In 2012 there were few international voices that blindly bet on a peace process with the FARC-EP guerrillas, after several dialogues failed in the past and the caution with which the then president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, preferred to move. The president of Uruguay, José Pepe Mujica, who died on Tuesday, on the other hand, did not hesitate to bet everything for the process. He did not believe in God, he told a radio station that year, but “it would do it for the future fate that this process in which Colombian society tries to leave a long way and a long history behind. You have to have a lot of greatness, but the future is worth it.”
Juan Manuel Santos, in his book The battle for peaceremember that there were several heads of state who supported their initiative, and especially those of related political ideologies, such as Enrique Peña Nieto, in Mexico, and Sebastián Piñera, in Chile. But Mujica was on the other shore, that of the Latin American left, and yet he approached without hesitation to that peace process that occurred in Havana. “It became the main defender and also verifier” of the agreement, Santos writes.
“President Santos surprised us, because he had been a figure with direct responsibility in the issues of these years,” Pepe said in 2015, about his first impression of Santos, more associated with a warrior line. “But he has proven to be an intelligent and observer man, to conclude that there is no other way than a negotiation to end this war,” he added
Pepe Mujica never doubted the greatness that implies wanting to make peace. As Extupamaro, he met and understood the armed struggle of the guerrillas of the twentieth century. But, as a trade unionist who managed to reach the presidency, he also understood that in the 21st century the left could well fight for his flags on democratic roads. Mujica, in addition to giving several speeches in favor of peace on international platforms, was present at the signing of the agreement in Cartagena, in 2016, and then in June 2017, when the extinct FARC-EP made an important act to leave the weapons, in the municipality of Buenos Aires (Cauca). “Colombia is a laboratory of history, let’s not fail,” said Mujica that day. “It is not just the peace of Colombia that is at stake, it is the situation of history. Please, Colombian people, the main actor is you,” he added.
“We deeply regret the death of one of the referents of humanism in our America,” the common party, created by former FARC members after the demobilization, after knowing of Mujica’s death. “Pepe Mujica will be grateful for his permanent accompaniment in the construction of peace in our homeland, which also felt his,” they added.
Mujica’s personal history in insurgency, and then in politics, made him a natural friend of Gustavo Petro. The two were ex -guerrillas, tortured by the military, and years later they became heads of state. Therefore, Mujica also did not hesitate to support the total peace policy of the Colombian president, who seeks peace dialogues with all the armed actors of the country who are still active after the demobilization of the FARC-EP. Although in his last years he could not have such an active role in the peace dialogues, because of his age and his illness, in Mujica interviews he spoke of like that total peace of Petro was “formidable”, although he had the enormous difficulty that many did not want to support her.
Last year President Petro traveled to Uruguay to decorate Mujica with the Boyacá cross, the highest distinction granted by the Colombian State, for his work as a defender of peace in the country. “They want Colombia, that above all they want it,” Pepe asked in a message posted by Petro in the award. And more directly to the president, he asked: “Keep fighting for peace, which deep down is to fight for human life. What seems so simple and so elementary is usually what we forget the most.”
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