Alberto Fujimori (born 26 July 1938) was President of Peru from 28 July 1990 to 22 November 2000, succeeding Alan Garcia and preceding Valentin Paniagua. His reign was associated with staunch anti-communism, forceful anti-terrorist actions, pro-free market actions, disregard for political institutions, the sterilization of Native Americans, and corruption scandals, and he would ultimately face several criminal charges for human rights violations and corruption.
Biography[]
Alberto Kenya Fujimori was born in Lima, Peru on 26 July 1938, the son of Japanese immigrants. Fujimori studied agrarian science and maths, and eventually became head of an agricultural college. In response to the catastrophic state of the Peruvian economy and the ever increasing power of the Shining Path guerrillas, he founded the Cambio 90 movement, and four months later was the surprise winner of the 10 June 1990 elections. Initially, his tough economic measures further increased domestic unrest, but they proved extremely successful, reducing annual inflation from 7,000% in 1990 to 22% in 1994 and reversing the economic decline with a growth rate of 7% in 1993. Furthermore, he managed to contain the guerrillas. With the help of the army, he led a coup in April 1992 in order to replace the officials in the state bureaucracy and judiciary with his own followers, and to rewrite the 1979 constitution to allow his re-election. He won the 1995 presidential election, and he began to face accusations of crimes against humanity and corruption: he forced the sterilization of Native Americans and carried out massacres against guerrilla rebels. He ended his presidency by fleeing to Japan amid a major scandal involving corruption and human rights violations, and he attempted to resign his presidency via fax, but the Congress of the Republic refused to allow for him to resign, instead moving to impeach him. In November 2005, he was arrested while visiting Chile, and he was extradited to Peru in September 2007. In December, he was ordered to six years in prison, and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2009. In 2017, President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski granted the 79-year-old Fujimori a humanitarian pardon, but the Supreme Court overturned it on 3 October 2018 and sent Fujimori back to prison.