Happy in His Hotel Exile

By Tim Larimer/Tokyo

Alberto Fujimori was alone in his hotel room in Tokyo--just the disgraced Peruvian ex-President and a sad-looking plate of grapes and bananas. No handlers, no translators, no security. He clicked on a tape recorder himself. He hungrily peeled a red grape before popping it into his mouth. He cut a relaxed figure for someone who had just lost his country. It was time for the interview. "Where is your photographer?" he asked, sounding disappointed. What Fujimori cared about most was appearing on the cover of TIME. "For the cover maybe it would be better outside in the garden," he said.

Days before, Fujimori had resigned the presidency of Peru by fax. Now the 62-year-old was settling into the homeland of his parents with no plans to leave--but possibly facing corruption charges in Peru. He appears to qualify for citizenship because his parents registered his birth at the Japanese consulate in Lima, and that datum was transferred, somehow, into the family registry in their home village in Japan. Immigration authorities were vague about all this, while diplomats prayed the new Peruvian government would not demand that Japan send Fujimori back to face charges. They don't want a Pinochet in their midst.

Would he ever return to Peru on his own? "Maybe sometime," Fujimori said. "Later." For now, he said, he has a "new approach" for fighting corruption and staying involved in Peruvian affairs.

His presidency was a difficult affair. He arrived in office in 1990 as a popular reformer, a man who planned to fix Peru's damaged economy and rebuild a society fractured by drug dealings and decades of low-level civil war. Doing all that, however, required that Fujimori use a firm hand. As the years went by, the hand became harsher, and Fujimori's government became more susceptible to charges of corruption. He won a third term earlier this year, but the vote was clouded with suspicion. By September, when he said he would step down the following July, Peruvians were glad to see him getting ready to go. When he planned a private trip to Japan and then decided to stay, Peruvians were surprised that the man who boasted of his "samurai spirit" had given up.

Fujimori says he plans to write his memoirs. Much of his documentation will come from videotapes he kept during his rule. "They would fill up this hotel room," he said. "Everything that happened for 10 years, I have." He did say he was proud of what he had accomplished in Peru--and part of the reason he was leaving now was out of concern that his presence could somehow hurt the struggling country. "I don't want what I achieved, for example, the economic stability, to be lost." If that stability remains, it may be a tribute to his rule. But at this point it is most likely he will be remembered as the President who ran away, the first President to resign by fax.

--By Tim Larimer/Tokyo