Fujimori, Alberto << foo hee MAWR ee or foo jee MOHR ee, ahl BEHR toh >> (1938?-…), was president of Peru from 1990 to 2000. He was the first person of Japanese descent to hold the top political office of another country. As president, Fujimori was generally successful in improving the Peruvian economy and fighting terrorism. But he was also severely criticized for violating human rights and civil liberties.
There is some disagreement about when and where Fujimori was born. His parents immigrated to Peru from Japan. According to Fujimori’s birth certificate, he was born on July 28, 1938, near Lima. In 1997, however, a Peruvian magazine produced immigration papers suggesting that Fujimori was really born in Japan or at sea. It also produced a baptismal certificate that had been altered. Official records might have been changed because only native-born Peruvians are eligible to serve as president. The government claimed that the differences in the documents were due to poor record keeping.
Fujimori graduated from Lima’s La Molina National University of Agriculture in 1961 as an agronomist—that is, a person trained in farm management. He then became a mathematics instructor there. He interrupted his academic career in Peru to pursue postgraduate studies at the University of Strasbourg in France and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he obtained a master’s degree in mathematics in 1972. Fujimori then returned to La Molina, where he was elected head of the university in 1984.
Fujimori founded the Cambio 90 (Change 90) party in 1989 and ran for the presidency on its ticket in 1990. Widespread dissatisfaction with Peru’s established political parties helped him place a close second to Mario Vargas Llosa, the famous novelist and overwhelming favorite, in the election. In the runoff election, Fujimori defeated Vargas Llosa by a landslide.
In April 1992, with the backing of the military, Fujimori seized absolute power in a presidential coup (takeover). He suspended the Constitution, dismissed Congress, and reorganized the court system. However, under intense international pressure, Fujimori soon announced elections for a Constituent Assembly that would draft a new constitution. Fujimori’s supporters won a majority of seats in the Assembly and approved a new constitution that allowed a sitting president to run for a second term. Previously, a president could serve only one term. Fujimori was easily reelected president in 1995.
In 1997, Fujimori played a major role in directing the liberation of hostages held by terrorists in the Japanese ambassador’s residence. In 1998, he signed a peace treaty that ended a long-standing conflict between Peru and Ecuador.
In elections held in April 2000, Fujimori failed to receive a majority of the votes for the presidency, forcing a runoff election between him and opposition candidate Alejandro Toledo. Fearing that Fujimori would use fraud to win, Toledo withdrew from the presidential race shortly before the runoff election was held in May. Many opposition supporters then boycotted the election or spoiled their ballots. Fujimori was reelected to a third term as president.
In September 2000, Fujimori announced that he was calling for new elections. The announcement came amid a bribery scandal involving Vladimiro Montesinos Torres, a top Fujimori aide and the head of Peru’s National Intelligence Agency. In November, while on a diplomatic visit to Japan, Fujimori submitted his resignation as Peru’s president. However, the Peruvian National Assembly refused to accept his resignation. It instead declared him “morally unfit” for the presidency and removed him from office.
Fujimori remained in Japan, in exile. The Peruvian government made several attempts to force his return to Peru to face charges of corruption and human rights abuses. In 2005, Fujimori traveled to Chile. He intended to run in Peru’s 2006 presidential election. However, Chilean officials arrested Fujimori after he arrived in their country. In 2007, Fujimori was extradited (handed over) to Peru. In several trials, he was convicted of abuse of power, corruption, and ordering the murders and kidnappings of suspected leftist rebel sympathizers during his presidency. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
In 2017, President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski granted Fujimori a humanitarian pardon, apparently on medical grounds. The Supreme Court overturned the pardon in 2018, finding it had been politically motivated, and Fujimori returned to prison. In 2022, Peru’s Constitutional Tribunal reinstated the pardon. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered that Fujimori not be released from prison until the court could review the case. However, Fujimori was released in 2023.
