Q24N (DW) Jose Mujica, widely known by his nickname, “Pepe,” was beloved for his modesty and progressive social reforms.
At the height of his political career as president of Uruguay, Mujica’s monthly salary was $12,500 (€7,200) — but he only drew one-tenth of it.
The rest he gave away.
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US$1,250 was “more than enough,” said Mujica, who would usually drive himself around in his pale-blue VW Beetle, which he refused to sell even when offered US$1 million for it.
This farmer from the west of the capital, Montevideo, never anticipated that he would one day achieve such popularity — and it was probably never his goal.
He told DW back in 2015, just before the end of his presidency, that he was a political animal.
“I’ve been in politics since I was 14 years old,” he said. “And if I don’t lose my wits, I’ll continue in politics until they carry me out feet first.”
Political underground to solitary confinement
Jose Mujica was born in Montevideo in 1935 to a farming family of Basque and Italian origin.
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Their circumstances were modest: Mujica was five when his father died, and he and his sister worked on the family flower farm from an early age.
He did go to school, though, and went on to study law, later dropping out as he became increasingly involved in the student movement.
Before long, Mujica and others founded the urban guerrilla group known as the Tupamaros. At the time, the early 1960s, there was mass unemployment in Uruguay.
Mujica dreamed of “a society without social classes.” To this end, he and the Tupamaros robbed banks, kidnapped politicians and planted bombs.
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Mujica always claimed that he had never killed anyone.
“We were naive, but one should not lose sight of one’s goal,” Mujica once said in an interview with DW.
His goals landed him in prison. He was convicted of murdering a police officer after a shootout with the police in 1971 and spent 14 years in prison, where he spent time in solitary confinement and was tortured.
Mujica later described this phase of life as “routine for those who decide to change the world,” adding that he had a great deal of time to get to know himself during his time in prison.
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