At one point yesterday, government snipers opened fire, killing one rebel, and one civilian. Rebels killed at least one sniper, and took four more hostage, according to various wire reports.

At 10:30 p.m., Major Humala was negotiating his and his troops' surrender with government officials, and was taken prisoner.

Between "50" (some press reports) and "150" (other press reports) rebel troops remain barricaded inside the police station with between 10 and 19 hostages, along with Catholic priest and peace mediator Padre Jose Domingo Paliza, who, if government troops attack the building, is at risk.

From the point of view of military strategy, President Alejandro Toledo could not have botched the situation worse than he did yesterday: raising the tension immediately prior to an announced surrender, sending in more troops, placing snipers on rooftops, and talking tough against dissident army troops who had already announced their willingness to lay down their arms.

According to the national daily La Republica of the capital city of Lima, a power struggle has begun inside Toledo's own law enforcement and military agencies:

According to reliable sources, during a good part of the day there was considerable confusion regarding what was happening in Andahuaylas, who was in charge of the operations, and how they followed or did not follow the instructions from Lima...

The perception, in effect, was that there were parallel commands at the same moment in Andahuaylas. One side the national police general Felix Murazzo and on the other side army general Jose Williams Zapata. This perception came from half-hearted and contradictory actions over the course of the day...

Thus, what Toledo's government has accomplished is to have lost any hope of control of the situation: arresting the rebel group's spokesman in a trap set during a peace negotiation, leaving the hostages in custody of the remaining rebel troops, angering those rebel troops, taking away the main negotiator, leaving a popular priest and mediator in danger inside the compound, and causing a division among his own brass that now teeters into a more unstable situation for all...

In other words, another classic boneheaded Toledo maneuver and mishandling of the power of the presidency.

Where it goes from here, nobody can be certain.

According to a story in this morning's Mexican daily La Jornada compiled from various wire service reports, Major Humala spoke to reporters via cellphone as he was being arrested:

"I am under arrest by military order and in the coming hours I will be taken to the headquarters of the antiterrorist police in Lima."

A photo of Humala's arrest, under the banner headline "CAPTURED," fills the front page of Lima's daily La Republica this morning: he is the man of the hour. And he doesn't appear likely to shut up. Why should he?

Impacting...