Latin America
Related: About this forumAfter Years in Solitary, an Austere Life as Uruguay’s President
After Years in Solitary, an Austere Life as Uruguays President
By SIMON ROMERO
Published: January 4, 2013
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay Some world leaders live in palaces. Some enjoy perks like having a discreet butler, a fleet of yachts or a wine cellar with vintage Champagnes. Then there is José Mujica, the former guerrilla who is Uruguays president. He lives in a run-down house on Montevideos outskirts with no servants at all. His security detail: two plainclothes officers parked on a dirt road.
In a deliberate statement to this cattle-exporting nation of 3.3 million people, Mr. Mujica, 77, shunned the opulent Suárez y Reyes presidential mansion, with its staff of 42, remaining instead in the home where he and his wife have lived for years, on a plot of land where they grow chrysanthemums for sale in local markets.
Visitors reach Mr. Mujicas austere dwelling after driving down OHiggins Road, past groves of lemon trees. His net worth upon taking office in 2010 amounted to about $1,800 the value of the 1987 Volkswagen Beetle parked in his garage. He never wears a tie and donates about 90 percent of his salary, largely to a program for expanding housing for the poor.
His current brand of low-key radicalism a marked shift from his days wielding weapons in an effort to overthrow the government exemplifies Uruguays emergence as arguably Latin Americas most socially liberal country.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/world/americas/after-years-in-solitary-an-austere-life-as-uruguays-president.html?_r=0
MADem
(135,425 posts)Video with this brief story from NOV...shows his house:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20334136
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)Dudes a fucking saint.
MADem
(135,425 posts)He's certainly a character, though...I think his life story would make an incredible film. I can imagine that, with the right screenplay, there'd be a stampede of actors looking to play that role!
polly7
(20,582 posts)I'm not seeing many negatives here:
Peace Patriot
(24,010 posts)I don't have time right now to analyze this jerk's fawning over Jose Mujica. But it sends chills down my spine. One initial thought: why does he expose Mujica's lack of security (even to mentioning that there are only 2 guards!)? Jeez.
True, I live in the most insanely violent country on earth--where even five year olds are not safe from being mowed down, en masse, with automatic weapons, and where the government itself is drone-bombing people without benefit of trial all over the world, with a ho-hum and a shrug of the shoulders over "collateral damage."
So I tend to notice things like SECURITY. First paragraph, in the most prominent newspaper on earth: What road to go down, what trees to look for, what kind of structure to look for, no servants, two guards.
Does that not strike you as...abominably irresponsible?
More later. I am very suspicious--and have very good reason to be--of this writer and this arrogant, lying, warmongering litterbox liner, the New York Slimes.
Judi Lynn
(160,630 posts)I think he may have heard the bizarre bitching done during some of those off-seasons when the right-wing trash haven't been fed anything to rage against concerning any of the leftist Latin American leaders, namely Hugo Chavez: that he has dared, for some reason, to live in the Presidential Palace, like all the other South American Presidents have done, do, and will be doing forever, with Mujica as an exception.
For some reason it really chaps the asses of right-wingers, during the times they are out of steam on their other anti-Chavez topics, that Chavez, a multi-racial man, dares to live in the designated residence of an elected Venezuelan President.
Maybe he could have chosen to live in the tool shed, or the garage, and that would have slammed their pieholes shut on this one "topic".
The matter of security you mentioned will be fantastically imperiled by this kind of effusive "truth sharing". No doubt we could expect to see a chartered small plane full of the DU right-wing professional left-hate trolls, bristling with their little tools of death headed south as a group to "bust a move" against this former left-wing rebel.
I can't imagine the man would want to thank Slimin' for this article, nor his amazing rebel wife, Lucia. He didn't do them any favors, and he proves he can't be trusted each time he opens his cyber mouth.
naaman fletcher
(7,362 posts)Uruguay is turning into the refuge for right-wing Argentinians. Those of us who know the lay of the land have been aware of that for a while.
Edited to add: That's where all the dollars fleeing Argentina are going.
naaman fletcher
(7,362 posts)I thought you were American?
Judi Lynn
(160,630 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)on the Left in Latin America, should raise people's suspicions. Tool that he is it's hard to believe the man doesn't have ulterior motives.