Peru on Saturday bid an emotional farewell to its divisive former president Alberto Fujimori after three days of national mourning marked by expressions of nostalgia for his iron-fisted rule.
Fujimori was revered by many in Peru for crushing a bloody leftist insurgency and helping shore up the economy while in office from 1990 to 2000.
He “had the guts to fight terrorism,” said Edgar Grados, a 43-year-old businessman, who traveled more than 100km to attend the funeral.
Photo: Peruvian Presidency via AFP
“Fujimorism never dies,” he said.
However, for others, Fujimori was a power-hungry autocrat, who signed off on gross human rights abuses, for which he spent 16 years in prison.
The 86-year-old died on Wednesday last week after a long battle with cancer.
“You are finally free from hatred and revenge,” his daughter Keiko told his packed funeral mass in Lima’s 1,500-capacity National Theatre, denouncing “16 years of unjust imprisonment.”
Mourners clapped and chanted “Chino, Chino,” Fujimori’s nickname which was a nod to his Asian heritage, although his family was originally from Japan.
A large portrait of the late leader wearing his presidential sash stood on the altar, next to his coffin, which was draped in the Peruvian flag.
Outside, hundreds of people, many carrying Fujimori dolls and pictures, followed the proceedings on a giant screen.
After the funeral, his coffin was received with state honors at the Peruvian presidential palace in a ceremony led by Peruvian President Dina Boluarte. He was buried afterward at Huachipa east of Lima.
While about a quarter of a century has passed since he dramatically faxed in his resignation from Japan amid a corruption scandal, Fujimori loomed large over public life in Peru right up until his death.
Thousands of people queued for hours on Thursday and Friday to view him lying in state in an open casket at the Peruvian Ministry of Culture.
“We’re very nostalgic,” 30-year-old Jesus Neyra said on Friday night as he waited in line.
“A president who brought peace, economic stability, freedom and democracy to the country is gone. He left a great legacy,” Neyra said.
However, relatives of the victims of army massacres carried out on his watch lamented that he went to the grave without showing remorse for their deaths.
“He left without asking forgiveness from their families, he made a mockery of us,” said Gladys Rubina, the sister of one of the civilian victims.
An engineer by training, Fujimori worked as a university math professor before entering politics.
In 1990, he defeated writer Mario Vargas Llosa to win the Peruvian Presidency — a surprise result.
His neoliberal economic policies won him the support of the ruling class and international financial institutions.
He also won praise for crushing a brutal insurgency by Shining Path and Tupac Amaru leftist rebels in a conflict that left more than 69,000 people dead and 21,000 missing from 1980 to 2000, according to a Peruvian government truth commission.
However, the brutal tactics employed by the military saw him spend his twilight years in jail.
In 2009, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison over two massacres of civilians by an army death squad tasked with fighting the Shining Path — one at a house party, the other in a university dormitory. In all 25 people were killed.
Until recently, Fujimori had been considering a comeback attempt in the 2026 election, said his daughter Keiko, also a politician.
However, his health took a turn for the worse as he battled tongue cancer.
One of the most dramatic episodes of his presidency was a four-month hostage ordeal at the Japanese embassy in Lima in late 1996 and early 1997.
It ended with him sending in special forces, who saved nearly all 72 hostages and killed the 14 rebel hostage-takers.
His downfall began in 2000 after his spy chief was exposed for corruption.
Fujimori fled to Japan and sent a fax announcing his resignation. The Peruvian congress voted to sack him instead.
He was eventually arrested when he set foot in Chile and was extradited to Peru, where he was put on trial and jailed.
In December 2017, then-Peruvian president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned him on health grounds.
The Peruvian Supreme Court later annulled the pardon and in 2019 he was returned to jail before finally being released about five years later.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
ROYAL TARGET: After Prince Andrew lost much of his income due to his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, he became vulnerable to foreign agents, an author said British lawmakers failed to act on advice to tighten security laws that could have prevented an alleged Chinese spy from targeting Britain’s Prince Andrew, a former attorney general has said. Dominic Grieve, a former lawmaker who chaired the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) until 2019, said ministers were advised five years ago to introduce laws to criminalize foreign agents, but failed to do so. Similar laws exist in the US and Australia. “We remain without an important weapon in our armory,” Grieve said. “We asked for [this law] in the context of the Russia inquiry report” — which accused the government
TRUDEAU IN TROUBLE: US president-elect Donald Trump reacted to Chrystia Freeland’s departure, saying: ‘Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday quit in a surprise move after disagreeing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over US president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The resignation of Freeland, 56, who also stepped down as finance minister, marked the first open dissent against Trudeau from within his Cabinet, and could threaten his hold on power. Liberal leader Trudeau lags 20 points in polls behind his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, who has tried three times since September to topple the government and force a snap election. “It’s not been an easy day,” Trudeau said at a fundraiser Monday evening, but
RSS