From Rebel to Prisoner and Leftist Latin American Icon, Pepe Mujica Reflects

By Reuters
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May 25, 2024, at 7:02 a.m.

By Lucinda Elliott

MONTEVIDEO (Reuters) - José Mujica, a one-time guerrilla, prisoner and later president of Uruguay who has cemented himself as an icon of the Latin American left, maintains that he is a farmer and nature lover above all else. At his smallholding on the outskirts of Uruguay's capital Montevideo, the former president who turned 89 this week said he still feeds the chickens and enjoys a turn on the tractor.

"It's more entertaining than a car, you are in permanent contact with nature, with the bugs and the birds," Mujica said in an interview with Reuters at his unpretentious single-storey home.

It is the same tin-roofed house where he chose to live throughout his presidency from 2010 to 2015, having refused to move into the presidential residence. The old VW Beetle he famously drove from the farm to work is still in "phenomenal" shape, he said, but on a tractor, "you have time to think."

Mujica's progressive thoughts are what transformed him from a boy who helped his mother grow flowers and vegetables, to a beacon of the political left in South America. During his presidency, same-sex marriage, abortion and cannabis were legalized, a major shift for many in the predominantly Catholic continent.

More:
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2024-05-25/from-rebel-to-prisoner-and-leftist-latin-american-icon-pepe-mujica-reflects



Mujica and wife, Lucia, when young









Mujica as a rebel, imprisoned



former President Mujica, taking President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva for a ride in his VW.



Former President Pepe Mujica and wife, Senator Lucia Topolansky



(As with many of Latin American countries, Paraguay suffered under a hard right, violent dictatorship, also not well acknowledged by US "news" media)