Alberto Kenya Fujimori Fujimori is a former Japanese-Peruvian politician who served as the 62nd President of Peru from 28 July 1990 to 22 November 2000.
Background
Fujimori was born on 28 July 1938, in Miraflores, a district of Lima. His parents, Naoichi Fujimori (original surname Minami, adopted by a childless relative; 1897–1971) and Mutsue Inomoto Fujimori (1913–2009), were natives of Kumamoto, Japan, who immigrated to Peru in 1934. He holds dual Peruvian and Japanese citizenship, his parents having secured the latter through the Japanese Consulate. He has three other siblings. Fujimori’s place of birth continues to be a topic of debate. While some sources claim that he was born in Peru, few others say that Japan is his birthplace.
Fujimori's parents were Buddhists.
Education
Fujimori obtained his early education at the Colegio Nuestra Señora de la Merced and La Rectora. While he spoke mainly Japanese at home, Fujimori also learned to become a proficient Spanish speaker during his years at school. In 1956, Fujimori graduated from La gran unidad escolar Alfonso Ugarte in Lima.
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.
Fujimori received post-graduate training at the University of Strasbourg in France and in the United States, earning a Master's degree in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1969. He was awarded honorary doctorates by the universities of Glebloux in Belgium and San Martin de Porres in Peru. Widely traveled in Peru and abroad, Fujimori spoke Spanish, Japanese, English, French, and German.
Career
In in 1962 he returned to La Molina as a professor of mathematics.
In 1984, shortly after becoming dean of the Faculty of Sciences at La Molina, that university's assembly elected him rector (president) of the school for a five-year term. The rectors of Peru's 30 other national universities chose Fujimori president of their council for the period 1987-1989.
Two years before the 1990 general election, Fujimori and several other politically independent professionals and businessmen founded the Cambio 90 (Change 90) movement as a vehicle for their participation in the contest. Meanwhile, Fujimori increased his public visibility as the host of "Getting Together, " a radio program devoted to public affairs. In this capacity he demonstrated his awareness of important issues and a notable ability to foster understanding among guests with opposing views.
The victor in Peru's 1990 presidential election would face a nearly impossible challenge. A $20-billion foreign debt had not been serviced regularly in several years. Peru's domestic economy was near collapse. A ten-year war with the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas, fanatical Maoists, had taken 20, 000 lives. International drug traffickers had established a powerful presence within the country. Nevertheless, nine candidates vied for the presidency.
For several months prior to the vote, internationally renowned novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, representing the conservative Democratic Front (Fredemo) coalition, was heavily favored to win. He seemed likely to trounce his mainly leftist challengers and achieve the 50 percent plurality required for direct election in the April 8 first round of balloting. But he frightened many citizens with his plan to attack the huge budget deficit and 3, 500 percent inflation with a quick "shock therapy, " which included the elimination of subsidies for staple foods, fuel, and utilities, and the firing of thousands of government workers. In the final months of the campaign Fujimori, a self-styled centrist whose "plan" consisted of little more than the slogan "honesty, hard work, and technology, " surged from an obscure four percent standing in the polls to within three points of Vargas Llosa's 27 percent first-place finish, forcing a runoff.
In the second contest Fujimori charged that Vargas Llosa's "shock" would place too large a burden on poor Peruvians. He promised more gradual remedies for the nation's economic ills. Fujimori also criticized his opponent's emphasis on military solutions to the guerrilla and drug problems. The Cambio 90 candidate proposed to undercut support for the insurgents through economic development and to wean peasants away from the cultivation of coca (the source of cocaine) with a program of crop substitution.
On the June 8 election day, Fujimori won most of the votes that had gone to candidates eliminated in the first round, garnering 56. 5 percent of the total to 34 percent for Vargas Llosa. Analysts noted that the light-skinned members of Peru's elite and middle-class voted heavily for Vargas Llosa, while Fujimori was favored by working-class citizens of Indian ancestry. Although himself a Roman Catholic, Fujimori received crucial support from the nation's small evangelical Christian community, whose members canvassed for him, missionary-like, door to door.
President Fujimori was inaugurated on July 28, 1990. He asserted in his inaugural address that he had inherited a "disaster" from his predecessor, Alan Garcia Pérez. The new administration quickly introduced its own economic "shock. " The prices of many basic foods doubled and tripled overnight, while the cost of gasoline (which had been subsidized at seven cents per gallon) increased nearly 30-fold. Rioting occurred throughout the country, and Peru's major labor federations staged general strikes. Fujimori's popularity plummeted along with the purchasing power of civilians. But the spiraling rate of inflation slowed, allowing the administration to implement its other programs for economic recovery. Fujimori's autogolpe (self-coup) abolished Peru's constitution, Congress, and Supreme Court. It was after this point that he seized complete power.
Nicknamed "El Chinito" (The Little Asian) by the public, the diminutive and soft-spoken Fujimori held a black belt in karate and traced his ancestry to Samurai warriors. Fujimori won the election in 1995 by a landslide.
In December of 1996 Peru and Fujimori became the center of attention once again as hundreds of foreign dignitaries were held hostage in the Japanese ambassador's mansion by an armed group of Tupac Amaru guerrillas. The hostage stance lasted for months, with the entire world waiting for a move to be made. On April 22, 1997, the seize ended when Peruvian commandos stormed the mansion. The resulting gunfire and ambush freed all remaining hostages and killed the 14 guerillas.
According to an operation conducted by intelligence agency Vladimiro Montesinos, between the years 1996 and 2000, Fujimori administration had apparently forced around 300, 000 women to undergo sterilisation to control the growing population in Peru.
Fujimori contested presidential elections for the third time in the year 2000. Though he managed to win the contest by a really narrow margin and formed the government, the people protested against his administration. Hence, he was forced to step down.
In 2009, Fujimori was tried by a Peruvian court for several instances of human rights violation. After being proven guilty, the court slapped Fujimori with an imprisonment of 25 years. He was also found guilty of bribing ‘Vladimiro Montesinos’ to expose rich businessmen and bureaucrats, for which the court extended his imprisonment period by seven more years.
Achievements
Alberto Keinya Fujimori was inaugurated president of Peru on his 52nd birthday, becoming the first person of East Asian descent to lead an American republic.
Fujimori’s administration is famously known for the ‘Constitutional Crisis of 1992’, one of the most sensational events of modern political history. He suspended the existing Peruvian constitution, with the help of military support, to form new rules. Surprisingly, this move of Fujimori was widely supported by the public. He defended his action by saying that the coup was just a step towards better governance, and to make the nation stronger.
Another major achievement of the government was to control the Maoist insurgency in Peru to a great extent. For a period of fifteen years, before he came to power, Peru was plagued by terrorist attacks and massacres. Fujimori came down hard on insurgency and gave broad powers to military to control this nuisance. This move of Fujimori won a lot of admiration from the public.
In 2004, Transparency International considers Fujimori as the seventh most corrupt head of state in the world for the last 20 years.
Religion
Fujimori's parents were Buddhists, but he was baptised and raised as a Roman Catholic.
Politics
Undaunted amidst remarks of being a dictator, Fujimori insists that his leadership is within the realms of democracy.
His government is credited with the creation of Fujimorism, defeating the Shining Path insurgency, and restoring Peru's macroeconomic stability.
Views
Quotations:
"I submit to you, Mr. President of Congress, my formal resignation as president of the republic. "
"Poverty doesn't imply necessarily violence. "
"What we are doing in fact is recovering and progressing and sustaining the recovery of our democracy. "
"Now we are showing to the world that this fighting against two terrorist groups was feasible and now we have an isolated case which doesn't mean that terrorism is alive, as it was before. "
"The liberation of those who commit murder and terrorism is unacceptable. "
Connections
In 1974, Fujimori got married to Susana Higuchi, a woman of Japanese origin but raised in Peru, just like him. The couple had four children, amongst them Fujimori’s daughter Keiko followed her father’s footsteps and entered politics.
Fujimori divorced his wife Susana Higuchi in 1994. The divorce happened in public, where the couple washed their dirty linen in front of many people, which damaged Fujimori’s image further. His wife even called him a ‘Tyrant’ and revealed a lot of secrets about the man’s life.
In 2006 he married Satomi Kataoka.
Father:
Naochi Minami Fujimori
Mother:
Matsue Inomoto
Spouse:
Susana Shizuko Higuchi Miyagawa (born 26 April 1950)
She is a Japanese Peruvian politician and engineer, better known as the former wife of ex-president of Peru Alberto Fujimori.
