Born in Lima, 1938, the son of Japanese farmhands who migrated four years earlier. Fujimori graduated top of his class in agronomic engineering at the Agrarian National University of “La Molina”. Following this, he earned an M.A. in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin.
Fujimori entered politics in the 1990 presidential election, riding a wave of anti-establishment feeling: the national response to a decade of sky-high inflation and terrorism at the hands of the Maoist “Shining Path”. His opponent, Mario Vargas Llosa was seen as yet another of Lima’s elitist candidates and he was duly swept away.
On August 8, less than two weeks into office, Fujimori u-turned on the economic policies he had campaigned on, replacing it with a radical, somewhat Thatcherite agenda that was dubbed ‘FUJISHOCK’. Fujimori liberalised the Peruvian economy and limited state interventionism, allowing business to boom. Alongside this, he eliminated state subsidies and price controls. As a result, prices exploded with gasoline costs increasing three-thousandfold. In the long term however, Fujimori’s drastic measures had finally stabilised the perennially troubled Peruvian economy. With further changes such as the replacement of the beleaguered Peruvian Inti with the Nuevo Sol, his early economic successes bought him allies amongst the Peruvian business elite. The slicing of inflation, which dropped from 7650% in 1990 to 139% in 1991, won him popular support with the working class as Peru’s economy grew rapidly, its 13% expansion being the world’s fastest at the time.
However, in April 1992, Fujimori dealt a grievous blow to Peruvian democracy. He ordered an ‘autogolpe‘ or self-coup. Backed by the armed forces, President Fujimori gained total control over all public institutions, dissolving Congress. While this move was morally dubious, polls at the time actually display a jump in approval for the Fujimori regime, reflecting the country’s longstanding dissatisfaction with the establishment and their failing democracy.
Fujimori used the autogolpe to remodel Peru’s constitution, further centralising power and set about pursuing his neoliberal agenda. With privatisations of state-owned mines, utilities and services under the general agenda of reducing interventionism, Peru’s GDP continued to grow.
One must note this about Fujimori’s presidency: while his means were questionable, he certainly achieved the ends, breaking a consistent streak of failure and incompetence held by previous Peruvian governments. Before Fujimori, the economy was debilitating but the issue of terrorism was perhaps even more serious. For years prior to his inauguration, the Communist ‘Shining Path’ guerrillas had been wreaking havoc on the nation. In some areas, they had completely taken over, demanding local residents pay taxes to them. Fujimori responded with an iron fist, ordering military trials of suspected terrorists which were of a standard inconsistent with basic human rights. He armed rural villagers so they could fight of the insurgents and created the ‘Grupo Colina’, a death squad which while effective in killing terrorists, had a knack for killing civilians. The culmination of Fujimori’s success was the 1992 arrest of Shining Path mastermind Abimael Guzman. Since then, bar sporadic episodes, Peru’s Shining Path has been in steep decline.
Despite these security and economic successes, by Fujimori’s third election in 2000, there were daily protests against his rule. The allegations of brutality made against Grupo Colina and Fujimori’s blatant authoritarianism had eroded his support. He won the 2000 election in a vote marred by further accusations of ballot-rigging. In the hearts of many Peruvians, he was no longer fit for office.
Eventually, the exterior pressure became too much to bear. Peru’s once untouchable economic mastermind who had dragged the country’s financial laughing stock to a position as one of the globe’s fastest-growing economies was forced to flee to Japan, resigning the Presidency via fax.
The story of this once mighty man ended, as it often does, in the courtroom. In 2009, the Peruvian Supreme Court sentenced Fujimori to 25 years in prison for human rights abuses during his presidency, centred around the actions of Grupo Colina. Eventually, in 2023, he was pardoned on grounds of poor heath, passing away in September of 2024. Undeniably, he died a man who had rescued Peru from the grasp of terrorism. Undeniably, he died a man who had rescued Peru from hyperinflation and economic crisis. Undeniably, however, he died a former autocrat, complicit in the deaths of countless innocent people in his crazed hunt of Peru’s terrorists. Fujimori was, to some extent, a tyrant. Fujimori was, to some extent, a saviour. Fujimori, put simply, was Fujimori.
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https://www1.udel.edu/leipzig/texts2/cnnd24047.htm https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/14/transformative-for-better-and-for-worse-whats-the-legacy-of-perus-alberto-fujimori https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2l2g3jjmxo https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alberto-Fujimori