LIMA: Peruvians on Thursday began three days of national mourning for the polarization of former President Alberto Fujimori, who ruled his country with an iron fist before spending 16 years in prison for crimes against humanity. Fujimori, who died on Wednesday aged 86 after a long battle with cancer, lay in state at the national museum where hundreds of supporters lined up to pay their respects at his open casket. Many loved him for crushing left-wing guerrillas and boosting the economy, but others who saw him as a powerful autocrat guilty of brutal human rights abuses reviled him. “He is the best president Peru has ever had,” said Isabel Perez, a 56-year-old nurse, outside Fujimori’s home, where supporters had earlier gathered to see his casket carried out. “He was authoritarian,” said passerby Elizabeth Martinez, 61. Congress held a minute’s silence in honor of Fujimori, whose state funeral will be held on Saturday. Fujimori, who led Peru from 1990 to 2000, was released from prison in December on humanitarian grounds while serving a 25-year sentence for crimes against humanity during his rule. His fierce military campaign against the leftist rebels Shining Path and Tupac Amaru was instrumental in bringing peace to Peru, but the brutal tactics of the military’s death squads later led to his imprisonment. Between 1980 and 2000, the conflict left more than 69,000 dead and 21,000 missing, mostly civilians, according to the government’s Truth Commission. Sources close to his family told AFP on Wednesday that Fujimori’s health deteriorated rapidly after he completed treatment for tongue cancer in August. Fujimori was last seen in public last Thursday when he left a Lima clinic where he said he underwent a CT scan. “After a long battle with cancer, our father Alberto Fujimori has just left to meet the Lord,” his children Keiko, Hiro, Sachie and Kenji Fujimori wrote in a joint statement on X. The government said Fujimori would have “funeral honors befitting a president in office”. Despite his legal problems, Fujimori remained influential in Peruvian politics. His daughter Keiko – who has made three unsuccessful bids for the presidency – announced in July that her father would run for president again in 2026. As news of his death spread quickly on social media, supporters and detractors argued over his legacy. Fujimori was convicted and jailed in 2009 for massacres by army death squads in 1991 and 1992 that killed 25 people, including a child, in what he presented as counter-terrorism operations. In December 2017, then-President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned Fujimori due to his ill health. However, the Supreme Court later overturned the pardon and he was returned to prison from the hospital in January 2019. After the court renewed his pardon, he was released again in December 2023. The son of Japanese immigrants, Fujimori said he paved the way for Peru to become one of Latin America’s leading countries. But critics accused him of making up his own rules and being clumsy with the country’s institutions. Fujimori, who turned 80 in 2018, told AFP: “Let history judge what I did right and what I did wrong.” One of the most dramatic episodes of his presidency was the four-month ordeal of the hostages at the Japanese embassy in Lima at the turn of 1996 and 1997. The standoff ended with Fujimori sending a commando that rescued almost all 72 hostages and killed 14 leftist rebels. Japanese government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said Thursday that Japan “will never forget the efforts made by former President Fujimori” in helping to free the hostages. But he also acknowledged that there were “different assessments” of Fujimori, including “the fact that he was convicted of human rights abuses and spent time in prison during his term”. Fujimori left office when he was engulfed in a major corruption scandal and went into self-imposed exile in Japan. He memorably faxed in his resignation, but was arrested years later in Chile and sent back to Peru to stand trial.
