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Jose Mujica, Uruguay’s former leader, rebel icon and cannabis reformer, dead at 89
Jose Mujica, a one-time guerrilla and later president of Uruguay who drove a beat-up VW Beetle and enacted progressive reforms that carried his reputation well beyond South America, has died aged 89.
The straight-talking Mujica, known to many Uruguayans by his nickname «Pepe,» led the small farming country’s leftist government from 2010 to 2015 after convincing voters his radical past was a closed chapter.
FORMER URUGUAYAN PRESIDENT JOSE MUJICA ANNOUNCES ESOPHAGEAL CANCER DIAGNOSIS
«It is with deep sorrow that we announce the death of our comrade Pepe Mujica,» President Yamandu Orsi said in a post on X. «Thank you for everything you gave us and for your deep love for your people.»
As president, Mujica adopted what was then a pioneering liberal stance on issues related to civil liberties. He signed a law allowing gay marriage and abortions in early pregnancy, and backed a proposal to legalize marijuana sales. The gay marriage and abortion measures were a big shift for Catholic Latin America, and the move on marijuana was at the time almost unprecedented worldwide.
Regional leaders, including leftist presidents in Brazil, Chile and Mexico, mourned Mujica’s passing and praised his example.
«He defended democracy like few others. And he never stopped advocating for social justice and the end of all inequalities,» said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Mujica’s «greatness transcended the borders of Uruguay and his presidential term,» he added.
During his term in office, Mujica refused to move to the presidential residence, choosing to stay in his modest home where he kept a small flower farm in a suburb of Montevideo, the capital.
Shunning a formal suit and tie, it was common to see him driving around in his Beetle or eating at downtown restaurants where office workers had lunch.
People gather outside the Movimiento de Participacion Popular (MPP) party headquarters, following the death of Uruguay’s former President Jose «Pepe» Mujica at the age of 89, in Montevideo, Uruguay May 13, 2025. (REUTERS/Andres Cuenca)
In a May 2024 interview with Reuters in the tin-roofed house that Mujica shared with his wife, former Senator Lucia Topolansky, he said he had kept the old Beetle and that it was still in «phenomenal» condition.
But, he added, he preferred a turn on the tractor, saying it was «more entertaining» than a car and was a place where «you have time to think.»
Critics questioned Mujica’s tendency to break with protocol, while his blunt and occasionally uncouth statements sometimes forced him to explain himself, under pressure from opponents and political allies alike.
But it was his down-to-earth style and progressive musings that endeared him to many Uruguayans.
«The problem is that the world is run by old people, who forget what they were like when they were young,» Mujica said during the 2024 interview.
Mujica himself was 74 when he became president. He was elected with 52% of the vote, despite some voters’ concerns about his age and his past as one of the leaders of the Tupamaros rebel group in the 1960s and 1970s.
Lucia Topolansky was Mujica’s long-term partner, dating back to their days in the Tupamaros. The couple married in 2005, and she served as vice president from 2017-2020.
After leaving office, they remained politically active, regularly attending inaugurations of Latin American presidents and giving crucial backing to candidates in Uruguay, including Orsi, who took office in March 2025. They stopped growing flowers on their small holding but continued to cultivate vegetables, including tomatoes that Topolansky pickled each season.
BEHIND BARS
Jose Mujica’s birth certificate recorded him as born in 1935, although he claimed there was an error and that he was actually born a year earlier. He once described his upbringing as «dignified poverty.»
Mujica’s father died when he was 9 or 10 years old, and as a boy he helped his mother maintain the farm where they grew flowers and kept chickens and a few cows.
At the time Mujica became interested in politics, Uruguay’s left was weak and fractured and he began his political career in a progressive wing of the center-right National Party.
In the late 1960s, he joined the Marxist Tupamaros guerrilla movement, which sought to weaken Uruguay’s conservative government through robberies, political kidnappings and bombings.
Mujica later said that he had never killed anyone but was involved in several violent clashes with police and soldiers and was once shot six times.
Uruguay’s security forces gained the upper hand over the Tupamaros by the time the military swept to power in a 1973 coup, marking the start of a 12-year dictatorship in which about 200 people were kidnapped and killed. Thousands more were jailed and tortured.
Mujica spent almost 15 years behind bars, many in solitary confinement, lying at the bottom of an old horse trough with only ants for company. He managed to escape twice, once by tunneling into a nearby house. His biggest «vice» as he approached 90, he later said, was talking to himself, alluding to his time in isolation.
When democracy was restored to the farming country of roughly 3 million people in 1985, Mujica was released and returned to politics, gradually becoming a prominent figure on the left.
He served as agriculture minister in the center-left coalition of his predecessor, President Tabaré Vázquez, who would go on to succeed him from 2015 to 2020.
Mujica’s support base was on the left, but he maintained a fluid dialogue with opponents within the center-right, inviting them to traditional barbecues at his home.
«We can’t pretend to agree on everything. We have to agree with what there is, not with what we like,» he said.
He believed drugs should be decriminalized «under strict state control» and addiction addressed.
«I do not defend drug use. But I can’t defend (a ban) because now we have two problems: drug addiction, which is a disease, and narcotrafficking, which is worse,» he said.
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In retirement, he remained resolutely optimistic.
«I want to convey to all the young people that life is beautiful, but it wears out and you fall,» he said following a cancer diagnosis.
«The point is to start over every time you fall, and if there is anger, transform it into hope.»
INTERNACIONAL
Trump echó a la secretaria de Seguridad Nacional de EE.UU., responsable de las redadas contra inmigrantes
El presidente estadounidense, Donald Trump, anunció este jueves que destituyó a la secretaria de Seguridad Nacional Kristi Noem.
La funcionaria tenía a su cargo la polémica política migratoria a través de las redadas contra indocumentados en todo el país.
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Trump anunció que Noem dejará el cargo a partir del 31 de marzo. La sustituirá el senador de Oklahoma Markwayne Mullin, mientras la agencia permanece cerrada por falta de fondos.
El mandatario republicano hizo el anuncio en redes sociales, dos días después que Noem enfrentara un duro interrogatorio en el Capitolio por parte de miembros del Partido Republicano, así como de legisladores demócratas.
El futuro de Kristi Noem
Trump anunció además que designará a Noem como “Enviada Especial para el Escudo de las Americas”, una nueva iniciativa de seguridad que, afirmó, se centrará en el hemisferio occidental.
Noem es la primera secretaria del gabinete en dejar el cargo durante el segundo mandato de Trump. Su salida pone fin a un periodo turbulento al frente de tácticas de control migratorio que fueron recibidas con protestas y demandas, con manifestantes y disturbios en grandes ciudades como Los Angeles. Donald Trump destituyó a Kristi Noem (Foto: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper)
El año pasado, Estados Unidos afirmó haber deportado a unos 600.000 inmigrantes sin papeles. Sin embargo, durante la gestión de Noem se sucedieron las denuncias de arrestos y expulsiones de migrantes con documentación provisoria.
Según afirmaron, eran esperados en los juzgados migratorios por agentes especiales para ser detenidos, procesados y expulsados. Esta política de persecución contra las comunidades migrantes, en especial la latina, desató una ola de pánico entre los extranjeros.
Las fuerzas del Servicio de Control de Inmigración y Aduanas (ICE) patrullaron comunidades hispanas, realizaron allanamientos en lugares de trabajo, en iglesias y hasta en las puertas de escuelas, lo que provocó airadas protestas de la comunidad latina.
Además, la figura de Noem quedó en medio de una fuerte controversia tras los tiroteos fatales de agentes del ICE en el que murieron dos ciudadanos estadounidenses.
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Según la prensa local, Trump habría tomado su decisión tras las audiencias de Noem en el Congreso, durante las cuales se vio en aprietos por la adjudicación de un importante contrato público. Entonces fue duramente cuestionada por senadores demócratas y también por el republicano Thom Tillis, que pidió su dimisión y recordó el polémico episodio de su libro en el que Noem relataba cómo había matado a su perra y a una cabra.
El departamento de Seguridad Nacional se encuentra parcialmente cerrado por falta de fondos desde el 14 de febrero a la espera de que demócratas y republicanos acuerden cambios en los procesos operativos de las redadas migratorias que desatasquen la aprobación de la partida presupuestaria.
Al margen de las controvertidas redadas, la presión sobre Noem fue aumentando en los últimos días frente a una polémica y agresiva campaña para publicitar la labor de su departamento adjudicada el año pasado. Se conoció que su cartera abanderó una “emergencia” fronteriza para justificar la concesión, sin licitación previa, de la campaña, valorada en unos 220 millones de dólares, a una entidad controlada por el marido de la exportavoz del propio de la secretaría de Seguridad, Tricia McLaughlin.
Qué dijo Donald Trump
En un extenso mensaje en su red Truth Social, Trump afirmó: “Me complace anunciar que el muy respetado senador estadounidense del gran estado de Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, asumirá el cargo de Secretario de Seguridad Nacional (DHS) de Estados Unidos a partir del 31 de marzo de 2026″.
“La actual secretaria, Kristi Noem, quien nos ha servido eficazmente y ha obtenido numerosos y espectaculares resultados (¡especialmente en la frontera!), pasará a ser Enviada Especial para el Escudo de las Américas, nuestra nueva Iniciativa de Seguridad en el Hemisferio Occidental que anunciaremos el sábado en Doral, Florida», indicó.
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Además, señaló: “Agradezco a Kristi su servicio. Tras 10 años en la Cámara de Representantes de Estados Unidos y 3 en el Senado, Markwayne ha realizado una labor excepcional representando al maravilloso pueblo de Oklahoma, donde gané en 77 de los 77 condados en 2016, 2020 y 2024″.
“Un guerrero MAGA y ex luchador profesional invicto de MMA (Artes Marciales Kixtas), Markwayne se lleva muy bien con la gente y posee la sabiduría y el coraje necesarios para impulsar nuestra agenda de ‘América Primero’. Como el único nativo americano en el Senado, Markwayne es un defensor excepcional de nuestras increíbles comunidades tribales”, prosiguió.
En el final de su posteo, dijo: “Markwayne trabajará incansablemente para mantener nuestra frontera segura, detener la delincuencia migratoria, los asesinos y otros delincuentes que ingresan ilegalmente a nuestro país, acabar con el flagelo de las drogas ilegales y hacer que Estados Unidos vuelva a ser seguro. Markwayne será un excelente Secretario de Seguridad Nacional. ¡Gracias por su atención!“.
(Con información de AFP, EFE y AP)
Donald Trump
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Trump’s new DHS pick is an illegal immigration hawk who’s ‘all about the mission’: Expert
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Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin, President Donald Trump’s new pick to lead the embattled Department of Homeland Security, is a supporter of strict immigration enforcement who, in the last year, has proved invaluable in getting key pieces of the president’s agenda across the finish line.
A first-term senator who identifies as Native American, Mullin is a self-described «bull in a China cabinet» who was instrumental in the Senate’s passage of the Trump-backed One Big Beautiful Bill. Lora Ries, a border security and immigration expert at the Heritage Foundation, predicted to Fox News Digital that Mullin will have a focused leadership approach as head of DHS.
«It won’t be about him, it’s about the mission, and it’s about carrying out the president’s agenda to maintain a secure border, but also mass deportations,» she said.
Shortly after news of his appointment broke, Mullin called it a «big surprise» but said he is «excited» to take on the role.
Trump named Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-OK, as the next head of DHS. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
«The president and I have a really good relationship; we talk all the time anyway. I wasn’t, to be quite honest with you, expecting the call today. But it’s super exciting,» he told reporters outside the Capitol.
He said that his focus as DHS secretary will be to «keep the homeland secure.»
«Nothing is going to prevent me from doing my job,» he continued. «I’m going to enforce the policies and the laws that Congress has passed, and we’re going to protect the homeland.»
Ries said that Mullin’s appointment signals Trump doubling down on his agenda of maintaining a secure border. Ries also said she does not expect the transition from outgoing Secretary Kristi Noem to Mullin to disrupt the agency’s enforcement operations.
«We can’t waste any time, given we’re concerned with sleeper cells from Iran and other locations, terrorist threats that Joe Biden let into the country,» she added.
SCHUMER, DEMS HOLD FIRM ON DHS FUNDING DESPITE NOEM’S BOMBSHELL OUSTING
Immigrants wait to be processed at a U.S. Border Patrol transit center after they crossed the border from Mexico on December 20, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
At 48 years old, Mullin is a husband and father of six. He has served in the Senate for just over three years, entering office in January 2023. Before that, he served in the House of Representatives for about 10 years.
Currently, Mullin serves as the chair of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee. He does not serve on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the panel that he will soon sit before during his confirmation process.
He is also a member of Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s, R-S.D., leadership team and proved a decisive asset in extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts last year.
It was, however, the relationships he built in the lower chamber that made him a de facto liaison with his former House colleagues. That role began when former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., with whom Mullin was close friends, was in leadership and has continued under House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
That role as liaison, which Mullin previously told Fox News Digital he never wanted, made him an invaluable asset last year when Republicans were trying to pass Trump’s big beautiful bill. Mullin had already become a member of Thune’s whip team and offered to help bridge the policy gap between House Republicans and Senate Republicans to ensure the legislation was passed.
Both chambers were going back and forth on the bill, which Mullin told Fox News Digital last year wasn’t necessarily «a good indication that we were butting heads.»
«Everybody was very passionate about this,» Mullin said. «I mean, they’ve been working for a long time. We looked at it as maybe a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us to be able to get this done.»
ILLEGAL’S DRAGGING OF ICE AGENT SHOWS THE EXACT DANGER THE OFFICER WHO SHOT RENEE GOOD FEARED, EXPERT SAYS
Then-Sen.-elect, Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla. is seen in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, November 15, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
On Mullin’s website, he states, «We are a nation of laws, and those laws must be upheld.»
«We must ensure our immigration laws are enforced, bring back the Remain in Mexico policy, finish building the wall, and end the liberal incentives that are fueling the worst border crisis in American history,» Mullin’s website reads.
Mullin has harshly criticized Democrats for moving to defund DHS, saying, «If we defund the Department of Homeland Security, they do a lot more than arrest illegals. You walk through the airport, they’re providing security. The Department of Homeland Security is there for a reason … They protect us from threats at home and abroad, around the United States and across the world.»
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After the lapse in DHS funding, Mullin slammed the Democrats for «political theater,» saying he was focused on restoring the funding.
When asked if there were any lessons Mullin had learned from her tumultuous tenure atop the agency, he noted that he and Noem were close friends, but that he had not yet had time to call her yet after receiving the news.
«Our families are friends. She was tasked to do a very difficult job. And I think she has, she has performed the best she can do,» Mullin said.
«Is there always lessons that can be learned? You know, listen, my wife and I, we have, over the years, we have been fortunate enough to purchase companies and grow our companies, and every day there’s something you can do better,» he continued. «And so, I think there’s, there’s an opportunity to build off successes, and there’s also opportunities to build off things that maybe didn’t go quite as planned.»
Mullin said he and Trump are «great friends» and «I look forward to working for him on his cabinet.» He noted, «Of course, we still have this whole thing called confirmation, and we’re going to get started on that right away.»
homeland security,immigration,border security,kristi noem,donald trump,enforcement,illegal immigrants
INTERNACIONAL
Donald Trump dijo que Zelensky debería “llegar a un acuerdo” con Rusia para finalizar la guerra en Ucrania
El presidente de Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, instó nuevamente al mandatario ucraniano, Volodimir Zelensky, a alcanzar un “acuerdo” que ponga fin a la guerra en Ucrania, argumentando que su par ruso, Vladimir Putin, está “dispuesto” a negociar.
“Zelenski debe moverse y llegar a un acuerdo. Creo que Putin está dispuesto a llegar a un acuerdo”, declaró Trump en una entrevista concedida al medio Politico. El mandatario estadounidense retomó expresiones utilizadas durante una reunión en la Casa Blanca hace un año, donde reprendió públicamente a Zelenski y sugirió que el líder ucraniano se encuentra en una posición débil que lo obliga a hacer concesiones.
“Es impensable que él sea el obstáculo”, afirmó Trump y analizó las negociaciones que está impulsando su administración entre Kiev y Moscú: “(Zelensky) no tienes las cartas. Ahora él tiene todavía menos cartas”.
Trump cuestionó reiteradamente el apoyo financiero del país norteamericano a Ucrania y manifestó su admiración por Putin. Las declaraciones sobre Ucrania coinciden con la ofensiva militar que Estados Unidos mantiene junto a Israel contra el régimen iraní, campaña en la que, según el mandatario, se han invertido millones de dólares.
Desde su asunción en enero de 2025, Trump prometió terminar con la guerra en Ucrania, aunque admitió que lograr ese objetivo ha resultado difícil. Mientras tanto, el Kremlin sostiene sus ataques en territorio ucraniano. Trump ha evitado adoptar medidas más duras contra Putin y lo describió como el único líder capaz de negociar con ambas partes.
Zelensky afirmó el miércoles que, “en este momento, debido a la situación en torno a Irán, no hay señales claras que indiquen la posibilidad de una reunión trilateral”, la cual estaba pactada para que comience el 5 de marzo. Agregó que, “tan pronto como la situación de seguridad y el contexto político lo permitan, reanudaremos ese trabajo diplomático trilateral”.
En medio de las pausadas conversaciones entre las delegaciones de los países involucrados en la guerra que inició días atrás su quinto año, Ucrania y Rusia liberaron este jueves a 200 prisioneros de guerra cada uno, en el primer tramo de un intercambio que prevé la liberación de 500 personas por cada país, según informaron funcionarios de ambas partes.
El plan para el canje se alanzó durante conversaciones celebradas en Ginebra el mes pasado.
El mandatario ucraniano destacó el impacto de la medida en redes sociales: “Hoy, 200 familias ucranianas recibieron el mensaje más esperado: sus seres queridos regresan a casa”. Un video difundido por el Comisionado de Derechos Humanos de Ucrania, Dmytro Lubinets, mostró a militares descendiendo de autobuses envueltos en banderas ucranianas y gritando “¡Gloria a Ucrania!”, además de abrazar a quienes los recibieron.
Entre los prisioneros liberados por Rusia se encuentran soldados ucranianos capturados en 2022, incluidos quienes participaron en el asedio de tres meses a la planta de acero de Azovstal en Mariúpol, precisó Lubinets.
Por su parte, el Ministerio de Defensa ruso difundió imágenes de sus soldados subiendo a un autobús, vitoreando y ondeando banderas rusas. Rusia informó que Emiratos Árabes Unidos y Estados Unidos participaron en la mediación del intercambio.
De acuerdo con el negociador ruso Vladimir Medinsky, nuevas liberaciones están previstas para el viernes y el acuerdo contempla el intercambio de 500 prisioneros en total por cada bando. Los intercambios de prisioneros de guerra se mantienen como uno de los pocos ámbitos de cooperación entre ambos países desde el inicio del conflicto.
(Con información de AFP)
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