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Alberto Fujimori

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Alberto Fujimori
Fujimori
Fujimori
Japanese name
Kanji藤森 謙也
Kanaアルベルト・ケンヤ・フジモリ
RomajiAruberuto Kenya Fujimori
Term in office1990-2000
PredecessorAlan García
SuccessorAlejandro Toledo

Alberto Kenya Fujimori (born July 28, 1938) was President of Peru from July 28, 1990, to November 17, 2000.

He was the first person of Asian descent to become head of state of a non-Asian nation. His presidency, which coincided with much domestic turmoil within Peru, is still controversial. By the end of his term he was widely criticized for an authoritarian leadership.

In late 2000, while representing Peru in a International Conference in Japan, he submitted his resignation by fax. The Peruvian Congress rejected his resignation and impeached him from office.

Early years

Alberto Fujimori was born in Lima to Japanese parents, natives of Kumamoto who moved to Peru in 1934. His parents applied to the Japanese consulate to keep the baby's Japanese citizenship.

He trained as an agricultural engineer. Before being elected president, he was rector of La Molina National University and then later president of the National Commission of Peruvian University Rectors (Asamblea Nacional de Rectores), a position that he held twice.

A dark horse candidate, Fujimori won the 1990 presidential election with his new party Cambio 90, beating the world-renowned writer Mario Vargas Llosa in a surprising upset. He capitalized on profound disenchantment with previous president Alan García and his APRA party. He also exploited distrust of Vargas Llosa's identification with the existing Peruvian political establishment and distrust of his carefully-reasoned campaign promises for neoliberal economic reform. During the campaign, he was affectionately nicknamed el chino ("the China-man"). Most observers believe his Japanese descent benefited Fujimori as much of the population is of Native American-descent, and his ethnicity helped set him apart from the Spanish-dominated political elites.

First term

During his first term in office, Fujimori's economic strategy, which Peruvians dubbed the Fujishock, bore no resemblance to the vague, populist program set out during the campaign under the slogan "Work, technology, honesty". Under close tutelage of the IMF, Fujimori embarked upon tough and wide-ranging economic reforms — far more drastic than anything Vargas Llosa had proposed — resulting in Peru's much-needed reinsertion in the global economy, from which it had become estranged during the García administration. Spurred on by the IMF, Fujimori went on a privatization spree, selling off hundreds of inefficient state-owned enterprises. Although the Fujishock brought macroeconomic stability and a brief upturn in the mid 1990s (economic growth exceeded 12% in 1994), it did so at tremendous social cost; it generated massive poverty.

Self-coup

Fujimori was elected President, but he did not have a mayority on Parlament. The APRA and FREDEMO were still in control of both chambers (Deputy and Senate) and block several (and desperately) needed economic reforms.

On April 5, 1992, Fujimori mounted a self-coup (in Spanish: autogolpe; sometimes called, in his honour fujigolpe), a coup d'état against his own government. His goals were thought to have been:

  1. the dissolution of parliament and setting up a National Assambly (Congreso Constituyente Democrático) for the purpose of amending the constitution.
  2. the co-option of the judiciary and the curtailment of the constitutional rights by state-of-emergencies and curfews.
  3. the total annihilation of the rebels, using 'severe emergency laws' (which reportedly included putting rebel supporters and their relatives in front of death squads).

There was little initial domestic resistance to the self-coup. An opinion poll carried out shortly thereafter indicated that Fujimori's decision to dissolve Congress and restructure the judicial system had a 73% approval rating. The economic and political situation was so poor at the time that for many Peruvians things could only get better. At the time, Fujimori's bold and risky economic reforms (the "Fujishock") appeared to be working.

The international reaction to the self-coup was predictably negative. International financial organizations delayed planned or projected loans, and the United States government suspended all aid to Peru other than humanitarian assistance, as did Germany and Spain. Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations, and Argentina withdrew its ambassador. Chile joined Argentina in requesting that Peru be suspended from the Organization of American States. The coup appeared to threaten the economic recovery strategy of reinsertion and complicated the process of clearing arrears with the IMF.

Even before the coup, relations with the United States had been strained because of Fujimori's reluctance to sign an accord that would increase United States and Peruvian military efforts in eradicating coca fields. Although Fujimori eventually signed the accord in May 1991, in order to get desperately needed aid, the disagreements did little to enhance bilateral relations. The Peruvians saw drugs as primarily a United States problem, and the least of their concerns, given the economic crisis, Shining Path guerrillas, and an outbreak of cholera, which further isolated Peru, due to the resulting ban on food imports.

However, two weeks after the self-coup, the Bush administration backed off and officially recognized Fujimori as the legitimate leader of Peru. The OAS and United States agreed that Fujimori's self-coup may have been extreme, but they did not want to see Peru return to the deteriorating state that it had been in before. In fact, the self-coup came not long after the US government and media had launched a media offensive against the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso, or SL) rural guerrilla movement. On March 12, 1992, Undersecretary of State for Latin American Affairs Bernard Aronson told the US Congress: "The international community and respected human rights organizations must focus the spotlight of world attention on the threat which Sendero poses... Latin America has seen violence and terror, but none like Sendero's... and make no mistake, if Sendero were to take power, we would see this century's third genocide" [after Nazi Germany and Cambodia]. Given Washington's concerns, long-term repercussions for the self-coup turned out to be modest.

Fujimori himself claimed the self-coup was necessary to break with the deeply entrenched interests which were hindering him from rescuing Peru from the chaotic state in which García had left it. But critics say he never could have implemented his drastic ultraliberal economic reforms under a democratic government.

Later in the year, on November 13, there was a failed military coup led by General Salinas. Fujimori sought temporary refuge in the Japanese Embassy.

In 1994, Fujimori separated from wife Susana Higuchi (also of Japanese descent) in a noisy, "public" divorce, and he formally stripped her of the title First Lady in August 1994. He thereupon appointed their elder daughter First Lady. Higuchi publicly denounced Fujimori as a tyrant and his administration as corrupt.

Second term

In April 1995, at the height of his popularity, Fujimori was re-elected in a landslide victory over Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, the former Secretary General of the United Nations. His independent party won control of the legislature. One of the first acts of the new congress was declaring an amnesty for all members of the Peruvian military or police convicted or accused of human rights abuses between 1980 and 1995.

During his second term, Fujimori signed a peace agreement with Ecuador on the border, with which Peru had territorial differences in the Amazon basin for more than a century, thereby allowing the two countries to obtain international funds for developing the border region. Fujimori also settled unresolved issues with Peru's southern neighbor Chile regarding El Tratado de Ancon (the Ancon Treaty).

However, his re-election was the turning point in Fujimori's career. After several years of economic stability and less terrorism, Peruvians now began to turn to other concerns, such as human rights, freedom of the press, and the return to genuine democracy; they also started paying closer attention to the growing web of scandals surrounding Fujimori and his chief of the National Intelligence Service, Vladimiro Montesinos, which finally led to his downfall in 2000.

2000 election

Fujimori declared his candidacy for the 2000 elections. He was declared winner of the May 28 election, amidst a flurry of accusations of irregularities.

The main opposition leader, Alejandro Toledo, campaigned vigorously to have the election annulled. However, but the corruption scandal then emerging around Vladimiro Montesinos, who was the director of Peru's National Intelligence Service (SIN), did his work for him. The already developing scandal exploded into full force when sources released to the media a videotape of Montesinos bribing an opposition legislator to switch sides. The video-tape, nicknamed Vladivideo was a mayor turning point in his presidency

Fujimori call for early elections, wich were due to be held on April 2001. He also stated that he will not be one of the candidates, since he will transfer the Government to the next President elected. Becouse of this, his political party Peru 2000 lost control of Congress. A new President of Congress was elected.

Representing Peru in a International Forum, and in deeply concern that he will be impeached, Fujimori presented his resignation. The Peruvian Congress reject it, and impeach him as morally unfit to hold the presidency.

Valentín Paniagua, President of Congress, was sworn in as interim president shortly thereafter.

Anti-terrorism

Fujimori is credited by many Peruvians for ending the 15-year reign of terror of Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the arrest of its leader, Abimael Guzmán. As part of his anti-terrorism efforts, Fujimori granted the military broad powers to arrest suspected terrorists and try them in secret military courts with few legal rights. At the same time he armed rural Peruvians to form the so called rondas campesinas ("peasant patrols") which were attributed part of the success of the fight against terrorism.

Guerilla activity declined onwards from 1992, and Fujimori claimed that his campaign had largely eliminated the terrorist threat.

However, it was the intelligence work of the DINCOTE (National Counter-Terrorism Directorate) which led to the capture of terrorist leaders, especially Shining Path's Abimael Guzmán. Critics also point out that to achieve the defeat of terrorist cells in various towns and cities the Peruvian military indulged in widespread human rights abuses, and the vast majority of the victims were poor highland campesinos caught in the crossfire between military and the guerrillas.

The final report of the Peruvian "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", published on 28 August 2003 revealed that while the majority of the atrocities committed between 1980 and 1995 were committed by the guerrillas, the Peruvian armed forces were also guilty of having destroyed villages and murdered campesinos they suspected of supporting the rebels.

The report indicates, most atrocities occurred during the 1980-1990 period, during the gevernment of Fernando Belaunde Terry (AP), and Alan Garcia (APRA).

On December 17, 1996, in one of the last major episodes of terrorism, Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA) terrorist seized the Residence of the Japanese ambassador in Lima during a party, taking hostage some 800 diplomats, government officials, and other dignitaries.

During the protracted four-month standoff, the Emerretistas gradually freed all but 72 of their hostages. The government rejected the terrorists demand to release imprisoned MRTA members and prepared an elaborate plan to storm the residence, while gaining time by negotiating with the terrorists.

On April 22, 1997, a team of Peruvian military commandos stormed the building to free the hostages. Two commandos and all 14 of the rebels died in the raid. One hostage, Supreme Court Judge Carlos Ernesto Giusti, died during the operation.

It emerged in 2002, on the basis of forensic investigation and testimony of witnesses, at least one of the terrorist surrendered, but was summarily executed by the commandos on the order of Vladimiro Montesinos.

In exile

As of 2004 Fujimori is in self-imposed exile in Japan, where his citizenship as foreign-born Japanese was confirmed because his parents registered him with Japanese consular authorities in Peru as an infant and he did not give it up under the 1985 citizenship law revision. Therefore his nationality was not at issue in his stay in Japan.

On September 5, 2001, Peru's attorney general filed homicide charges against former President Fujimori.

At the beginning of March 2003, at the behest of the Peruvian government, Interpol issued an international arrest order for Fujimori on charges that include murder, kidnapping and crimes against humanity. In addition, the Toledo administration lodged an extradition request with the Japanese government in September 2003.

The former president is accused of murder in connection with the 1991 Barrios Altos massacre in which fifteen people at a barbecue in a poor neighborhood of Lima were killed by an army death squad known as the Grupo Colina and thought to have been set up on Montesinos' initiative. The victims included an 8-year-old boy. Fujimori is also accused of murder in the 1992 La Cantuta massacre, in which nine students and a professor, suspected of belonging to Shining Path, were abducted from their university and murdered by the same army death squad.

In September 2003, congresswoman Dora Núñez Dávila (FIM) denounced Fujimori and several of his ministers for crimes against humanity because of forced sterilizations committed during his regime. According to Núñez, the Fujimori administration initiated a family planning program with extensive forced sterilizations in which health workers were given monthly quotas of sterilizations to perform.

On November 14, 2003, Congress approved more charges against Fujimori. It voted 63-0 with two abstentions to approve charges and investigate how much was he involve in the air-drop of nearly 10,000 Kalashnikov rifles into the Colombian jungle in 1999 and 2000 for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Fujimori maintains he had no knowledge of the arms smuggling and blames Montesinos. By approving the charges, Congress has lifted the immunity granted to Fujimori as a former president. It is now up to the attorney general's office to file charges and for courts to decide on a trial.

Congress also voted 65-0 with one abstention, to charge Fujimori for responsibility in the detention and disappearance of 67 students from Peru's central Andean city of Huancayo and the disappearance of several residents from the northern coastal town of Chimbote during the 1990s. They also approved charges that Fujimori mismanaged millions of dollars from Japanese charities to build schools, with an unexplained USD $2.3 million shortfall in funds received, among other irregularities.

Undaunted by the accusations and the judicial proceedings underway against him, which he dismissed as "politically motivated", Fujimori, from Japan, has established a new political party in Peru, Sí Cumple, to participate in the 2006 presidential elections. However, in February 2004, The Constitucional Court dismissed the possibility of Fujimori participating in those elections, noting that the fugitive ex-president was barred by Congress from holding office for ten years.

Critics of Fujimori believe that his new political party is more than anything a strategy of presenting himself as a "persecuted politician" to evade justice.

Legacy

Fujimori remains a controversial figure in Peru. On the one hand, he is credited for bringing stability to the country after the hyperinflation and guerrilla terrorism of the tumultuous García years, and. In 2004 he remained the most popular potential presidential candidate, with an approval rating of 17% in the polls.

However, another sectior of the population still views his rule as extremely corrupt. During his decade in power a network of corruption was created, headed his associate Montesinos, currently imprisoned at the Callao naval base. Montesinos is currently facing dozens of charges that range from embezzlement to drug trafficking to murder, and is undergoing a lengthy trial in Lima. It also remains to be seen whether or not Fujimori will be brought back to Peru to face the charges levelled at him.

See also

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