Alberto Fujimori, Peru’s ruler of economic “Fujishock” and human rights abuses

( Spanish) – Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori died on Wednesday at the age of 86, his daughter Keiko Fujimori said in a message posted on X’s account.

Born on July 28, 1938, Alberto Fujimori was already a student when he first ran for president in 1990.

The surprise was great when the son of Japanese immigrants, and inexperienced in politics, beat in a second round of elections the famous writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who led a front of traditional right-wing parties.

He had to govern a country bled dry by terrorism and suffocated by hyperinflation, a situation he referred to during his trial for human rights violations and corruption.

“I had to govern from hell. Not from the palace, but from a hell that those who accuse me did not experience as I did. I only hope that those who sentence me try for a moment to imagine that hell and not try to civilize it from a distance,” Fujimori said.

A pragmatic man, Fujimori had ordered, weeks after starting his government, the “Fujishock” that eventually managed to reinsert Peru into the world economy.

On April 5, 1992, he closed down Congress and the judiciary in a coup d’état that allowed him to concentrate power.

In September of that year, the government captured the leader of the Shining Path, Abimael Guzmán, and his leadership, which was a major blow to that terrorist group.

In 1993, Fujimori promulgated a new Constitution, which is still in force today, which allowed, unlike the previous one, immediate presidential re-election, in five-year terms of government. A possibility that was repealed after his departure from power.

In this context, in 1995 he beat out former United Nations Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar in the polls, leading a second term marked by accusations of corruption and authoritarianism.

On April 22, 1997, the successful rescue operation of 71 of the 72 hostages from the Japanese ambassador’s house in Lima helped improve his popular acceptance.

In 2000, the possibility of a third term in government was allowed by the Congress of the Republic, which, with the “law of authentic interpretation”, considered that his first term should not be counted since it had been given within the framework of the old constitution.

Thus he defeated Alejandro Toledo at the polls, taking office on July 28, 2000, for a third term that would end quickly, with the events that began when two months later images of the intelligence adviser, Vladimiro Montesinos, considered “the power of the shadows” of the government, giving money to a congressman in exchange for political support, were made public.

Following the scandal, Fujimori paid Montesinos US$15 million in compensation and publicly thanked him for “services rendered to the nation.” The former intelligence adviser fled the country.

Months later, in November 2000, Fujimori resigned from the presidency while in Japan and, using the nationality inherited from his parents, avoided extradition to Peru for six years, which wanted him to face trials for corruption and human rights violations.

The situation was different when, in November 2005, the former president tried to return to Peru for reasons that have not yet been clarified, but ended up in Chile, which handed him over to the Peruvian justice system after an extradition process that lasted two years. He claimed to be innocent.

In April 2009, Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison as the indirect author of the crimes of qualified homicide and others against the students of La Cantuta and the Barrios Altos case, in which 25 people died.

Peruvians appear divided over the role of former President Fujimori in history. Those who applaud his “iron fist” were on the verge of bringing Keiko Fujimori, the former president’s daughter, to power in the presidential elections of 2011, 2016 and 2021.

The former president’s health had been deteriorating since he had cancer removed from his tongue in 1997, which subsequently caused a series of recurring precancerous lesions in his oral cavity.

In October 2012, Fujimori’s children formally asked then-President Ollanta Humala to grant a humanitarian pardon to the former president, who, according to his doctors, suffered from mouth cancer, hypertension and severe depression.

In separate trials, the former president was also found guilty of breaking into Montesinos’ home to steal incriminating videos, taking public money to pay the spy chief and authorizing illegal wiretaps and bribing lawmakers and journalists.

She received a medical pardon for her human rights abuses in December 2017 from then-Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Kuczynski’s office issued a statement at the time, saying that Fujimori “suffers from a progressive, degenerative and incurable disease,” adding that “prison conditions pose a serious risk to her life, health and integrity.”

But the pardon sparked violent protests in the capital Lima and drew widespread criticism from human rights organizations and lawmakers.

The pardon was eventually revoked and he was returned to prison in January 2019. Separately, in 2018, a Peruvian court ruled that he could be tried for allegedly authorising the kidnapping, torture and murder of six people in 1992 in the central Peruvian town of Pativilca, according to state news agency Andina.

In December 2023, Fujimori was released from prison after Peru’s Constitutional Court ordered his immediate release. His release from prison occurred because the high court’s ruling ratified a previous ruling by the same court, issued in March 2022, in which the effects of the humanitarian pardon granted to Fujimori in December 2017 by Kuczynski were restored.

Also a politician, his daughter Keiko ran unsuccessfully for president in 2021 for a third time. Her latest campaign acknowledged her father’s troubled political legacy and sought to reassure voters against a return to his authoritarian rule. However, she also promised to forgive him for his crimes. She ultimately came in second behind President Pedro Castillo, who took office on July 28 of that year and was removed from office on December 7, 2022.

Once released in July 2024, Keiko Fujimori revealed that her father aspired to be a presidential candidate once again. “We have discussed it and decided together,” Keiko Fujimori said in a message posted on her X account.