Alberto Fujimori, who ruled Peru with an iron fist from 1990 to 2000, and spent the last years of his life in prison for corruption and crimes against humanity, passed away on Wednesday in Lima at the age of 86, leaving a country deeply divided about him.
“After a long battle with cancer, our father, Alberto Fujimori, has just departed to meet the Lord. We ask those who loved him to join us in prayer for the eternal rest of his soul. Thank you for everything, dad!” announced his children Keiko, Hiro, Sachie, and Kenji Fujimori.
Mr. Fujimori’s eldest daughter, Keiko, later announced that a wake would be held starting Thursday at the National Museum in Lima, specifying that her father’s burial would take place on Saturday.
“We will welcome everyone who wants to say goodbye to him in person,” she stated on X.
The Presidency of the Republic confirmed “the sad news,” extending its “sincere condolences to the family.” “May God have his soul and may he rest in peace,” concluded the presidential statement.
“We will coordinate with the family to know their wishes regarding the ex-president’s funeral,” said the chief of cabinet.
A 25-Year Sentence
The former leader, born in Japan, was released in December by order of the Constitutional Court “for humanitarian reasons,” despite the opposition of the Inter-American judiciary, after spending 16 years in a prison in eastern Lima.
He was serving a 25-year sentence for crimes against humanity, including two massacres of civilians carried out by an army squadron in the fight against the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla in the early 1990s.
“He had to pay for what he did, but now that he is dead, what can we do… He did not serve his sentence,” said Juana Carrion, president of the Association of Relatives of Kidnapped, Detained, and Disappeared Persons of Peru.
The former president, nicknamed “El Chino” (the Chinese), who deeply divided the country, had been hospitalized several times in recent years. A malignant tumor was diagnosed in May on his tongue, where he had a cancerous lesion for over 27 years. In 2018, Mr. Fujimori publicly revealed a diagnosis of lung tumors.
His health had rapidly deteriorated in recent days, having completed his mouth radiotherapy in August, sources close to the family told AFP.
A Catholic priest arrived Wednesday afternoon at his home in the San Borja neighborhood of Lima, where he lived with his eldest daughter, Keiko Fujimori.
After the announcement of his death, supporters of Mr. Fujimori marched in front of his residence to pay tribute to him. Like Nancy Gonzalez, who believes the ex-president “ended terrorism and stabilized the economy.”
Mr. Fujimori was last seen in public on September 5, leaving a clinic in the Miraflores neighborhood where he had undergone a scan, as he himself revealed.
“Authoritarian and Populist”
As a proponent of neoliberalism, Alberto Fujimori was a “forerunner in Latin America of a style of politics,” said political analyst Augusto Alvarez to AFP.
According to him, the former president, who burst onto the public scene with his unexpected electoral victory over writer Mario Vargas Llosa, future Nobel Prize winner, promoted an “authoritarian and populist” model that has been replicated in many other countries, by both leftist and right-wing movements.
The former president leaves behind a mixed legacy in the country. For some, he is the man who boosted the country’s economic growth with his ultra-liberal policies and successfully fought against the Shining Path (Maoist) and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (Guevarist) guerrillas.
Others mostly remember the corruption scandals and his authoritarian methods that led to his conviction.
His daughter Keiko Fujimori has taken up his political torch but has failed three times in the presidential runoff.
On July 14, the leader of the country’s main right-wing party announced that her father would run for the 2026 presidential election, not knowing if she would be able to participate as she is being prosecuted for money laundering, with prosecutors seeking a 30-year prison sentence against her.
Peru approved a law in early August declaring that crimes against humanity committed before 2002 would be time-barred, which could have benefited Alberto Fujimori.
Approved despite a resolution from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in mid-June calling for the suspension of the legislative process, it will benefit hundreds of other officers accused of abuses during the internal conflict of the 1980s and 1990s that resulted in approximately 69,000 deaths and 21,000 disappearances.