In 2017, Alberto Fujimori was granted a pardon for his sentence on humanitarian grounds from President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Kuczynski was a right-wing president close to many of the Peruvian elite who had supported Fujimori. Fujimori had already served 10 years of his 25-year sentence, and due to his advanced age and failing health. In March 2022, the Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal held the pardon, meaning that Alberto Fujimori will be free soon. The decision was met with massive protests in Peru, calling his pardon an insult to the victims of his crimes against humanity.
5. Electing the Dictator
Fujimori has been called Peru’s neoliberal dictator. He was popular in his time, as he mobilized anti-terrorist laws and influence over the media to create a cult of his personality, leading to an unstoppable political force that has hurt Peru to this day. He has been found responsible for genocide and manipulating the democratic institutions in Peru.
For the 1970s, Peru was under an American-backed military rule. In 1980, Peru returned to a military-approved civilian rule. The new government faced an outbreak of internal conflict with the rise of guerilla groups like the Shining Path. The military, fearing popular mobilization against it, and hyperinflation in the late 1980s, created a programme called Operation Green. Operation Green was a plan to keep military control over democracy in Peru by bringing in neo-liberal policies, controlling the media, punishing dissidents and brutal oppression of indigenous people.
Initially, the military tried to control candidacy. They supported Mario Vargas Llosa, a Nobel prize-winning writer, who supported the Army’s neo-liberal policies. Llosa was defeated by Alberto Fujimori. Fujimori was an outsider, son of immigrant Japanese parents. His policies were critical of Llosa’s neo-liberalism, but he did not offer any strong programme of his own. He was an Agricultural engineer and had no history with any other major political struggle, so his victory was unexpected.
He won the 1992 elections. It is likely that on his victory, he made a deal with the military. Once in power, he repeated many of the pro-military and neo-liberal policies that Llosa supported. He said that shock-policies were needed to fight corruption and radical leftist terrorists. He asked the people to trust him as he only had their interests at heart.
