Alberto Fujimori, former leader of Peru, dies at 86
Alberto Fujimori, the former president of Peru who in his decade in office rebuilt the nation’s economy and quelled two deadly leftist insurgencies, but who was forced out by a corruption scandal and later imprisoned for human rights abuses, died Wednesday in Lima, the capital. He was 86.
He died of cancer at his daughter Keiko Fujimori’s home, she confirmed in a social media post. He had also been treated for arrhythmia and other ailments.
A son of Japanese immigrants, Fujimori was an obscure agricultural engineer and political novice when he ran for the presidency in 1990, famously campaigning aboard a tractor. He stunned the nation by placing a close second in a crowded field and then defeating the establishment favorite, novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, in a runoff.
In office, Fujimori tamed hyperinflation, unemployment and mismanagement; lifted economic growth and standards of living; and cracked down on drug trafficking. But he also showed little regard for Peru’s laws and institutions. He temporarily shut down Congress, governing by fiat for months. He was lauded for subduing the two insurgencies, Shining Path and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, but the brutality of his methods ultimately drew global criticism and brought him a long prison sentence.
His downfall seemed as improbable as his ascent. Toppled in 2000 after a television channel broadcast a videotape showing his intelligence chief trying to bribe a lawmaker, Fujimori fled to Japan, where he submitted his resignation by fax from a hotel in Tokyo. After five years in exile, he traveled to Chile to try making a political comeback; instead, he was extradited to Peru.
In 2009, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for atrocities that a military unit carried out early in his presidency, killing 25 people.