Free Republic

Cuban President Raul Castro and US Vice-president Joe Biden are among the guests expected at the inauguration of President Tabare Vazquez this coming Sunday in Montevideo. According to HavaTimes, The encounter will come two days after the second round of negotiations between the US and Cuba set for Friday February 27 in Washington. The two countries are trying to pave the way to a reopening of embassies in their respective capitals. Also expected in Montevideo for the beginning of a new term of Vazquez (following Jose Mujica, the current leader) are the presidents of Brasil, Dilma Rousseff, Chile, Michelle Bachelet,...

Uruguay's former president says the conduct of six former Guantanamo Bay detainees resettled in the South American nation has been "abysmal" and has hurt efforts to resettle others. Former President Jose Mujica, who oversaw the resettlement in late 2014, made the comments Tuesday to La Republica newspaper. Mujica, now a senator, says the men's behavior discouraged other Latin American countries that were considering taking in former detainees. He didn't provide details. "Who did the men hurt? Other Guantanamo prisoners."

José Mujica, a member of a Marxist rebel group that terrorized Uruguay in the 1960s and 1970s who later became a mainstream politician and one of his country’s most venerated presidents, died May 13 at his home in Rincón de Cerro, in the rural outskirts of Montevideo. He was 89. Uruguayan President Yamandú Orsi, a protégé of the former leader, announced the death. Mr. Mujica said in April 2024 that he had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and that any treatment with chemotherapy and surgery would be complicated by an autoimmune disease he also had. Mr. Mujica, widely known as...

ESTANCIA ANCHORENA, Uruguay – Over lamb chops and cuts of beef, President Bush chatted amiably Saturday at this presidential retreat with a former leader of a legendary band of leftist guerrillas known as the Tupamaros. "I respect you and I'm proud to be in your country," Bush told Jose "Pepe" Mujica, now Uruguay's minister of agriculture and livestock, according to a White House aide. Mujica was pleased to give Bush an expansive overview of this tiny nation's agricultural needs, the aide said. This is the same Mujica who, in comments to media here, has acknowledged feeling odd about the notion...