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Letter from Japan: Murky Politics
Expect to hear more about Japan's involvement with "Peruvian" Alberto Fujimori
By PETER McKILLOP
November 24, 2000
Web posted at 9:20 p.m. Hong Kong time, 8:20 a.m. EDT
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori all but declared this week what he
has desperately tried to keep hidden from his countrymen -- and what the
Japanese government may have know about the whole time. Surprise, surprise, it
turns out that Alberto may not be Peruvian at all.
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Fujimori, according to the Peruvian media, was in fact born "Kenya" Fujimori, in
Kumamoto Prefecture in southern Japan. The Lima-based newspaper and opposition-
leaning Liberacion on Wednesday printed a copy of his birth registry allegedly
filed with the Japanese consulate by his late father. The register, which the
Japanese government uses to document the birth, death, and marriage of Japanese
nationals in Peru, appears to be a copy of the original sent to the Japanese
Foreign Ministry.
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ASIAWEEK |
Intelligence
The story behind today's news from the editors of Asiaweek
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How convenient, if the reports are true. Because the Peruvian constitution bars
the presidency to anyone who was not born in Peru, this could mean that Fujimori
has been living a lie during his decade-long rule, and that the Japanese
government has known about it the whole time. At any time, the Japanese could
have blown the whistle on his true citizenship -- and he would have been out of
a job.
Japan's ability to control the fate of Fujimori must have made the CIA green
with envy. That, of course, assumes the CIA and the U.S. government did not
know, which is highly unlikely given the close relations between Japan and
America. What this means is that for a decade, the Japanese government and
perhaps its strategic ally, the U.S., essentially had the ability to blackmail
Fujimori on any number of issues.
The allegation that Fujimori is really Japanese comes as rumors continue to
swirl in Japan about exceedingly favorable government assistance loans extended
to Peru by the government of Japan. The story goes that since becoming President
of Peru in 1990, Fujimori allegedly made annual pilgrimages to Japan's chief
lending sources, and received billions of dollars in grants, export-import bank
loans, and loans from the government Overseas Economic Cooperation fund. Suffice
to say that had it not been for Japanese government loans, Fujimori's purported
economic miracle in Peru would have never happened.
There is nothing wrong with Japan lending money to Peru for a good cause. But as
most of the money ultimately finds its way back to Japanese companies contracted
to build the roads, power lines and damns and other "nation-building" projects,
Japanese politicians pay particularly attention to how these loans are doled
out. If, it is true that the Japanese government knew of Fujimori's true
citizenship, Japanese politicians could have had a field day creaming off the
top of loans made to Peru without worrying about any complaints from their
blackmailed client.
So don't be surprised if, in the coming months, there are some nasty revelations
about how Japanese loans were distributed in Peru.
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