Peru's polarising ex-president Alberto Fujimori dies at 86

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00He was the most polarising leader in Peru's modern history.

00:06The son of Japanese immigrants, Alberto Fujimori was the chancellor of a farming university

00:11when he was elected to be Peru's leader in 1990, taking charge of a country on the brink

00:16of economic collapse and gripped by political violence.

00:21To his supporters, he was the president who crushed the violent Maoist Shining Path movement

00:26and revived the country's economy following widespread hyperinflation.

00:30But many others view him as ruling as a dictator during his ten years in office, which was

00:35marked by human rights abuses.

00:37In 1992, he shut down the country's congress with military backing and redrafted the constitution.

00:44Three years later he restored congress and comfortably won a second term.

00:49But an increasing number of Peruvians started to raise concerns, accusing him of imposing

00:53unfair constraints on the media and judiciary.

00:57Other accusations piled up, including that he had authorised death squads in his fight

01:02against Shining Path militants and forced the sterilisation of tens of thousands of

01:06people.

01:09In 2000, after a bribery scandal involving his intelligence chief, Fujimori fled to Japan

01:15before being detained in Chile five years later.

01:18Extradited to Peru, he was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in jail for ordering the operation

01:24of a death squad responsible for killing civilians.

01:28A sentence that he did not serve in full.

01:31At the end of 2017, the country's then president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, granted him a pardon

01:37on health grounds.

01:39That pardon was later overturned, but then reinstated in 2023.

01:44His death comes after a long battle with cancer, according to his daughter, who also

01:49announced weeks earlier that he would be running for president in 2026.

Category

Transcript

Recommended