Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori buried as country grapples with his controversial legacy

(Reuters) – Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was accorded state honors and laid to rest Saturday, as the country grapples with the complex legacy of its most powerful — and most divisive — political leader in decades, who died this week at the age of 86.

Many Peruvians still revere Fujimori for leading the country out of a severe economic crisis in the 1990s and defeating the terrorist group Shining Path. Others say his authoritarian rule was to blame for clandestine killings of military personnel. He spent about 16 years behind bars for human rights abuses.

The coffin was honored in the courtyard of the Government Palace, with a greeting from the president, Dina Boluarte, bugle calls and a cannon salute.

“Thanks to him, terrorism is over,” said Felicita Ruiz, who came from the Andean region of Ayacucho, birthplace of the Maoist Shining Path, to pay tribute to the former president.

The conflict with the rebel group left 69,000 civilians and military personnel dead or missing, according to a Truth Commission. The shadow of that conflict continues to overshadow Peru to this day.

But while thousands of people like Ruiz lined up to bid farewell to the son of Japanese immigrants in Peru as a hero, carrying photos and statuettes of the former president who earned the nickname “Chino,” others protested against him and criticized his human rights record.

Killings by secret military groups during his government in the 1990s and accusations of corruption took a toll on Fujimori. He fled to Japan in 2000 after videos were released showing aides handing out wads of cash to lawmakers, businessmen and judges to support his government.

Fujimori was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in prison for human rights abuses as the “indirect author” of the deaths of 25 people, including a child. He was released from prison last December after a controversial pardon.

“This tribute is an insult,” said Maria Carbajal, adding that she was one of thousands of women sterilized as part of a Fujimori government program to reduce poverty in poor rural regions of Peru.

Some 300,000 women were sterilized in the campaign. Human rights groups and thousands of women say they were coerced. Fujimori has always maintained that the operations were consensual.

Peru has been in national mourning for three days since Fujimori’s death on Wednesday.

Fujimori is credited — much like former military dictator Augusto Pinochet in Chile — with putting Peru on a free-market economic course, helping turn the copper-rich country into one of Latin America’s most stable economies.

However, Peru’s reputation has come under pressure recently, with six presidents in seven years and political instability weighing on investment in copper mining, the country’s main economic driver. In some ways, this has further tarnished the memory of Fujimori.

“I was hoping he would be president again,” said a sobbing Yusi Canchari, after travelling for hours from the interior of Peru to view his body. Fujimori’s daughter-in-law, Keiko, had said in July that Fujimori could run again.

“You are finally free from hatred and revenge. You are free from those people who did not forgive you. You rescued us from hunger and pain. From those 16 years of unjust imprisonment,” Keiko said with a trembling voice, after thanking the thousands of people who marched to touch the former president’s coffin.

Others question Fujimori.

“It’s a shame because you are recognizing someone who was convicted and sentenced by the State itself for these serious crimes,” Gisela Ortiz, sister of a student killed during the Fujimori era, told local radio station Exitosa.

Lima resident Angel Taboada felt divided about Fujimori and did not know how to remember him.

“As president, he did good things, he fought terrorism, but he also had his drawbacks, with the massacre in La Cantuta, Barrios Altos, Pativilca,” he said, referring to three of the most notorious military massacres of the 1990s.