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Fujimori returns to face trial
Updated: 2007-09-24 07:04
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori returned to Peru to face
charges of corruption and sanctioning death-squad killings, a grim
homecoming for the strongman who fled the country seven years ago as his
government collapsed in scandal.
The plane carrying the 69-year-old former ruler landed in a heavy mist at
Lima's Las Palmas air force base on Saturday, a day after Chile's Supreme
Court authorized his extradition. He was then flown by helicopter to a
police base, where he is to be held until a permanent facility is
prepared for his detention.
Some 700 supporters who gathered outside the police air terminal across
town to greet him were frustrated when his plane was diverted to the air
base.
"We have come to welcome Fujimori, to tell him that we are with him and
will accompany him wherever he goes so that he feels he has the support
of his people," said his daughter Keiko Fujimori, who was elected to
Congress in 2006.
Fujimori's extradition from Chile has provoked reactions ranging from
elation to indignation. Some Peruvians believe he should be tried for his
controversial crackdown on the bloody Shining Path insurgency and alleged
corruption during his 1990-2000 presidency.
But Fujimori maintains a following in Peru. A recent poll showed that 23
percent of Peruvians want to see him back in politics and some worry his
return could provoke turmoil in a country emerging from decades of
political and economic chaos.
"There will be a sector of the country that will identify with him, and
he will play a destabilizing opposition role," said congressman Javier
Valle Riestra, a leader of President Alan Garcia's Aprista party.
Fujimori was widely admired for ushering in economic stability and
defeating the Shining Path rebel movement, but his presidency
increasingly came under fire as it drifted toward authoritarianism and
evidence surfaced of corruption. Prior to his extradition, Fujimori had
lived under house arrest in suburban Santiago while awaiting the ruling
on his extradition.
Fujimori's followers and foes alike were stunned in November 2005, when
he landed in a small plane in Chile and revealed his ambition to run for
president in the 2006 elections, even though Peru's Congress had banned
him from seeking public office until 2011. He was promptly arrested.
Fujimori had earned a reputation as a cool-headed strategist in handling
multiple crises as president. But he may have miscalculated when he
decided to leave his safe refuge in Japan, where he enjoyed immunity from
extradition because of his Japanese nationality, inherited from his
migrant parents.
Peru wants to try Fujimori on corruption and human rights charges,
including sanctioning the death-squad killings of 25 people.
Agencies
(China Daily 09/24/2007 page6)
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