Word: fujimori
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...what the world outside thinks of Fujimori is beginning to concern him more. For three weeks he has bristled at suggestions that his reputation as terrorist buster and friend of the poor was at stake inside the Japanese residence as much as the lives of the hostages. In an interview with Time last week, his first face-to-face session with the press since the crisis began, Fujimori adamantly rejected political dialogue with Tupac Amaru, insisting that the group was "in extinction." And he seemed nettled by one criticism growing louder as a result of the crisis: that...
...When Fujimori reaches the top of San Juan de Amancaes, he surveys the hillside and grabs a reporter by the arm: "You see all that color down there? These people never had painted houses before. Do you think Nestor Cerpa painted them? No, they did, with the bank credits they can get now because they own property. Cerpa doesn't have any support here--none at all." He waves his arm across the panorama: "This is my vaccine against terrorists like the MRTA ever happening again...
...basks in on the streets, why is he taking such a hit in the polls? Since last January his approval ratings have dropped from the high 70s to the low 40s. Voter preference polls for the election in the year 2000 are worse: in the most recent national survey, Fujimori placed second, with only 26%, behind Lima Mayor Alberto Andrade. "I don't govern by popularity polls," Fujimori retorts...
...economy is one obvious reason for the lagging polls. Last year it registered a paltry 2.2% increase as Fujimori tried to tackle a massive debt. Economists estimate that as much as 75% of the population languishes in lower-class status. Jobs have disappeared; the cost of public services has shot up. As a result, even those close to Fujimori warn against interpreting his welcome in pueblos jovenes as blanket backing. "He shows up in neighborhoods where not many people have work," says one skeptical adviser, "and it's the day's entertainment. Of course they are going to come...
...muscle flexing in front of MRTA prisoners last week, Fujimori did take a closer look at their squalid lives, three or four men sharing 32 sq. ft. and a hole for a toilet. The President also accepted the petitions of those who say they were wrongly accused of terrorism--personally taking the smudgy pages as inmates shoved them through the bars. Fujimori promises to take them to the Belgian-born priest, Hubert Lanssiers, who heads up his commission to examine wrongful convictions. "I realize we have some incompetent judges out there," he admits. "Now that we've defeated the terrorists...