LIMA, AUG 17: Guerrillas from Peru's Maoist Shining Path movement have kidnapped 29 oil workers -- possibly including some foreigners -- in a remote jungle zone, police sources said today.

The opposition daily La Republica reported that a heavily armed rebel band on Friday captured the workers -- who were employed by local exploration company CGG working for French oil giant Elf -- in Peru's central jungle.

A national police source in the regional capital of Huancayo confirmed to Reuter that he had received a report from officials on the spot that between 50 or 60 Shining Path rebels had kidnapped up to 30 workers. ``According to the report, the terrorists threatened them. Some of the workers didn't want to go with them, so they beat them,'' he said in a telephone interview, adding that army patrols were sweeping the area in search of the hostages.

A journalist in the zone, who asked not to be named, told Reuters in a phone interview that he had confirmed the kidnapping with natives living nearby who witnessed it, and with local authorities. ``It seems Shining Path has taken the workers to a secret prison in the jungle,'' he said.

An anti-terrorist police source, also in Huancayo, confirmed that 29 or 30 workers had been reported kidnapped, and that army helicopters were searching for them yesterday. ``The information we have is that it is Sendero -- the attackers were shouting ``Long Live Sendero'' -- although the zone is normally used by the MRTA,'' he said in a phone interview, referring to Peru's smaller guerrilla movement, the Tupac Amaru revolutionary movement. ``We are investigating but it is very difficult because the terrorists have their hideouts underground.''

Shining Path and the MRTA have been highly active in the dense and isolated jungle area, mainly populated by Ashaninka Indians, throughout their 17-year war on the state. Anti-terrorist police sources have said remnants of both groups -- severely reduced in recent years as a result of a government offensive -- were hiding in the zone. The MRTA won world notoriety in December 1996 with the kidnapping of hundreds of guests at a Japanese Embassy party. They held 72 of their highest-profile hostages for 126 days until Peru's military stormed the Ambassador's residence, killing the 14 rebels and freeing alive all but one of the captives.

Overshadowed by the hostage crisis, Shining Path had been concentrating on regrouping forces and peasant education work, according to police.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.