Alberto Fujimori

A Peruvian of Japanese descent,^[11] Fujimori studied to be an agricultural engineer, and later obtained a master's degree in mathematics. From 1984 to 1989 he served as rector of the National Agrarian University before winning the presidency in the 1990 Peruvian general election.


In the 1992 Peruvian self-coup, Fujimori dissolved the Congress and assumed full legislative and judicial powers. He changed the constitution and served as a figurehead president under Montesinos and the Peruvian Armed Forces^[7][12] and would reportedly adopt Plan Verde – a plan that involved the genocide of impoverished and indigenous Peruvians, the control or censorship of media in the nation and the establishment of a neoliberal economy controlled by a military junta.^{[13][14][15][16][17]} Fujimori won the presidential elections in 1995 and 2000.


During his tenure, his policies primarily received support from the military, Peru's upper class and international financial institutions, helping him maintain control of Peru.^[18] His supporters credit his government with the creation of Fujimorism, defeating the Shining Path insurgency and restoring Peru's macroeconomic stability.^{[19][20][21][22]} Even amid his later prosecution in 2008 for crimes against humanity relating to his presidency, two-thirds of Peruvians polled voiced approval for his leadership in that period.^[23] Neoliberal policies and his political ideology of Fujimorism have influenced the governance of Peru into the present day through a cult of personality.^[24]


In 2000, facing charges of corruption and human rights abuses, Fujimori fled Peru and took refuge in Japan.^[25][26] He maintained a self-imposed exile until his arrest while visiting Chile in November 2005.^[27] He was extradited to face criminal charges in Peru on 22 September 2007.^[28] In December 2007, Fujimori was convicted of ordering an illegal search and seizure and was sentenced to six years imprisonment.^[29][30][31] The Supreme Court upheld the decision on appeal.^[32] In April 2009, Fujimori was convicted of human rights violations and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for his role in kidnappings and murders by the Grupo Colina death squad during his government's battle against leftist guerrillas in the 1990s. Specifically, he was found guilty of murder, bodily harm and two cases of kidnapping.^{[33][34][35][36][37]} The verdict marked the first time that an elected head of state has been extradited to his home country, tried, and convicted of human rights violations.


In July 2009, Fujimori was sentenced to 7+1⁄2 years imprisonment for embezzlement after he admitted to giving $15 million from the Peruvian treasury to Montesinos.^[38] Two months later, he pleaded guilty in a fourth trial to bribery and received an additional six-year term.^[39] Transparency International determined the money embezzled by the Fujimori government – about $600 million or about $861 million in 2021 – to be the seventh-most for a head of government active within 1984–2004.^[40][41] Under Peruvian law, all the resultant sentences must run concurrently; thus, the maximum length of imprisonment remained 25 years.^[42]


In December 2017, Fujimori was pardoned by President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, shortly after Fujimori's son, Congressman Kenji Fujimori, helped President Kuczynski survive an impeachment vote.^[43][44] The pardon was overturned by Peru's Supreme Court on 3 October 2018, and Fujimori was sent back to prison in January 2019.^[45][46][47] The Constitutional Court of Peru in a 4–3 ruling on 17 March 2022 reinstated the pardon.^[48] On 8 April 2022, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights overruled the Constitutional Court and ordered Peru not to release Fujimori.^[49] The Constitutional Court ordered on 5 December 2023 that he be immediately released.^[50]


His daughter Keiko Fujimori, who is active in Peruvian politics and has run for president several times, has said that she would pardon her father should she be elected.

Early life, education and early career[edit]

According to government records, Fujimori was born on 28 July 1938, in Miraflores, a district of Lima.^[51] His parents, Naoichi Fujimori (original surname Minami, adopted by a childless relative) and Mutsue Inomoto, were natives of Kumamoto, Japan, who migrated to Peru in 1934.^[52][53]


In July 1997, the news magazine Caretas alleged that Fujimori was born in Japan, in his father's hometown of Kawachi, Kumamoto Prefecture.^[54] Because Peru's constitution requires the president to have been born in Peru, this would have made Fujimori ineligible to be president.^[52] The magazine, which had been sued for libel by Vladimiro Montesinos seven years earlier,^[55] reported that Fujimori's birth and baptismal certificates might have been altered.^[54] Caretas also alleged that Fujimori's mother declared having two children when she entered Peru;^[54] Fujimori is the second of four children.^[56] Caretas' contentions were hotly contested in the Peruvian media; the magazine Sí described the allegations as "pathetic" and "a dark page for [Peruvian] journalism".^[57] Latin American scholars Cynthia McClintock and Fabián Vallas note that the issue appeared to have died down among Peruvians after the Japanese government announced in 2000 that "Fujimori's parents had registered his birth in the Japanese consulate in Lima".^[52] The Japanese government determined that he was also a Japanese citizen because of his parents' registration in the koseki.^[58]


Fujimori obtained his early education at the Colegio Nuestra Señora de la Merced^[59] and La Rectora School.^[60] Fujimori's parents were Buddhists, but he was baptized and raised Roman Catholic. Aside from Spanish, he also spoke Japanese, due to it being the primary language in his childhood home.^[61] In 1956, Fujimori graduated from La Gran Unidad Escolar Alfonso Ugarte in Lima.^[62]


He went on to undergraduate studies at the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina in 1957, graduating in 1961 first in his class as an agricultural engineer. The following year he lectured on mathematics at the university. In 1964 he went to study physics at the University of Strasbourg in France. On a Ford scholarship, Fujimori also attended the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee^[63] in the United States, where he obtained his master's degree in mathematics in 1969.


In 1974, he married Susana Higuchi, also Japanese-Peruvian. They had four children, including a daughter, Keiko, and a son, Kenji, who would later follow their father into politics.


In recognition of his academic achievements, the sciences faculty of the National Agrarian University offered Fujimori the deanship and in 1984 appointed him to the rectorship of the university, which he held until 1989. In 1987, Fujimori also became president of the National Commission of Peruvian University Rectors (Asamblea Nacional de Rectores), a position which he has held twice. He also hosted a TV show called "Concertando" from 1988 to 1989, on Peru's state-owned network, Channel 7.^[64]