José “Pepe” Mujica: “Inequality is accentuated in Latin America”

Tangled up. This is how the former president of Uruguay José Mujica (2010-2015) sees Latin America, a region that has “a great social debt” and in which there is a tendency “to accentuate inequality”.

“It has problems at heart, it is the continent that distributes the worst. It is not of today. It is a historical heritage”, he assures during an interview with the EFE agency on the farm where he lives with his wife, former vice president Lucia Topolansky.

In this sense, it speaks of the situation that various countries of the continent are going through and of the challenges that lie ahead in a not too distant time, in a year of elections and changes of government in key nations.

In particular, he speaks of Colombia and Brazil, where an aggressive campaign for the presidential elections in October has already begun, in which current President Jair Bolsonaro will face President Lula da Silva.

The challenge for Gustavo Petro

“Peace. In Colombia the first problem is peace”, Mujica said when asked about the challenges that Gustavo Petro will face, who will take office as the new president of that country on 7 August after winning the second round on 19 June. elections.

He says that in the history of Colombia there is “a culture of great violence” and that he hopes that the new president “will be able to overcome it with his people”.

Despite the claim that Petro will be the country’s first left-wing president, Mujica assures that there have been others in the past, even though he acknowledges that he will be the first “decidedly leftist”.

The new president was a member of the Guerrilla Movement on April 19, just like many years before the Uruguayan joined the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement in his country.

Despite this, Mujica does not find many points in common between his figure and that of the one who will replace Iván Duque.

“He is younger. He is an economist and I am a compatriot. We have political concerns but, moreover, we are in another era. He belongs to the digital civilization, I am not, I am one of those who writes next to the book . I take him almost 30 years is a long time, “he says.

Elections in Brazil

Mujica also talks about the elections that will live in Brazil in October of this year and stresses that the candidacy of his friend Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva “is going quite well”.

“He will never stop being a trade union leader, that is, a remedy for wrongs and perhaps he can do some good to Brazil in the sense of lowering the decibels a little in terms of internal confrontation”, he stresses.

He clarifies that it will not be easy due to the size of Brazil and the number of States parties it has, which means that every negotiation that has to be carried out has “infinite derivations”.

In this sense, he details: “What will change in Lula’s politics, I can already tell you: he will try to help the most depressed sectors of Brazil a little more, but we must not wait for Lula to make a radical proposal, which will turn the Brazil, or something like that ”.

Concerned about Argentina

On the other hand, Mujica shows his concern about the situation in Argentinawhere everything is very difficult because there is “half a country against half a country”.

“I don’t want to poeticize the opposition, but above the differences in a society there is a us”, he emphasizes.

He says that in this country there is “a inflationary spiral which is difficult to manage with a right-wing program, a center program or a left-wing program “.

He believes that this situation has contributed to generating discrepancies between the president, Alberto Fernández, and the vice president, Cristina Fernández, for whom he has an advice: “Love each other a little more”.

“It hurts me a lot because Argentina is a country that influences indirectly for us. Historically we have learned that when Argentina is good for us, it also favors us”, concludes the former Uruguayan president.

Life on the farm

Beyond all the problems in the region and how he could have discussed it with those who have long been his colleagues in Parliament, Mujica assures him that he does not miss the place he started from in October 2020.

“It bored me, there are centuries to arrive and centuries to leave. You have to give way to the new generations,” he says.

It is in his chacra (rural farm) where he is happy. She says he’s made “a chacarero” and that he spends as much time as he can working the land with his tractor.

“I’m kind of a frustrated farmer, I like the land and I enjoy it. Others will have other amusements. It’s a small thing for the world, but a big thing for me because of my way of being,” said indica.

And he adds: «I know I am a strange old man, a kind of neo-Stoic, for me poor is the one who is in great need or, as the Aymara say, poor is the one who has no community. I’m not alone in the world, I have many companions and what more can I ask for ”. EFE

Source: EFE

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