MONTEVIDEO: Uruguay’s former president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter and hero of the Latin American left, has died at the age of 89, the government said Tuesday.
The humble leader — who once spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity — lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January the disease had spread and he would stop treatment.
“With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,“ Uruguay’s sitting president, Yamandu Orsi, posted on X.
Leftist leaders from across Latin America and Europe paid tribute to the politician described by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as an “example for Latin America and the entire world.”
Gustavo Petro of Colombia — himself a former guerrilla — paid tribute to “a great revolutionary.”
The cardigan-wearing Mujica earned the moniker “world’s poorest president” during his 2010-2015 presidency for giving away much of his salary to charity and living a simple life on his farm, with his ex-guerrilla wife and three-legged dog.
Mujica himself had rejected the title in a 2012 AFP interview.
“I do not live in poverty, I live in austerity… I need little to live,“ he said.
He transformed Uruguay, a country of 3.4 million people best known for football and beef, into a bastion of progressive politics on a continent plagued by corruption and strongman rule.
In later life, he was disappointed at the authoritarian drift of some left-wing governments, accusing repressive leaders in Venezuela and Nicaragua of “messing things up.”
He was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in May last year, and it spread to his liver.
His wife Lucia Topolansky said this week he was receiving palliative care.
‘Humility and greatness’
Tributes poured in from Latin America and beyond.
Former Bolivian president Evo Morales hailed Mujica’s “experience and wisdom,“ while Brazil’s government bid farewell to “one of the most important humanists of our time.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Mujica had lived for “a better world,“ while Guatemala’s Bernardo Arevalo held him up as “an example of humility and greatness.”
Over the course of five years in power, Mujica legalized abortion and gay marriage and made Uruguay the first country to legalize the use of recreational cannabis.
He continued to campaign for the left after his cancer diagnosis, working fervently for the successful election campaign of history teacher Orsi, his political heir.
In a bar in Montevideo, Carlos Casal, a 71-year-old retiree, remembered Mujica as “a good person” who was “humble and hardworking.”
From prison to politics
The blunt-spoken, snowy-haired politician was a fierce critic of consumerism, and as president rejected the trappings of office.
He attended official events in sandals and continued living on his small farm on the outskirts of Montevideo, where his prized possession was a 1987 Volkswagen Beetle.
In the 1960s, he co-founded the Marxist-Leninist urban guerrilla movement Tupamaros, which started out robbing from the rich to give to the poor but later escalated its campaign to kidnappings, bombings and assassinations.
During those years, Mujica lived a life of derring-do. He sustained multiple gunshot wounds and took part in a mass prison breakout.
But when the Tupamaros collapsed in 1972, he was recaptured and spent all of Uruguay’s 1973-1985 dictatorship in prison, where he was tortured and spent years in solitary confinement.
After his release, he threw himself into politics and in 1989 founded the Movement of Popular Participation (MPP), the largest member of the leftist Broad Front coalition.
Elected to congress in 1995, he became a senator in 2000 and then agriculture minister in Uruguay’s first-ever left-wing government.
As president he was praised for his fight against poverty but criticized for failing to rein in public spending.
He is survived by his wife Lucia Topolansky. They had no children.
Mujica asked to be buried on his farm, next to his dog.
