FORMER “TERRORIST” SET TO BECOME URUGUAY’S NEXT PRESIDENT

[Judi Lynn]

FORMER “TERRORIST” SET TO BECOME URUGUAY’S NEXT PRESIDENT
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Interview With Former Tupamaros Leader Jose “Pepe” Mujica

(Ed. Note: The military dictatorships that ruled South America in the 1970s and 1980s with the helping hand of the CIA and the U.S. State Department continue to cast a long shadow in this part of the world, serving as a point of reference for political leaders both young and old.

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez continues to play the “don’t trust Uncle Sam” card with no small degree of success, and Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa undoubtedly harbor similar sentiments.

The shadow still lingers in Chile, too, though you would never know it by reading the mainline newspapers (which, in fact, collaborated with the Pinochet military regime and benefited from U.S. largess).

Informal polling by The Santiago Times in October, 2001, for example, showed that while most Chileans were saddened by the Twin Towers tragedy, they were not surprised and, indeed, the vast majority of Chileans we interviewed felt as though the U.S. “had it coming.”

And just weeks ago Chile’s Ambassador to the U.N. Heraldo Muñoz called for the United States to apologize for the role it played in Chile’s 9/11/73 tragedy – a story that went unreported or buried in most of the nation’s press (ST, August 24).

That’s because, just like in the U.S., Chile’s media is in bed with the ruling kleptocracy. This makes good business sense for the local media and the kleptocrats, but hardly tells the full story about what’s happening in the world around us.

That’s why the rambling interview below with Uruguyan presidential hopeful Jose “Pepe” appears to have caused a bit of a fire storm. Mujica shares his unvarnished perspective on how he would lead Uruguay if elected president and also shares his somewhat jaded perspective on the world, a perspective influenced, no doubt, by the 14 years he spent in jail as a certified terrorist thanks to Uruguay’s (U.S. supported) military dictatorship.

So it makes for an interesting read.

Public opinion polls show Mujica ahead with a comfortable 42 to 45% plurality, several points in front of the second place candidate, but not enough to be elected president in October. A run off vote is anticipated, to take place a month later, between him and the National party candidate (conservative) Luis Alberto Lacalle. Commentary by Steve Anderson)

Mujica Interview: As Taken From Argentina’s La Nacion, as reported in Mercopress:

“I’m more a libertarian than a man who thinks the state is the solution,” said Mujica. “My Socialist ideas support self-management and I don’t mix it with the power of the state. The job of government is to help with social distribution, to avoid the accumulation of social rust-belts which the market can’t address, and they finish being extremely dear for the rest of the community.”

“If belonging to the left means defending a strong government intervention in the economy and a strong state tendency in economic affairs, that’s not for me”, said Mujica adding that the Uruguayan economy, if he wins, will be in the hands of his ticket companion, Danilo Astori, former Economy minister and former Dean of the Uruguay university School of Economics.

“There will be no abrupt changes, no pitching or rolling, nothing of the sort, we are going to continue with the current economic policy which has proved most successful.”

More:
http://www.santiagotimes.cl/santiagotimes/index.php/2009091517147/news/political-news/former-terrorist-set-to-become-uruguay-s-next-president.html