Brazilian Presidents Lula da Silva and Musica drive his battered VW Beetle. Credit: Palacio does planarto.
Jose “Pepe” Musica, former guerrilla, former president of Uruguay, left icon of Latin America died at the age of 89 after a long battle with cancer. Musica has been widely praised for his humility and deep reflection in life, and has become a symbol of principled politics and resistance to material excess.
Born in the working-class suburbs of Montevid in 1935, Musica’s early days were characterized by difficulties. He lost his father at 6am and was raised by his mother, a market gardener. By his teenage years he was demanding workers’ rights on the streets. In the 1960s he joined Tupamaros, a Marxist urban guerrilla group. Musica was captured multiple times and survived more than a decade of prison escapes in military detention during Uruguay’s dictatorship, two prison escapes and two prison escapes.
During his dark years, trapped in a space large enough to move, he maintained his sanity by remembering the poems, philosophies and stories he had read before. “I’ve learned to walk through my mind,” he said. That inner world became a sanctuary that shaped the quiet wisdom he would later share with the world.
Liberated in 1985, Musica returned to public life and rose through the ranks of Frente Amullio, the left-wing coalition of Uruguay. The 2010 elected president, ruled with quiet authority, lived on a small farm with the three-legged dog Manuela, driving a battered VW Beetle. He donated most of the president’s salary, and often welcomed foreign officials in his muddy gardens. “They say I am a poor president,” he once said. “The poor are those who need too many.”
As president, he advanced a bold progressive agenda: abortion, same-sex marriage, and marijuana legal. These measures have made Uruguay appear on the global map as a beacon of liberal reform in the region. However, Musica remained armed and modest. “We don’t make history, we make small stories,” he meditated in one of his final interviews. “We’re so arrogant in the face of space.”
He spoke clearly about his suffering
Musica lost his kidneys due to prison conditions, but refused to make a dramatic dramatization of his ordeal. “I don’t like playing torture cards,” he told the biographer, rejecting the victim’s story. He criticized the dictatorship for not being forced to push military officials hard to prosecute military officials, but he argued for a settlement over vengeance. “Some wounds will never heal. You will learn to live with them.”
Musica shared a life of struggle and love with fellow guerrilla Lucia Topolansky, whose guerrilla became senator and vice president. Their bond began in secret, enduring prison, poverty, power and illness. “When you’re older,” he said, “Love becomes a sweet habit. If I’m still alive, that’s because she’s still here.”
He left the Senate in 2018 and cited fatigue. “I’m tired of this long journey,” he wrote in his resignation to Topolansky. But he remained a moral compass for many, warning younger generations of consumerism, inequality and ecological collapse. “Freedom lives lightly,” he insisted. “Success isn’t about buying things, it’s about having time to live.”
As cancer progressed, Musica retreated from public life and called for further interviews. “Warriors have the right to rest,” he told a local paper. He chose to spend his final day at home under the huge sequoia where Manuela once buried.
And simply, he said: “That’s all.”
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