Former Tupamaro wins in Uruguay

[rabs]

Mujica and outgoing Tabare.


Just announced Lacalle had conceded.

First results give Pepe Mujica 51.2 percent, to 44.9 percent for Lacalle.

Voter turnout was massive despite bad weather in Uruguay.

Tabare said today he may run again in 2014.


''Pepe'' Mujica se impone con 51,2 % de los votos en Uruguay
Los primeros resultados a boca de urna dan como ganador en las elecciones presidenciales de Uruguay al candidato del Frente Amplio (FA), José "Pepe" Mujica con 51,2 por ciento de los votos, mientras que su principal rival, Jorge Alberto Lacalle, habría obtenido el 44, 9 por ciento

[struggle4progress]

1. Former guerrilla wins Uruguay presidential run-off (Reuters)

Mon Nov 30, 2009 1:33am GMT

... "Thank you, Tabare," Mujica said, addressing thousands of chanting supporters. "We have won because of your government and we will continue it" ...

He says he was shot six times, tortured, and held by security forces in solitary confinement in a deep well. He was freed under an amnesty enacted following the end of Uruguay's 1973-1985 military dictatorship ...

Mujica acknowledged his sharp tongue in his victory speech. "If at some point my temperament, which is combative, has let my tongue get away from me, I ask for forgiveness," he said ...

Mujica became a key figure in transforming the Tupamaros into a political party, which joined with socialists and other leftists to create the Broad Front and ended more than 100 years of dominance by Uruguay's traditional parties when Vazquez won the presidency ...

http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE5AS2AF20091130?sp=true

[Peace Patriot]

2. Watch out for the "good left/bad left" US "divide & conquer" propaganda "talking points"

in corpo-fascist articles on Mujica's win.

Chavez has produced a bigger economic growth rate and has been as popular as Vasquez--and still is--yet they're trying to pit one group of leftist leaders against another, with at least two noticeable tactics: calling one "investor-friendly" and the other not; and ignoring the amazing accomplishments of the "bad left" as well as ignoring the obvious, demonstrable UNITY of leftist leaders in Latin America on numerous important issues and common goals.

I'm seeing it in the Mujica articles ("good left," pro-Lulu/Brazil, "investor-friendly").

This new tactic has been building up for some months--the blatant efforts to portray Lula da Silva/Brazil ("good left") as being at odds with Chavez/Venezuela ("bad left"), and ignoring voluminous evidence to the contrary. (They are close friends and allies, and meet every month to devise policy, and to discuss various mutual ventures and political developments.)

Probably the reason for this "divide and conquer" tactic (trying to create such a false narrative in the corpo-fascist press)--besides the value to the US and its global corporate predators and war profiteers of "divide and conquer" by itself--is that the US wants to "circle the wagons" in the Caribbean/Central America/north South America region and restore US hegemony there --to break up the ALBA trade alliance, topple the new leftist governments in Central America, and--very possibly--instigate a war in this region, using Colombia as the front government, to restore Exxon Mobil/Pentagon control of Venezuela's (and probably Ecuador's) oil. They need to demonize Chavez to do this. And while Lulu and other leaders are having none of it, the demonization is really mostly for our benefit--to create an entirely false impression in most north Americans' minds, that Chavez is a "dictator," a narco-trafficker, a "terrorist lover," a "failure," and so forth, so that our people won't mind too much, and many won't even notice it, when we are dragged into Vietnam II in the jungles of the Amazon to bring down that "communist dictator" who's "causing all the trouble" in Latin America.

Saw this in a report on the Honduran coup by the Zelaya government-in-exile about a month ago: One of the coup generals is quoted as saying that, by their coup, they are "preventing communism from Venezuela reaching the United States." So these are the kinds of discussions going on between Honduras' "School of the Americas"-trained military and the Pentagon and Bushwhacks like Jim DeMint--"preventing communism from Venezuela" reaching up through Central America and the Caribbean, to infect the U.S.

These rightwing forces (and war profiteers) really cannot affect the unity in South America very much, but they can cause huge trouble in the northern/Caribbean/Central American region, where independent governments are just getting off the ground (Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador), where they can pick off weaker countries like Honduras (whereas they failed in Bolivia, because of the unity and economic clout of surrounding leftist governments), and where the countries are extremely poor, having been already stripped of much of their resources, and are beset with drug trafficking, corruption and the militaristic US "war on drugs," and also are still gravely suffering from the aftermath of US violence during the Reagan horrors. Venezuela was successfully helping to unify these countries--an intolerable prospect to the US government. This is corpo-fascist "sweatshop" heaven and the prowling grounds for US war profiteers (along with Colombia).

What I would hate to see--what I would find appalling, in fact--is countries like Brazil, Uruguay and Chile concede the northern region to the U.S. Chavez is fighting the good fight over this. Will they stick with him? So far, they have. I worry about this slimebag US tactic of "divide and conquer" being successful.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Should we get up a pool betting on when the 1st anti-Mujica article will appear

and who will post it?

Since Uruguayans already know who he is and love him, it would done simply to rile up the idiots here who never bother to know what happens in the rest of the world in their names. What gets them crazy is the fear the government will give some of their tax money to some poor people somewhere (fat chance of THAT!) instead of using their tax money to kill leftists, or at least torture them.