MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Crowds poured into the streets of Uruguay’s capital on Wednesday to bid a poignant farewell to former President José Mujica, a guerrilla fighter-turned-pioneering chief who turned an icon of the Latin American left, remembered most for his humility, easy way of life and ideological earnestness.
1000’s of individuals mourning the dying of their former chief, affectionately referred to as “Pepe,” joined the procession as Mujica’s flag-covered coffin, borne on a gun carriage, made its approach by way of downtown Montevideo towards the nation’s parliament over the course of three hours.
Mujica died Tuesday on the age of 89 in his residence on the outskirts of Montevideo — a three-room farmhouse the place he lived all through his life and through his presidency (2010-2015), in rejection of Uruguay’s opulent presidential mansion.
Chants of “Pepe, pricey, the persons are with you!” rose because the cortege handed. Uruguayans lined the sidewalks alongside the route and applauded from balconies.
Uruguay’s president, Yamandú Orsi, Mujica’s longtime interlocutor and protégé from his left-wing Broad Entrance get together, declared Wednesday-to-Friday nationwide days of mourning in a presidential decree that praised Mujica’s “humanist philosophy,” closing the federal government to all however crucial operations whereas flags flew at half-staff.
A former mayor and historical past trainer, Orsi, like Mujica, shunned the presidential palace in favor of his household residence and has sought to proceed Mujica’s legacy of humility. Mujica made a few of his final public appearances campaigning and casting his poll for Orsi final fall.
Accompanied by present and former officers — and Mujica’s life associate and fellow politician, 80-year-old Lucía Topolansky — Orsi launched the funeral procession in a non-public ritual on the presidential headquarters, draping a silk nationwide flag over Mujica’s coffin.
Mujica would have turned 90 subsequent week; he was born on Could 20, 1935.
Throughout his political profession, Mujica earned admiration at residence and cult standing overseas for legalizing marijuana and same-sex marriage, enacting the area’s first sweeping abortion rights regulation and establishing Uruguay as a pacesetter in different power.
Earlier than overseeing the transformation of his small South American nation into one of many world’s most socially liberal democracies as president, Mujica robbed banks, planted bombs and kidnapped businessmen because the chief of a violent leftist guerrilla group within the Nineteen Sixties referred to as the Tupamaros.
Mujica was identified with esophageal most cancers in April 2024.
