The Death of Fujimori: Complex reactions from a country divided over his dark legacy
The Death of Fujimori: Complex reactions from a country divided over his dark legacy
'Fujimorismo' didn't end when the strongman was jailed, and it is unlikely to end with his death, but it does represent the turning of a chapter in Peruvian politics
“Alberto Fujimori Dies at the age of 86”. “Ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori died”. “They mourn for 'Chino'”. “Fujimori in history”. “Will hatred come to an end?”. These were the headlines in Peru’s largest newspapers on September 12 one day after the death of Alberto Kenya Fujimori Inomoto, the outsider engineer who became president in 1990, staged an “auto-golpe” in 1992, and fled the country, resigning from office from Japan in 2000, in a letter sent by fax.
He was convicted of crimes against humanity and corruption. After receiving a pardon, he died at his residence at the age of 86.
My first thought was that his death defined the end of an era in Peru. Politics, the economic system, and our society have been shaped in some way by the figure of Fujimori. His economic measures, to a lesser or greater extent, turned us into the informal country we are today. And above all by the feelings of a society divided between those who remember him fondly for his irreverence, and those who will never forget his fundamental role in grave crimes against the state and its population.
Fujimori's death was announced by his eldest daughter, Keiko, via Twitter (X) at around 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 11. On Thursday morning, the three-day wake began, which is taking place in a room of the Ministry of Culture, located in the Lima district of San Borja for a burial to take place on Saturday in a private cemetery.
On the first day, hundreds of supporters attended with photos and posters of Fujimori and family members and political figures.
“The best memory of our dear Alberto is that he stabilized the economy, defeated terrorism, and built schools. Before, we poor people did not have televisions or cell phones. Now even the poorest, the humblest little house, has a big TV and a cell phone”, says a woman who has been waiting for more than 4 hours to see the coffin.
Where does this popular fervor towards a would-be dictator who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for, among other crimes, the intellectual authorship of two massacres against 25 people, forced sterilization of hundreds of thousands of Indigenous women, and his direct role in the kidnappings and forced disappearances carried out by death squads under his command?
The Power of ‘the Chino’
Fujimori, nicknamed “Chino” (the Chinaman) by supporters and Peruvian press, due to his asian facial features, became president in July 1990, after defeating the writer -and today Nobel Literature Prize winner- Mario Vargas Llosa in a campaign in which he took advantage of the crisis of traditional politics to position himself as an agronomist engineer (specialized in agriculture) outside the system.
The campaign, in 1989, took place amidst a skyrocketing annual inflation of 2700%, and at the height of Peru’s internal conflict with Maoist armed group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path)— a conflict that had ravaged and installed terror throughout the country, particularly in Peru’s countryside.
Upon taking office Fujimori adopted a severe anti-inflationary plan of austerity and privatization known as “Fujishock”, which caused a devaluation of salaries and provoked discontent in union sectors as well as Congress.
On April 5, 1992, in the face of a hostile Parliament, Fujimori carried out a self-coup d'état. With the backing of the armed Forces, he dissolved Congress and the judiciary, taking full control of both legislative and judicial powers. Months later, in September, Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Shining Path, was captured.
Both events resulted in high levels of popularity for the president who, after promoting a new Constitution in 1993, comfortably won the 1995 elections, and counted among his supporters a majority of working class voters.
After forcing through a Constitutional amendment to allow for a third term, Fujimori won elections again in 2000. However, by this point, his massive expansion of military powers and Peru's intelligence agency, had resulted in him being viewed as increasingly authoritarian.
Amidst serious accusations of electoral fraud and corruption against his regime and his shadowy advisor, Vladimiro Montesinos, he resigned from the presidency shortly afterward.
When he resigned, Fujimori left the country to attend the APEC forum in Brunei, a Southeast Asian country, after which he was scheduled to go to Panama for another event but decided to stay in Tokyo. From there, he sent his letter of resignation via fax. Congress refused to accept his resignation and dismissed him for “permanent moral incapacity”.
The Fall of the strongman did not end his movement
Upon his return to Peru in 2007, Fujimori was tried for a series of crimes and human rights violations, among the crimes was the formation of “the Colina Group”, a paramilitary squad that assassinated union leaders, Indigenous activists, and carried out two massacres between 1991 and 1992.
The first was in the Lima neighborhood of Barrios Altos, where 15 people attending a party were killed, including an 8-year-old boy. The following year, at La Cantuta University, nine students and a professor were killed.
In 2009, the Supreme Court sentenced Fujimori to 25 years in prison for his direct role in both massacres. It was the first time that a former constitutional president in Latin America was tried and convicted for crimes against humanity in his own country.
To this sentence were added others for participation in two kidnappings, wiretapping, spurious payments to congressmen, bribing media owners and editors in Lima in return for support in the press, and various acts of corruption.
After his death, cases such as the Pativilca massacre and the forced sterilizations of more than 270,000 women and 22,000 men, mostly of indigenous origin, remain of crucial and dark political relevance.
In recent decades, even from jail, Fujimori played a central role in Peruvian politics and his political movement, Fujimorismo, survived, and continues to be championed by his daughter, Keiko Fujimori, who has repeatedly run in presidential elections.
His legacy
For Héctor Villalobos, editor of Politics of the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio, “both for his followers and his detractors, the political impact of Fujimori's figure is undeniable.” The last three elections in Peru “were defined by the confrontation between ‘Fujimorism’ and ‘anti-Fujimorism’, a polarity that continues today.”
Political scientist Eduardo Dargent believes that Fujimori “has become a symbol for a sector of the right-wing, people who did not even know him, but who use him and what Fujimorism was for their current political fights”.
“Fujimorism institutionalized a series of economic policies that are key to understanding today's Peru, for both good and bad . Fujimori was the political face of an alliance that made it possible to build for 10 years many of the same institutions that he created,” he said.
Regarding the current laments and public grieving in Peru over his death, Villalobos says “it is because the figure of Fujimori continues to polarize and will continue to do so long after his death”. “He maintains a large base of followers because they thank him for his success in defeating terrorism and economic recovery.”.
However, the journalist warns that Peru must not ignore the institutional breakdown, authoritarian takeover, and human rights violations that occurred during his regime. “His death closes an important chapter in our history and leaves as a legacy a political force that bears his name”, he emphasizes.
Along the same lines, Dargent states that although “many of the legacies of Fujimorismo are terrible in the sense of ‘disrupting and destroying”, one should not “fail to recognize that it marked politics in Peru in many different ways”.
