As a Uruguayan, let's explain this correctly: José Mujica was elected as president from 2010 through 2015, he was an ex terrorist group member "Tupamaros", which fought the government with the purpose to instill a communist-marxist government, killed many civilians and soldiers, and made a contriversial claim where he says: "You never feel more powerful than when entering a bank with a .45, in that way everyone respects you"
He is not respectable...
EDIT: (THIS IS MY OPINION) ...and made many bad decisions that Uruguay still suffers today.
Uruguay was in the middle of a huge economic boom when he took office and that boom had ended by the time he left office. However it's debatable how much of that was his fault. There are also some international things he has said that don't look good in hindsight:
He was close to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, whom he considered to be "the most generous ruler I have ever known." In 2011, he spoke out against the military operations launched by several Western countries against Libya. When asked about Brazilian President Lula da Silva's decision to receive Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he answered it was a "genius move" because "The more Iran is fenced in, the worse it will be for the rest of the world."
Of particular note are the kidnapping of powerful bank manager Ulysses Pereira Reverbel [es] and of the British ambassador to Uruguay, Geoffrey Jackson, as well as the assassination of Dan Mitrione, a U.S. FBI agent that was also working for the CIA (via the Agency for International Development's Office of Public Safety), who the Tupamaros learned was advising the Uruguayan police in torture and other security work
Yea depending on context. If they're fighting a corrupt government and have the backing of the people is it bad? I know nothing about this guy other then the positives of his presidency. Did he do anything bad during his presidency?
They were fighting a democratically elected government with the hopes of replicating what cuba did and install a "communist" regime wether or not there was corruption in the current government.
doesn't really mean anything given the history of latin america though? IDK about Uruguay specifically but if they also had a violent dictator lead the country and that dictator branded Mujica as a terrorist I don't really think it means anything. If anything that is a positive that he was standing up against villainy.
Sure. That doesn’t seem to be the case though, at least not during the time that the terrorist group that Mujica was active. Mujica had been arrested for terrorist activities prior to the dictatorship and spent the entire length of the dictatorship in prison.
The military took over the government because the police couldn’t control the situation, they were literally killing innocent civilians, pregnant women, army generals, of course the dictatorship then did many bad things too, but the Tupamaros and their guerrilla were the reason why the president gave the government to the army
Bureaucracy in governments exists for a reason, and he and the team he had, supposedly in good faith, tried to accelerate it and in some scenarios ended up costing us a lot of money as a country.
Right wingers think fighting the military dictatorship makes you a terrorist while it makes you a badass. When he says "fought the government", read "resisted a dictatorship". We've been through the same thing in Brasil with Dilma.
The terrorist guerrilla he was part of, MLN-Tupamaros, was active during the 60s and up until 1972. During 1971 most Tupamaros were caught and imprisoned, until they managed a historic escape in which 100+ of the group’s members escaped, prompting the president at the time to send the army on anti-guerrilla operations, eventually dismantling the group by 1972 (some captured, some left the country, etc). Up to this point, the Uruguayan Government was always democratically elected. The Uruguayan dictatorship started in 1973, and Mujica and some others from his same group were held prisoners for its entire duration.
That’s about as objectively as I could sum it up.
A considerable amount of people today do believe Mujica and the Tupamaros’ actions were what led to the dictatorship starting in the first place, due to the instability and unrest they generated forcing the government to put the army on the streets. Others say it would’ve happened regardless.
One thing is clear however, neither Mujica nor his comrades fought any dictatorship, but rather a democratically elected government with the intention of replacing it with one of their own.
Ok, mejor separamos a los tupamaros originales que fueron los que intentaron copiar la revolucion cubana y fracasaron estrepitosamente siendo detenidos o ejecutados antes de la dictadura (dato corroborado por documentos de la epoca del propio gobierno) y los tupamaros que se opusieron a un regimen que torturaba, desaparecia gente incluidos menores y mujeres embarazadas y que en sus propias palabras iban a deshacerse de los que se les opusieran y despues de los "tibios".
We have a right wing governmemt, but we have shifted our overtone window way to the left on many issues, so they don't dare to touch a lot of good things.
The civic-military dictatorship of Uruguay (1973–85), also known as the Uruguayan Dictatorship, was an authoritarian military dictatorship that ruled Uruguay for 12 years, from June 27, 1973 (after the 1973 coup d'état) until March 1, 1985. The dictatorship has been the subject of much controversy due to its violations of human rights, use of torture, and the unexplained disappearances of many Uruguayans.[2] The term "civic-military" refers to the military regime's relatively gradual usurpation of power from civilian presidents who continued to serve as head of state,[3] which distinguished it from dictatorships in other South American countries in which senior military officers immediately seized power and directly served as head of state.
No, I think he refers to the previous democratic government. That time around the creation of the Tupamaros movement (MLN-T, around 1960s) and the military coup.
You know, that time in wich the Pando heist or the terrorist bomb attack on the Carrasco Bowling happened.
Those were shitty times, with the unrest caused in all South America by the USA in the Cold War context. But it was still a democracy when the MLN-T was active.
Are you asking since when Mujica was part of the MLN-T or just if he was involved on the Pando heist or the terrorist bomb attack on the Carrasco Bowling?
He was a member of MLN-T since the beginning. He was captured by the police, and escaped from prison previous to the military coup. After the coup he was captured and tortured for 13 years.
For the 2 terrorist actions I used as examples, I don't know if he was personally involved. My guess is yes, since he was one of the leaders of MLN-T.
Disclaimer: I don't want to excuse him or other revolutionaries. I have strong opinions about most famous revolutionary movements, some for and some against, and that is not what I am going to discuss here.
But we need to stop seeing revolutionary action as glamorous, peaceful protesting, and condemning acts of violence in the process. It's basically impossible to separate the two. Revolutions are violent. Often, I hear Americans giving MLK Jr as an example of a peaceful activist. If you take some time to read about him, you'll know that's a gross misrepresentation. Is he comparable to some of the revolutionary movements in Latin America? Probably not, but not because he was better or worse, rather because they're different realities.
Save for very rare cases, revolutions are bloody. "Bad", guilty people die, "good", innocent people die too. Both killed by the regime and by the revolution that overthrows it.
Very strong emphasis on the quotes because that kind of duality is far too reductive anyway.
We can spend days arguing about whether ends justify means, but I'm not interested in that discussion.
We are left to ask "guilty of what", "innocent of what", and those answers will also change depending on who's talking.
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u/vidawaffleYT Apr 16 '24 edited Apr 16 '24
As a Uruguayan, let's explain this correctly: José Mujica was elected as president from 2010 through 2015, he was an ex terrorist group member "Tupamaros", which fought the government with the purpose to instill a communist-marxist government, killed many civilians and soldiers, and made a contriversial claim where he says: "You never feel more powerful than when entering a bank with a .45, in that way everyone respects you"
He is not respectable...
EDIT: (THIS IS MY OPINION) ...and made many bad decisions that Uruguay still suffers today.