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As I drive along the port at Montevideo in a government pickup on my way to interview Uruguay’s outgoing president, José Mujica, a striking sight catches my eye. It is an image that reflects how this most unusual of leaders will have transformed tiny Uruguay into one of the most progressive nations on Earth before he steps down after five years in office next March.
Arriving from Europe is a seemingly endless succession of gigantic grey metal tubes, over 30m long, encasing the long wind-turbine blades that will soon allow this country to meet some 30% of its energy needs from renewable sources.
“Be sure to ask Pepe about it,” says presidential communications officer Joaquín Costanzo from the front seat. “It’s one of his proudest achievements.”
Uruguay has such a small population, barely 3.4 million, that it feels normal that everyone calls the president Pepe, the informal, familiar version of José in Spanish. It fits well with his famous humility and dislike of wealth and ostentation. Having spent 13 years of his life languishing in the dungeons of Uruguay’s 1970s and 1980s dictatorship, undergoing torture and long stretches of solitary confinement, often in a hole in the ground, Mujica has had plenty of time to reflect on the futility of riches and the pointlessness of violence. At one point, he went mad, hearing voices, his agony increased by the bullet wounds he suffered during his capture.
But there is no trace of bitterness in the air as 18-year-old Manuela, Mujica’s famous three-legged dog, rushes out to greet visitors at the tiny farm where the president lives in Rincón del Cerro, 20 minutes outside Montevideo. The house has just three rooms. Mujica refuses to move to Uruguay’s luxurious presidential mansion. “I am rich here,” he says, bringing out two cushions that have seen better days to plonk them on two rusty garden chairs for the interview. His old black boots, laces untied, are muddy, and he is sockless in the balmy southern spring morning.
Mujica doesn’t dwell on his years in prison. “I don’t believe in the torture-meter, as if enduring that gives you a patina of prestige.” He dismisses with a shrug any hatred for his torturers. “If it hadn’t been them, it would have been somebody else. It’s inevitable. There are social classes that, if you meddle with them, all hell breaks loose. But hatred doesn’t make any sense. It’s a poison. You can’t spend life trying to collect debts no one is going to pay. That is not life. Life is tomorrow.”
This month though, Mujica could be forgiven for an uncharacteristic bout of nostalgia. Elected to office in 2009, he is the second successive president of the Frente Amplio (Broad Front), a coalition of left-wing parties that for the first time in Uruguay’s history broke the traditional alternation of the Blanco and Colorado (White and Red) parties in power when his Frente Amplio predecessor, Tabaré Vázquez, was elected in 2004. Constitutionally barred from running for a second consecutive term, he plans to remain a senator following the presidential elections of 30 November, when Vazquez is predicted to replace him. It has been a remarkable journey, from guerilla fighter to cult president.
When Mujica was arrested, back in 1972, he was a young member of the Tupamaro guerrilla group, sleeping with a machine gun under his bed. Now, he no longer sees any sense in that violence. “We were children of our time in a world that was different. But you can’t sacrifice life, which is almost a miracle, for the idea that in 30 years you will have a better world. Now we’re fighting for the same goals through other means. It’s worth going slowly, to persevere, and to seek changes to increase distribution and social justice, without falling into the path that leads to violence.”
Rincón del Cerro could not be more modest. Old paint cans have been transformed into flower pots that don’t really grow flowers, just green shoots that look like weeds. Manuela, the black mongrel with her missing leg (“she had an accident when she was 10,” explains Mujica), is surely the most unpresidential dog on the planet. Against a line of bushes is the only garden bench, made of plastic bottle tops tied in a mesh. “It was made by the inmates of a prison psychiatric ward,” says the president. And that’s what it looks like.
But the frugal surroundings fade into the background when Mujica starts talking about the incredible economic transformation of Uruguay under his leadership.
“We’ve had positive years for equality. Ten years ago, about 39% of Uruguayans lived below the poverty line; we’ve brought that down to under 11% and we’ve reduced extreme poverty from 5% to only 0.5%,” he says with pride as Manuela sprawls at his feet on the sparse grass.
He has also increased investment from about 13% of GDP a decade ago to 25% now. And then there are the wind farms. “By 2016 we’ll be covering over 30% of our energy needs with renewable resources. We took advantage of the fact that Europe was in crisis, and that some projects couldn’t be carried out there any longer. We started getting offers for wind farms at prices that were really worthwhile.” Uruguay has been transformed into an energy-exporting nation, selling electricity to northern neighbour Brazil, which has almost 200 million more inhabitants.
In the same five years he has legalised abortion (elsewhere in Latin America, it is legal only in Cuba and Mexico City) and the sale of marijuana. “Nobody’s in favour of abortion, but it’s a reality: women need it,” he explains.
He’s equally candid about why he pushed through the legalisation of cannabis. “We’ve been repressing drugs for 80 years and it doesn’t work. Drug trafficking is much worse than the consumption of marijuana. And for those who don’t want to admit that, look at Mexico, look at Central America, look at Honduras, look at Guatemala, and you will see failed states, devoured from the inside by drug trafficking.”
He grows almost angry about those who still favour fighting the drug trade through prohibition. “The problem is that, alongside drug trafficking, giant systems have been built to fight it. The state has a number of pathologies, and one of them is that whoever is performing a task starts thinking that that task is the centre of the world. Everyone wants to look in the mirror and think that their job is socially essential,” he almost explodes. “Instead of repression, I need doctors to deal with this filth!”
How does Mujica get along with his fellow leaders, who do not share his frugal tastes? Does it create friction? “If majorities are supposed to decide in a democracy, as I see it rulers must tend to live like the majority of their people, not like the minority. When the presidency becomes a royal court, then I am offending the republican sense; I’m engaging in a feudal or monarchical contraband. Leave that for the wigs of monarchs.”
The only vehicle Mujica owns is an old, battered blue Volkswagen Beetle. The farm is owned by his wife, and he donates a large part of his presidential salary to charity.
“I slept for many years on a prison floor, and the nights I got a mattress, I was happy. I survived with barely nothing. So I started giving great importance to the small things in life and to the limits of things. If I dedicate myself to having a lot of things, I will have to spend a great part of my life taking care of them. And I won’t have time left to spend it on the things I like – in my case, politics.
“So living light is no sacrifice for me – it’s an affirmation of freedom, of having the greatest amount of time available for what motivates me. It’s the price of my individual freedom. I’m richer this way.”
REposted From | THE GUARDIAN
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José Alberto “Pepe” Mujica Cordano (Spanish pronunciation: [xoˈse muˈxika]; born 20 May 1935) has been President of Uruguay since 2010. A former urban guerrilla fighter with the Tupamaros and a member of the Broad Front coalition of left-wing parties, Mujica was Minister of Livestock, Agriculture, and Fisheries from 2005 to 2008 and a Senator afterwards. As the candidate of the Broad Front, he won the 2009 presidential election and took office as President on 1 March 2010.
He has been described as “the world’s ‘humblest’ president”, due to his austere lifestyle and his donation of around 90 percent of his $12,000 (£7,500) monthly salary to charities that benefit poor people and small entrepreneurs.[3][4]
Early life
Mujica was born on 20 May 1935, to Demetrio Mujica, of Spanish Basque ancestry,[5][6] and Lucy Cordano, a daughter of Italian immigrants. Mujica’s father was a small farmer who went bankrupt shortly before his death in 1940, when his son was five. His mother’s parents were very poor immigrants from Liguria. Lucy Cordano was born in Carmelo, where her parents had bought five acres in Colonia Estrella to cultivate vineyards. Between the ages of 13 and 17, Mujica cycled for several clubs in different categories. He was also active in the National Party, where he became close to Enrique Erro.
Guerrilla leader
In the mid-1960s, he joined the newly formed MLN-Tupamaros movement, an armed political group inspired by the Cuban Revolution.[7] He participated in the brief 1969 takeover of Pando, a town close to Montevideo, leading one of six squads assaulting strategic points in the city. Mujica’s team was charged with taking over the telephone exchange and was the only one to complete the operation without any mishaps.[8] In March of 1970 Mujica was gunned down while resisting arrest at a Montevideo bar; he injured two policeman and was in turn shot six times. The surgeon on call at the hospital saved his life. Tupamaros claimed that the surgeon was secretly Tupamaro and this is why his life was saved. In reality the doctor was simply following ordinary medical ethics.[9] At the time the president of Uruguay was the controversial Jorge Pacheco Areco, who had suspended certain constitutional guarantees in response to MLN and Communist unrest.[10][11]
In total Mujica was captured by the authorities on four occasions. He was among the more than 100 Tupamaros who escaped Punta Carretas Prison in September of 1971 by digging a tunnel from inside the prison that opened up at the living room of a nearby home.[12] Mujica was re-captured less than a month after escaping, but escaped Punta Carretas once more in April of 1972. On that occasion he and about a dozen other escapees fled riding improvised wheeled planks down the tunnel dug by Tupamaros from outside the prison.[13] He was re-apprehended for the last time in 1972, unable to resist arrest. In the months that followed the country underwent the military coup in 1973. In the meantime, Mujica and eight other Tupamaros were especially chosen to remain under military custody and in squalid conditions. In all, he spent 13 years in captivity. During the 1970s and 1980s, this included being confined to the bottom of an old, emptied horse-watering trough for more than two years.[14] During his time in prison, Mujica suffered a number of health crises, particularly mental issues. Although his two closest cellmates, Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro and Mauricio Rosencof often managed to communicate with each other, they rarely managed to bring Mujica into the conversation. According to Mujica himself, at the time he was suffering from auditory hallucinations and related forms of paranoia.[15]
In 1985, when constitutional democracy was restored, Mujica was freed under an amnesty law that covered political and related military crimes committed since 1962.[16]
Several years after the restoration of democracy, Mujica and many Tupamaros joined other left-wing organizations to create the Movement of Popular Participation,[17] a political party that was accepted within the Broad Front coalition.
In the 1994 general elections, Mujica was elected deputy and in the elections of 1999 he was elected senator. Due in part to Mujica’s charisma, the MPP continued to grow in popularity and votes, and by 2004, it had become the largest of any faction within the Broad Front. In the elections of that year, Mujica was re-elected to the Senate, and the MPP obtained over 300,000 votes, thus consolidating its position as the top political force within the coalition and a major force behind the victory of presidential candidate Tabaré Vázquez. Mujica was then elected in 2009 as president in the following elections. This was taking advantage of the excellent economic position that was acquired during President Battle’s government.
Minister of Agriculture
On 1 March 2005, President Tabaré Vázquez designated Mujica as the Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries (Mujica’s own professional background was in the agricultural sector). Upon becoming minister, Mujica resigned his position as senator. He held this position until a cabinet change in 2008, when he resigned and was replaced by Ernesto Agazzi. Mujica then returned to his seat in the Senate.
Political positions
Mujica’s political ideology has evolved over the years from orthodox to pragmatist. In recent times he has expressed a desire for a more flexible political left.[18] His speaking style and manner is credited as part of his growing popularity since the late 1990s, especially among rural and poor sectors of the population.[19] He has been variously described as an “antipolitician”[20] and a man who “speaks the language of the people” while also receiving criticism for untimely or inappropriate remarks.[21] Unlike president Vázquez, who vetoed a bill put forward by parliament that would make abortions legal, Mujica has stated that should it come before him in the future, he would not veto such a bill.[22] In the sphere of international relations, he hopes to further negotiations and agreements between the European Union and the regional trade bloc Mercosur, of which Uruguay is a founding member.[23]
On the Uruguay River pulp mill dispute between Argentina and Uruguay, Mujica was more conciliatory toward the Argentine government than the previous administration, and in 2010 the two nations ended their long-running dispute and signed an agreement detailing an environmental monitoring plan of the river and the setting up of a binational commission. Good personal relations between Mujica and Argentinian counterpart Cristina Kirchner helped lead to the accord, although several bilateral issues remain unresolved, including the dredging of the shared Martin Garcia access channel of Río de la Plata (Silver River).[24][25]
Asked about Brazilian President Lula da Silva‘s decision to receive Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he answered it was a “genius move” because “The more Iran is fenced in, the worse it will be for the rest of the world.”[26][27]
Presidential candidate
Even though President Vázquez favored his Finance Minister Danilo Astori as presidential candidate of the then unified Broad Front to succeed him in 2010, Mujica’s broad appeal and growing support within the party posed a challenge to the president. On 14 December 2008, The Extraordinary Congress “Zelmar Michelini” (a party convention) proclaimed Mujica as the official candidate of the Broad Front for primary elections of 2009, but four more precandidates were allowed to participate, including Astori. On 28 June 2009, Mujica won the primary elections becoming the presidential candidate of the Broad Front for the 2009 general election. After that, Astori agreed to be his running mate. Their campaign was centered on the concept of continuing and deepening the policies of the highly popular administration of Vázquez, using the slogan “Un gobierno honrado, un país de primera” (An honest government, a first-class country) – indirectly referencing cases of administrative corruption within the former government of the major opposition candidate, conservative Luis Alberto Lacalle. During the campaign, Mujica distanced himself from the governing style of presidents like Hugo Chávez (Venezuela) or Evo Morales (Bolivia), claiming the center-left governments of Brazilian Luis Inácio Lula da Silva or Chilean socialist Michelle Bachelet as regional examples upon which he would model his administration. Known for his informal style of dress, Mujica donned a suit (without a tie) for some stops in the presidential campaign, notably during visits to regional heads of state.[28]
In October 2009, Mujica won a plurality of over 48 percent of the votes compared to 30 percent for former president Lacalle, falling short of the majority required by the constitution, while at the same time renewing the Broad Front’s parliamentary majority for the next legislature (2010–2015). A runoff was then held on 29 November to determine the winner; on 30 November Mujica emerged as the victor, with more than 52% of the vote over Lacalle’s 43%.[29] In his first speech as president-elect before a crowd of supporters, Mujica acknowledged his political adversaries and called for unity, stating that there would be no winners or losers (“Ni vencidos, ni vencedores”). He added that “it is a mistake to think that power comes from above, when it comes from within the hearts of the masses (…) it has taken me a lifetime to learn this”.[30]
Government
Mujica formed a cabinet made up of politicians from the different sectors of the Broad Front, conceding the economics area to aides of his vice president Danilo Astori. The expectations were high, as Mujica is the first former guerrilla fighter to become President in Uruguay.
In June 2012, his government made a move to legalize state-controlled sales of marijuana in Uruguay in order to fight drug-related crimes and health issues, and stated that they would ask global leaders to do the same.[31][32] Mujica said that by regulating Uruguay’s estimated $40 million-a-year marijuana business, the state will take it away from drug traffickers, and weaken the drug cartels. The state would also be able to keep track of all marijuana consumers in the country, and provide treatment to the most serious abusers, much like that which is done with alcoholics.[33]
In September 2013, Mujica addressed the United Nations General Assembly, with a very long discourse devoted to humanity and globalization.[34] The speech called on the international community to strengthen efforts to preserve the planet for future generations and highlighted the power of the financial systems and the impact of economic fallout on ordinary people. He urged a return to simplicity, with lives founded on human relationships, love, friendship, adventure, solidarity and family, instead of lives shackled to the economy and the markets.[35]
Personal life
In 2005, Mujica married Lucía Topolansky, a fellow Tupamaro member and current senator, after many years of co-habitation. They have no children and live on an austere farm in the outskirts of Montevideo where they cultivate chrysanthemums for sale, having declined to live in the opulent presidential palace or use its staff.[36] His humble lifestyle is reflected by his choice of an aging Volkswagen Beetle as transport.[37] In 2010, the value of the car was $1,800 and represented the entirety of the mandatory annual personal wealth declaration filed by Mujica for that year. In November 2014, the Uruguayan newspaper Búsqueda reported that he had been offered $1 million for the car, which was manufactured in 1987; he said that if he did get $1m for the car it would be donated to house the homeless through a programme that he supports.[38] His wife owns the farm they live on. Some Uruguayans see him as “a roly-poly former guerrilla who grows flowers on a small farm and swears by vegetarianism“.[3][39][40][41][42][43] He describes himself as atheist.[1]
International relevance
During the last months of 2013, the renowned Serbian film director Emir Kusturica started shooting a documentary film on the life of Mujica, whom he considers “the last hero of politics”.[44]
REposted From | WIKIPEDIA
