As Peru buries Fujimori, a complex tussle over his legacy

LIMA (Reuters) – Hero? Murderer? Savior? Villain?

As Peru buries former president Alberto Fujimori on Saturday, the Andean country is grappling with the complex legacy of its most powerful – and most divisive – political leader in recent decades, who died this week at the age of 86.

Many Peruvians still revere Fujimori for pulling the country out of a severe economic crisis in the 1990s and defeating the Shining Path terrorist group. Others say his authoritarian rule was to blame for clandestine military killings. He spent some 16 years behind bars for human rights abuses.

“Thanks to him, terrorism is over,” said Felicita Ruiz, who came from the Andean region of Ayacucho, birthplace of the Maoist Shining Path, to pay respects to the former president.

The conflict with the rebel group left 69,000 civilians and military dead or missing, according to a Truth Commission. The shadow of that conflict casts a pall over Peru to this day.

But while thousands like Ruiz lined up to give the son of Japanese immigrants to Peru a hero’s sendoff, carrying photos and figurines of the former leader who gained the nickname “Chino”, others protested against him and criticized his human rights record.

Killings committed by secret military groups during his government in the 1990s, and allegations of corruption, hurt Fujimori badly. He fled to Japan in 2000 after the release of videos showing advisors giving bundles of money to legislators, businessmen and judges to support his government.

Fujimori was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in prison for human rights abuses as the “indirect author” in the killing of 25 people, including a child. He was released from prison last December after a controversial pardon.

“This tribute is an insult,” said Maria Carbajal, who said she was one of thousands of women sterilized as part of a Fujimori government program to reduce poverty in poor, rural regions of Peru.

Some 300,000 women were sterilized in the national campaign. Human rights groups and thousands of the women allege they were coerced. Fujimori always said the operations were consensual.

‘I HOPED HE WOULD BE PRESIDENT AGAIN’

Peru has been in national mourning for three days since Fujimori’s death on Wednesday, his body lying in state.

Fujimori is credited – in a similar way to former military dictator Augusto Pinochet in Chile – with setting Peru on a free-market economic course, which did help make the copper-rich country one of the most stable economies in Latin America.

But Peru’s reputation has come under pressure recently, with six presidents in seven years and political unrest weighing on investment in copper mining, the country’s main economic driver. That has in some ways burnished the memory of Fujimori further.

“I hoped he would become president again,” said a sobbing Yusi Canchari, after she traveled for hours from Peru’s interior to see his body. Fujimori’s politician daughter Keiko had in July said he could run for election again.

“I just want to thank President Fujimori for everything he did for our country,” Canchari added. “He achieved peace. I remember he built my little school, built roads, gave us uniforms, shoes and food.”

Keiko, herself a defeated presidential candidate, and current unpopular President Dina Boluarte, both attended the wake on Thursday.

“It’s a shame because they’re recognizing someone who was convicted and sentenced by the state itself for serious crimes,” Gisela Ortiz, sister of a student killed during the Fujimori era, told local radio station Exitosa.

Fujimori’s death, in an odd coincidence, came exactly three years to the day after his fierce enemy, Shining Path leader Abimael Guzman, who died in prison also aged 86.

Lima resident Angel Taboada felt divided about Fujimori, and unsure how to remember him.

“The former president did good things; he fought terrorism. But he also did bad things, like the massacres at La Cantuta, Barrios Altos and Pativilca,” he said, referring to three of the most notorious military killings in the 1990s.

Fujimori supporter Mabel Rojas had no such doubts.

“I feel devastated,” she said. “I met him once and asked him, ‘What would you do with all this (current) crisis? What would you do?’ And he had all the solutions. He had them because his mind was brilliant.”

(Reporting by Marco Aquino; Additional reporting by Carlos Valdez; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Daniel Wallis)