In Peru, a possible return of Fujimori fires emotions

LIMA -- His campaign office is hidden behind an unmarked door on a nondescript street. There are no banners, bunting, or posters of the candidate, who at the moment is in custody in Chile. But the inconspicuous setting perfectly suits Alberto Fujimori's stealthy pursuit of Peru's presidency.

Fujimori, the former authoritarian president who was driven from office after a decade in power, has not set foot in his home country since 2000, when he fled into self-imposed exile in Japan. He is legally banned from holding office until 2011, and Peru's current government is hoping to extradite and try him on charges including financial corruption and sanctioning death squads.

''It's not only a legal matter; it's also a moral and ethical matter that the country needs to clear up," said Justice Minister Alejandro Tudela, who hopes to extradite Fujimori before the term of the current president, Alejandro Toledo, ends in July. ''What we're trying to do, while giving him all the rights to due process, is to finally bring him to justice."

Still, few people in Peru -- including those who revere Fujimori for having quashed a violent, Maoist insurgency and those who regard him as a thieving, repressive autocrat -- dismiss the possibility of his political resurrection.

As president between 1990 and 2000, Fujimori, now 67, aroused equally fervent admiration and outrage. Now, his extraordinary effort to secretly return to Peru from Japan this month has reignited passions on both sides. The journey came to a halt Nov. 7 in Santiago, the capital of Chile, where he was arrested in his hotel and imprisoned in a police academy.

On Tuesday, several thousand people marched through Lima, demanding his extradition. They included relatives of people who were killed by paramilitary squads allegedly formed with Fujimori's consent. A survey by the Peruvian firm Apoyo found that 60 percent of those polled thought he should not be allowed to run in the April elections and 69 percent thought he is guilty of corruption and human rights violations.

''We cannot forgive Fujimori or his supporters after what they've done," said Raida Cóndor, a demonstrator whose son Armando was one of nine students and a teacher abducted and killed at Lima's La Cantuta University in 1992. ''These people took away our children. I will always fight against them. If they kill me, I don't care."

Other Peruvians remember Fujimori's presidency in a different light, recalling him as a strong leader who defeated a communist threat. In the Apoyo survey, when people were asked which major political figure they most closely identified with, 18 percent chose Fujimori, placing him second after Lourdes Flores Nano, a conservative member of Congress, who was chosen by 21 percent.

Although he is unlikely to be released by the Jan. 9 filing deadline for presidential candidates, and would be subject to arrest if he tried to enter Peru, Fujimori's political allies said he would legally be allowed to run from abroad; they also say the congressional ban on his holding office is unconstitutional.

Fujimori's presence in Santiago also puts him as close as possible to Peru during the election season. Some analysts and supporters have said his plan all along was to remain in Chile, which is known to demand extensive evidence for extradition requests and has denied the return of four exiles associated with Fujimori. On Tuesday, Chile's high court rejected a request for Fujimori's release.

Fujimori's backers are keeping a low profile, partly in fear of reprisals from people who hate him. His campaign organizers are mostly from three political parties that were allied with him in office. One is a former legislator who was suspended for her alleged links to Fujimori's former intelligence chief, Vladimir Montesinos, now serving a 15-year prison sentence for corruption.

Yet behind closed doors, they describe Fujimori in glowing terms: a brilliant political strategist and courageous anti-communist who systematically dismantled the Shining Path, a Maoist guerrilla group that had sown terror throughout Peru in the 1980s.