Alberto Fujimori Peru in November 2000 to attend a regional summit in Brunei. He then traveled on to Japan. Once there, he announced plans to remain in the country and faxed his resignation letter to Congress. After Congress rejected Fujimori's faxed resignation, they relieved Fujimori of his duties as president and banned him from Peruvian politics for a decade. He remained in self-imposed exile in Japan, where he resided with his friend, the famous Catholic novelist Ayako Sono. Several senior Japanese politicians have supported Fujimori, partly because of his decisive action in ending the 1997 Japanese embassy crisis. Alejandro Toledo, who assumed
Alberto Fujimori that "[i]n no other country in Latin America did a president have so much control over the armed forces". A 2002 report by Health Minister later suggested that Fujimori was involved in the forced sterilizations of up to 300,000 indigenous women between 1996 and 2000, as part of a population control program. A 2004 World Bank publication said that in this period Montesinos' abuse of the power Fujimori granted him "led to a steady and systematic undermining of the rule of law". The 1993 constitution limited a presidency to two terms. Shortly after Fujimori began his second term, his supporters