José ‘Pepe’ Mujica, former guerrilla warfare and former president of Uruguay, died at the age of 89 | Uruguay

The former president of Uruguay, José Mujica, a producer of Marxist and Fleuri guerrillas in the time, including the radical brand of democracy, of philosophy in a simple voice and simple fascinated lifestyle in the world, has died. He was 89 years old.

His death was announced by the current Uruguayan president. Yamandú Orsi. In an article on the social media platform X, Orsi called Mujica as “president, activist, guide and leader”. Mujica has been under treatment for esophagus cancer since spring 2024, when the disease was diagnosed.

Even if the treatment left him weak and barely capable of eating, Mujica reappears on the political scene in the fall of 2024, campaigning for his left coalition in the national elections which vaul his favorite candidate and protected, Orsi, president.

In September 2024, his doctor reported that the radiation had managed to eliminate a large part of the Mujica tumor. But in January 2025, his doctor announced that his esophagus cancer had returned and spread to his liver. His autoimmune disease and other underlying medical problems have led MUJICA to decide not to continue an additional treatment.

“Honestly, I’m dying,” Mujica told the weekly Búsqueda magazine in what he said he was his last interview. “A warrior has the right to rest.”

During its 2010-2015 presidency, Mujica, widely known as “Pepe”, supervised the transformation of its little South American nation into one of the most liberal democracies in the world. He obtained admiration at home and the status of worship abroad to legalize marijuana and homosexual marriage, promulgating the first law on the rights of abortion in the region and establishing Uruguay as a leader in alternative energy.

He sparked the world fascination by avoiding the presidential palace to live in a tiny firm and donating most of his salary to charity.

In the 1960s, he co-founded the Marxist-Leninist Tupamaros urban guerrilla warfare movement, which began to fly rich to give to the poor, but then intensified his campaign with kidnappings, bomb attacks and assassinations.
During these years, Mujica has lived a life of Derring-Do. He underwent several ball injuries and participated in a mass break in prison.

But when the Tupamaros collapsed in 1972, he was recapped and spent the whole dictatorship of Uruguay in 1973-1985 in prison, where he was tortured and spent years in isolation.

After his release, he embarked on politics and founded in 1989 the Movement of Popular Participation (MPP), the biggest member of the Broad Front Coalition on the left.

Elected at the Congress in 1995, he became a senator in 2000, then Minister of Agriculture in the very first left government in Uruguay.

He served a single five -year term as president, in accordance with the limits of Uruguay’s mandate.
Mujica had no children and is survived by his wife, Lucía Topolansky, another former activist.

In her latest interview, Mujica responded several times to interview questions with philosophical aphorisms.

“Life is a great adventure and a miracle,” he said. “We are too focused on wealth and not on happiness. We focus only on things and – before we know – life has passed you. ”

Associated Press and Agency France-Press contributed the reports