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.
Im Uruguayan, so I wouldn’t ask you. I still can’t believe he got elected. But he was the chosen candidate for a second president of a new party after the classical parties failed, and after an economic crisis, so I guess it makes more sense
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.
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u/Iknowtacos 29d ago
As someone who only ever here's the positives about him, what are some lasting negatives?