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Mujica's
Journey of Magical
Realism, a Lesson for Maoists
From the Bottom of
a Pit to the Heights
of Presidential Office
How Mujica, the guerilla
fighter, climbed out of his prison
well to become the President of
Uruguay… The emerging democratic
paradigm in Latin America has a
particular relevance to the struggle
of Maoists, says India's Ambassador
to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay
R. Viswanathan.
Jose Mujica, the former leftist
Tupamaro guerrilla fighter who was
elected as President of Uruguay
on 29 November 2009, was held in
the bottom of a well for two years
as part of his 14 years of imprisonment.
He learned to speak to the frogs
and to hear the cry of the ants.
He held dialogues with his inner
self in order to avoid going mad
in the well which was mercifully
dry. He survived, abjured violence
and embraced democratic ideals.
He will now move into the Presidential
office in the top floor of the Executive
Tower building in Montevideo.
Mujica could not contain his tears
at his emotional victory speech.
Even the sky burst with rain and
drenched him and his supporters
with a heavy downpour. It was a
symbolic washing down of the past
of Mujica, heralding a new era in
the history of Uruguay and Latin
America.
Taking Up Arms
In the 1960s and 70s, Latin America
was filled with young idealist revolutionaries,
who took up arms to change the status
quo and establish utopian socialist
states. They assassinated, kidnapped
and killed persons of authority
and robbed banks for the cause of
their ideology. Some of the revolutionaries
were killed, thrown into sea from
planes, jailed, tortured, exiled
or simply made to “disappear”,
as an Argentine General put it in
a kind of magical realism, “They
are not alive, nor dead… but
have just disappeared”. The
word “Desaparecido”
still haunts the society, literature
and arts of the region. Che Guevara,
the revolutionary icon, was killed
by the Bolivian army. Few of the
revolutionaries were lucky to survive
the bullets and get a second chance
to come to power through the ballot.
Jose Mujica is one of them.
Mujica joined the Tupamaro armed
militant group and participated
in the brief takeover of Pando,
a town close to the capital Montevideo
in 1969. He was captured and jailed
on four occasions and once managed
to escape from the prison. He was
eventually re-captured in 1972,
shot by the police six times. After
the military coup in 1973, he was
held in a military prison for 11
years and tortured. In 1985, when
democracy was restored, Mujica was
freed under a general amnesty. Mujica,
along with his comrades, founded
a new political party, Movement
of Popular Participation. He won
the 1994 elections to become a deputy
and later a senator and used to
go to the Parliament on a motorbike.
His party was the largest component
of the centre-left Frente Amplio
coalition, which won the election
in 2004 and formed the first Leftist
government in Uruguay's history.
This government led by President
Tabare Vazquez was popular in the
last five years with its Inclusive
Development Agenda and at the same
time for being market-friendly.
Mujica was Minister of Agriculture
in Vazquez's government. He gained
nomination as the Coalition candidate
in the 2009 elections and won with
53 percent votes.
Mujica has promised continuity of
the pragmatic policies of the coalition
government of the last five years.
He has said that he would govern
like President Lula of Brazil, who
has become the role model for the
Latin American Leftists. In one
of his campaign speeches, Mujica
vowed to distance the Left from
“the stupid ideologies that
come from the 1970s I refer to things
like unconditional love of everything
that is State-run, scorn for businessmen
and intrinsic hate of the United
States.” He said, “I'll
shout it if they want: Down with
isms! Up with a Left that is capable
of thinking outside the box! In
other words, I am more than completely
cured of simplifications, of dividing
the world into good and evil, of
thinking in black and white. I have
repented!”
Unpretentious Couple
‘In 2005, Mujica married Lucia
Topolansky, a fellow Tupamaro fighter
and current Senator, after many
years of co-habitation. The presidential
couple would continue to stay in
their modest farm house in a working-class
community with dirt roads and small
plots on the edge of the capital.
The other guerrilla leader who became
President in Latin America was Daniel
Ortega of Nicaragua. He was part
of the Sandinista movement which
waged an armed struggle and overthrew
the Somoza dictatorship. He won
the elections in 1984 and was President
from 1985 to 1990. He was defeated
in the elections in 1990, 1996 and
2000 but succeeded in 2006 and is
the current President. His wife
Rosario Murillo was also a guerrilla
fighter.
Alvaro Garcia Linera, the Vice President
of Bolivia, was a cofounder the
insurgent Tupak Katari Guerrilla
Army. He was arrested and charged
with insurrection and terrorism.
While imprisoned, he studied sociology
and became a university professor
after his release from prison. He
was elected Vice President as the
running mate to Evo Morales in the
2005 Presidential elections.
Ali Rodriguez Araque, the Finance
Minister of Venezuela, was active
in the Marxist guerrilla movement
and was known as “Commander
Fausto”, allegedly acting
as an explosives expert. He was
one of the last guerrilla fighters
to put down arms. After the State
pardon, he took to parliamentary
politics. He has served as oil minister,
foreign minister and Vice President
of the country as well as OPEC Secretary
General.
Nilda Garre, the Defence Minister
of Argentina, was said to be part
of the militant Leftist movement
of Montoneros which fought against
the military dictatorship. Her husband
and brother-in-law were allegedly
involved with the Montoneros. Her
husband was exiled and her brother-in-law
was killed in a shoot out. In an
ironic justice, Nilda Garre is now
the boss of the Generals who once
considered her as public enemy of
the State.
Dilma Rousseff, the chief of staff
of President Lula and the candidate
for the elections to be held in
October 2010 was a member of a clandestine
Brazilian guerrilla group. She was
thrown into jail between 1970 and
1972 and was tortured. After her
release from jail, Dilma took to
politics and started working with
Lula in the Workers Party. Both
her two ex-husbands were also part
of the underground insurgent groups.
All the major armed guerrilla groups
of Latin America have now renounced
arms and have taken the democratic
route. The only major group still
fighting is the FARC of Colombia,
whose story needs a separate analysis.
The Latin American democracies,
which were reborn in the 1980s after
the end of military dictatorships,
do not any longer face the threat
of anti-establishment armed guerrilla
groups. The region is also free
from terrorism and religious fundamentalism
which have become threats in all
the other regions. There are, of
course, crime, violence, kidnapping
and drug trafficking. But these
are law and order problems and do
not pose a serious challenge to
the new democratic paradigm of Latin
America.
(The author's views expressed here
are personal and do not reflect
those of the Government of India.)
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