Fujimori Urges Peruvians to Set Aside ‘Grudges’ After His Release
7, 2018
LIMA, Peru — In his first comments since being released from hospital on a medical pardon
that drew wide condemnation, former President Alberto Fujimori of Peru called on the country to set aside its "grudges" in order to unite.
The Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa and 238 other writers signed an open letter saying the decision covered the nation "in infamy and shame." The letter said the pardon was not an act of compassion, as the government insisted,
but "the most crude and cynical political calculus." But Prime Minister Mercedes Aráoz wrote an op-ed article published in the Lima daily El Comercio on Sunday defending Mr. Kuczynski’s decision to pardon Mr. Fujimori.
Some lawmakers said that Mr. Fujimori had asked them to follow his son’s lead,
and the pardon was widely seen as a quid pro quo with Mr. Kuczynski, charges the administration has denied.
Mr. Fujimori, 79, made the comments on Twitter on Saturday amid an unabating furor over President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s decision
to free the former strongman, who had served 12 years of a 25-year prison sentence for graft and human rights crimes.
" Mr. Fujimori said in a tweet. that In the first hours of this new stage of
my life, several dreams invade me constantly, and I would like to share them,
that On the one hand, there’s Keiko and her bloc that directly opposes the government,