Alberto Fujimori, the former Peruvian President whose complex and bitter legacy included restoring the country’s economy before being imprisoned for human rights violations and corruption scandals, died at the age of 86. “After a lengthy fight with disease, our father, Alberto Fujimori, has now left to meet the Lord. “We ask those who loved him to join us in praying for the eternal rest of his soul,” his daughter Keiko Fujimori said Wednesday night on X.
Fujimori, who ruled Peru from 1990 to 2000 during some of the country’s most divisive moments, had been fighting for his health, according to his primary care physician Alejandro Aguinaga, who spoke briefly to reporters outside Keiko Fujimori’s home earlier Wednesday.
Fujimori had earlier stated that he had been diagnosed with a new malignant tumor in May. Fujimori, a very divided personality in his country, brought the country back from the verge of economic disaster while also defeating a terrorist group that had destabilized the country. However, he was also an autocratic leader who deployed security forces to suppress opponents and was eventually found guilty of significant human rights violations and corruption.
From Political Outsider to Strongman:
Fujimori, the son of Japanese immigrants, attended an agricultural institution in Lima, Peru, before pursuing graduate studies in the United States and France. When he returned to Peru, he hosted an environmental television show before running for president in 1989 as the leader of a new party, Cambio 90 (“Change 90”), and defeated future Nobel Prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa.
His ascension saw him join a select group of Asian politicians who had led a non-Asian country. Fujimori took over a country in economic distress. Soon after entering power, he adopted severe economic policies called as “the Fujishock,” which quelled hyperinflation. He also declared victory against the Shining Path rebel movement, one of Latin America’s oldest guerrilla organizations, after his government apprehended the group’s commander, Abimael Guzman, who was responsible for tens of thousands of killings.
For some Peruvians, Fujimori’s domestic wins changed him from a political outsider to the strongman the country required. However, the former president possessed an authoritarian inclination, utilizing security forces to suppress opponents. Soon, allegations of misuse of power and corruption surfaced, casting a pall over his country’s achievements.
Fujimori’s then-wife, Susana Higuchi, publicly exposed him as corrupt in the early 1990s, alleging that his family illegally sold donated goods to Japan. After the couple split, Fujimori appointed their eldest daughter Keiko as Peru’s first lady ahead of his second term. Fujimori ran for an extraordinary third term in office in 2000 despite constitutional concerns about doing so. He won, forcing his primary opponent to allege electoral fraud.
However, his government collapsed spectacularly later that year when videos of Vladimiro Montesinos, his strong intelligence head for nearly a decade, were leaked, revealing Montesinos bribing an opposition legislator. The scandal swiftly escalated as additional damaging footage surfaced. Fujimori denied any misconduct, but public opinion began to shift. Many Peruvians were dubious, claiming he was aware of his top aide’s misuse of authority and embezzlement. That November, while on a vacation to Japan, Fujimori attempted to resign as Peruvian president by faxing home. The decision threw the country’s political scene into turmoil. Peru’s congress fired him days later, declaring him “morally unfit” to rule.
Legal Conflicts:
Fujimori has been in and out of prison in recent years due to his poor health, having been convicted in four separate criminal proceedings. In 2009, a special Supreme Court tribunal condemned him to 25 years in prison for ordering the deployment of a murder squad that killed people. In separate trials, the former president was convicted of entering into Montesinos’ home to obtain damning films, diverting money from the federal treasury to pay the spy head, allowing illegal wiretaps, and bribing lawmakers and journalists.
However, the pardon triggered violent protests in Lima and was widely condemned by human rights organizations and parliamentarians. It was eventually reversed, and in January 2019, he was sent to prison. Separately, in 2018, a Peruvian judge declared that he might face trial for allegedly authorizing the 1992 kidnappings, torture, and murder of six individuals in the central Peruvian hamlet of Pativilca, according to state-run news agency Andina. Even with many criminal convictions, Fujimori maintained his stance, claiming that any activities he committed were for the sake of the country. He remained in that role till the very end.
