Fujimori, Alberto

▪ 1998

      In 1997 Peruvian Pres. Alberto Fujimori faced some of the most formidable challenges of his seven years in office. Peru had been stunned in December 1996 when left-wing guerrillas stormed the residence of the Japanese ambassador during a party and took hundreds of people hostage. As the ordeal continued into 1997, many of the hostages were released, and by April only 72 people were still being held. The standoff ended on April 22 when government troops attacked the building; all of the guerrillas were killed, and all but one of the hostages were freed without serious injury. Fujimori's popularity rose as he was credited with the successful resolution of the crisis.

      A few short months later, however, the tide had turned and public support for him had reached an all-time low. His government was implicated in a phone-tapping scandal, and there was concern that he might have lost control to military and intelligence forces. After announcing his intention to seek a third term in the year 2000, Fujimori dismissed three Supreme Court justices, who had ruled that move unconstitutional. These actions led to the largest antigovernment demonstrations of his tenure and the resignation of several Cabinet ministers. Even potentially more ruinous, the political opposition alleged that Fujimori, a first-generation Peruvian of Japanese descent, had actually been born in Japan and therefore was ineligible to hold the office of president.

      That accusation was vehemently denied by his family, who had emigrated from Japan in 1934 and insisted that Fujimori was born on July 28, 1938, in Lima, Peru. After earning (1961) an agronomic engineering degree from the National Agrarian University in Lima, he did postgraduate studies at the University of Strasbourg, France, and at the University of Wisconsin. Prior to his bid for the presidency, he held teaching and administrative posts at the university level, and he also served as host of the television program "Getting Together."

      When Fujimori launched his 1990 presidential campaign, Peru's resources had been depleted by a decade of guerrilla war, and the country suffered from an unstable economy. Although a political outsider up to that time, Fujimori formed the political party Cambio (Change) 90 and mounted a grassroots campaign that involved selling his truck and tractor to secure campaign funds. To the surprise of many, he was elected president of Peru in a runoff election on June 10, 1990. Owing in part to his progress in checking both inflation and guerrilla activity, he won a second term in the 1995 election, securing almost two-thirds of the popular vote. Although the country's economy had greatly improved by 1997 and inflation was at its lowest rate in over two decades, Fujimori's prospect for a third term remained uncertain.

SANDRA LANGENECKERT

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▪ president of Peru

born July 28, 1938, Lima, Peru

      Peruvian politician and president of Peru from 1990 to 2000.

      Fujimori, the son of Japanese immigrants, earned a degree in agronomic engineering from the National Agrarian University in Lima (1961). He then traveled abroad to pursue graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Strasbourg, France. After returning to Peru, he joined the faculty at his alma mater, eventually serving as rector (1984–89). In 1988–89 Fujimori hosted a television show, Concertando (“Getting Together”), which examined environmental and agrarian issues.

      In 1989, as terrorism and hyperinflation plagued Peru, Fujimori began a bid for the presidency as the head of a new party, Cambio 90 (“Change 90”). His successful grassroots campaign quickly garnered attention because of Fujimori's Japanese ancestry and his populist rhetoric, including criticism of the economic shock tactics advocated by the conservative candidate, novelist Mario Vargas Llosa (Vargas Llosa, Mario). In June 1990 Fujimori defeated Vargas Llosa in a runoff election with 56.5 percent of the vote. However, on August 8, less than two weeks after taking office, Fujimori instituted austerity measures as harsh as those he earlier had decried, including raising the price of gasoline by 3,000 percent. The policy—popularly known as “Fujishock”—wiped out inflation but caused immediate layoffs and hardships among the poor.

      In April 1992, increasingly frustrated with the legislature, which supported few of his programs, Fujimori staged an autogolpe (“self-administered coup”) with military support, declaring a state of emergency, dissolving Congress, and calling for a new constitution (promulgated in 1993). Fujimori's political allies subsequently won a majority of legislative seats, which allowed the president to rule nearly unopposed. On the economic front, he carried out neoliberal policies such as privatizing state-owned mines and utility companies. Fujimori's government also prosecuted an anti-insurgency campaign on various fronts, including arming villagers and conducting secretive military trials of suspected terrorists. Fujimori claimed credit for the program's successes, including the capture in 1992 of Abimael Guzmán Reynoso, the leader of the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) rebel movement and the storming in 1997 of the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima, where dozens of hostages had been held by members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.

      In the mid-1990s Fujimori's wife, Susana Higuchi, publicly denounced him as corrupt and undemocratic and sought to run against him in the 1995 elections. Fujimori, however, had earlier passed a law prohibiting immediate relatives of the president from seeking the office, and she was ultimately barred from entering the race. He named his eldest daughter the country's new first lady and easily won a second term with 64 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, Vladimiro Montesinos, head of the country's secret police and Fujimori's closest adviser, increased his influence in the military and used the country's secret police to infiltrate opposition political parties, bribe legislators and electoral officials, muzzle the media, embezzle and redirect government funds, and carry out human rights abuses, including illegal arrests and torture. Many Peruvians subsequently accused Fujimori of condoning those acts and of destroying relevant evidence, though he denied the charges.

      Fujimori sought a controversial third term in 2000, after dismissing high justices who had declared his candidacy unconstitutional. The main opposition candidate, Alejandro Toledo, withdrew from the final round of the election after claiming electoral fraud. Thus, Fujimori won the election unopposed but faced condemnation from the Organization of American States, the United States government, and an increasing number of Peruvians. His government crumbled in late 2000 when a video was released that showed Montesinos bribing a congressman. Amid growing allegations of corruption, Fujimori left Peru, eventually arriving in Japan, where he announced his resignation. Peru's legislature, however, rejected it and formally voted Fujimori out of office, declaring him “morally unfit.”

      As Peruvian officials investigated charges against Fujimori, including allegations that he was involved in the killing of more than two dozen people by death squads, the Japanese government declared (2001) that he had dual Peruvian-Japanese citizenship and refused repeated extradition requests. Meanwhile, Fujimori continued to influence Peruvian affairs from abroad. In 2005 he traveled to Chile in hopes of contesting the 2006 presidential election—though he was prohibited from seeking office until 2011. Upon his arrival he was arrested at Peru's request. His petition to appear on the 2006 ballot was later rejected by Peru's election tribunal. In 2007, while still imprisoned in Chile, Fujimori unsuccessfully ran for a seat in Japan's Diet (parliament). In September of that year, Chile's Supreme Court approved his extradition to Peru, ending a protracted legal battle. A day after the ruling, Fujimori was returned to his home country, where he faced charges of corruption, kidnapping, and murder. In December 2007 he was convicted for ordering an illegal search of the home of Montesinos's wife in 2000 and was fined and sentenced to six years in prison for abuse of power; Fujimori continued to stand trial for more serious charges of human rights violations related to his time in office.

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