Alberto Fujimori

President of Peru (1990–2000)

• Born: July 28, 1938
• Place of Birth: Lima, Peru

Virtually unknown until elected to the presidency in 1990, Fujimori catapulted to international prominence for his handling of Peru’s crises of economy and security, taming inflation and quashing the terrorism of insurgent groups operating in the country. However, his actions while in office led him to be convicted of numerous crimes, including bribery and murder, and sent him to prison.

Early Life

Alberto Fujimori was one of five children born to Japanese immigrants. His father, Naoichi Fujimori, came from an impoverished family and immigrated to Peru in 1920 in search of economic opportunity. Naoichi began by working in the cotton fields, and later he began a tailoring business in the town of Huacho. He then traveled to Japan to marry, returning to Peru with his wife, Mutsue Inomoto, in 1934. The family settled in Lima, the Peruvian capital, and started a tire repair business. Fujimori, the couple’s second child, was born in 1938 on July 28, Peru’s independence day. After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the family endured racism along with the rest of the Japanese community in Peru, which numbered approximately seventeen thousand people at that time. The Fujimori family’s business was confiscated by the Peruvian government during the war.

The Fujimoris lived in a working-class area of Lima, and the children attended public schools. Young Fujimori was an outstanding student with a good work ethic. He excelled in school, graduating as valedictorian of his high school class in 1956. In 1961 he graduated at the top of his class from the Agrarian National University in Peru with a degree in agricultural engineering. He studied at the University of Strasbourg in France and then attended the University of Wisconsin in the United States, obtaining a master’s degree in mathematics in 1969.

Fujimori traveled widely and became fluent in several languages in addition to Spanish and Japanese. Like most Peruvians, Fujimori grew up a practicing Roman Catholic.

Life’s Work

Fujimori worked as a professor of mathematics at the Agrarian National University after receiving his master’s degree. He married Susana Higuchi, a civil engineer of Japanese descent, in 1974; they had four children. Fujimori served as the dean of sciences at his alma mater from 1984 to 1989 and then as president of the university. He starred in a talk show during this period called Getting Together, discussing topics of public interest, and became a noted political commentator.

In 1990, Fujimori, along with other prominent professionals, formed a political party called Cambio 90-Nueva Mayoría (Change 90-New Majority) in response to Peru’s instability. He ran for president, campaigning widely throughout the country with the slogan “honesty, technology, and work.” He appealed to the common person by emphasizing his background as the son of industrious immigrants, using colloquial language, and wearing regional dress. Referred to affectionately as El Chino because of his Asian heritage, Fujimori won the election over the favored candidate, writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who was considered too elite by many.

Peru was near economic collapse when Fujimori took office. Though he had campaigned for moderate economic policies, he immediately slashed food subsidies, curbed government spending programs, and employed incentives for privatization and foreign trade. The subsequent economic upheaval was termed “fujishock.” Though controversial, Fujimori succeeded in ultimately lowering the inflation rate and won acclaim for his efforts domestically and abroad.

Peru was also in the middle of a guerrilla war, suffering horrific violence and facing drug trafficking from rebel factions, most notably at the hands of the insurgent group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), whose acts of terror, including murder and kidnapping, made news across the globe. Fujimori instituted hard-line security measures, including arming portions of the rural populace—an act that caused much violence but derailed the insurgencies. In April 1992, to establish what he termed a “government of emergency and national reconstruction,” Fujimori directed the military to conduct a coup, dissolve the congress, arrest members of opposition parties, and temporarily take over the press. Sendero Luminoso leader Abimael Guzman was captured. Fujimori’s crackdown on terrorism through the suspension of civil liberties was considered controversial by some, but others were openly supportive of these strong-arm measures. The control of the insurgency, along with control of inflation and a dramatic improvement of economic prospects, brought Fujimori praise from many who touted the so-called Fujimori miracle.

While he was seeking reelection for his second term, Fujimori’s wife claimed that he was ethically compromised and so attempted her own bid for the presidency. However, that bid ended by provision of the Peruvian constitution. The couple divorced in 1995. That year Fujimori was reelected to the presidency by a large margin. While Fujimori still enjoyed tremendous popularity, many perceived that his abridgment of civil rights in his war on terrorism was being used against citizens with no ties to rebel factions. Rebel groups remained active, and in December 1996, the rebel group Túpac Amaru took over the Japanese ambassador’s residence, holding hostages inside until April 1997. At Fujimori’s directive, commandos stormed the residence, killed the insurgents, and freed the hostages.

Allegations of voter fraud hovered over Fujimori’s reelection in 2000 for an unprecedented third term. Vladimiro Montesinos, the head of intelligence and Fujimori’s closest ally, had been filmed during the campaign bribing a public official to switch political parties. The videotape shocked the Peruvian people and led to the destabilization of Fujimori’s office. While visiting Japan, Fujimori sent his resignation, via facsimile, to Peru. His resignation was rejected by the Peruvian government, which instead declared him unfit to govern and then voted him out of office. Charges of corruption and abuses of human rights were brought against Fujimori. For the next five years, Fujimori remained in Japan, in which he is a citizen by birthright, and was effectively protected from extradition. Near the end of 2005 he flew to Chile, was arrested there, and awaited the decision of the Chilean courts on the issue of his extradition. Attorneys prosecuting the case asked the Chilean government to prevent Fujimori’s flight from their country. In September 2007, after many hearings, Fujimori was extradited to Peru, where he stood trial for numerous charges.

In December 2007, Fujimori was sentenced to six years in prison for abuses of power. Further trials continued for months and featured testimony from more than eighty witnesses, and on April 7, 2009, Fujimori was convicted of crimes connected to two massacres and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He went on to be sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for corruption and eight years for bribery. The four sentences were to be served concurrently.

On Christmas Eve 2017, Peruvian president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned Fujimori, who was then seventy-nine and in failing health. Many political leaders and human rights advocates denounced the pardon, claiming it was a favor for support Kuczynski received from Fujimori's son that staved off an impeachment attempt against the leader. Peru's Supreme Court subsequently overturned Kuczynski's pardon, and Fujimori was returned to prison in early 2019 after receiving a clean bill of health from the hospital. Nevertheless, Peru's Constitutional Court continued to fight against his return to prison, voting in both 2022 and 2023 to reinstate his pardon. In December 2023, Fujimori was again released from prison, after being granted a humanitarian pardon from the Supreme Court. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights and others in the international community expressed disapproval with the ruling.

Despite Peruvian law that says a person convicted of corruption cannot run for the positions of president or vice president, Fujimori’s daughter announced in July 2024 that her father would seek the presidency in 2026.

Significance

It is unclear how history will judge Fujimori, who is alternately referred to as a dictator and a savior of his country. Fujimori’s experience as a child of poor immigrants and as an ethnic minority who was nonetheless successful in his career had a profound positive impact on many Latin Americans. His style of communication, which relied on direct contact and identification with oft-underrepresented sectors of society, such as rural and Indigenous groups, has been considered unique. That style was responsible for much of the popularity Fujimori enjoyed while president. Nevertheless, his tenure as Peru’s president proved extremely controversial, and his measures for bringing the insurgency and drug trafficking under control are much debated. His approach to this issue raised significant questions about the abridgment of civil liberties during a security crisis. It is likely that the 2007 rulings on his extradition to Peru and his subsequent convictions for corruption and human rights abuses could have a significant impact on the jurisdiction of cases involving heads of state, as well as human rights standards worldwide.

Bibliography

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