Jose Mujica, Uruguay's former leader, rebel icon dead at 89

Former Uruguayan President José Mujica, known as "Pepe", has died at the age of 89, the BBC reported. 

The ex-guerrilla who governed Uruguay from 2010 to 2015 was known as the world's "poorest president" because of his modest lifestyle.

Current President Yamandú Orsi announced his predecessor's death on X, writing: "thank you for everything you gave us and for your deep love for your people."

The politician's cause of death is not known but he had been suffering from oesophageal cancer, according to the BBC. 

Because of the simple way he lived as president, his criticism of consumerism and the social reforms he promoted - which, among other things, meant Uruguay became the first country to legalise the recreational use of marijuana - Mujica became a well-known political figure in Latin America and beyond.

Mujica retired from politics in 2020 though he remained a central figure in Uruguay.

Last year, Mujica announced he had cancer and references to his age and the inexorable proximity of death became more frequent - but he always accepted the final outcome as something natural, without drama.

In the last interview he gave the BBC in November last year, he said: "One knows that death is inevitable. And perhaps it's like the salt of life."

As a young man, Mujica was a member of the National Party, one of Uruguay's traditional political forces, which later became the centre-right opposition to his government, according to the BBC. 

In the 1960s, he helped set up the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement (MLN-T), a leftist urban guerrilla group that carried out assaults, kidnappings and executions, although he always maintained that he did not commit any murder, according to the BBC. 

Influenced by the Cuban revolution and international socialism, the MLN-T launched a campaign of clandestine resistance against the Uruguayan government, which at the time was constitutional and democratic, although the left accused it of being increasingly authoritarian, according to the BBC. 

During this period, Mujica was captured four times. On one of those occasions, in 1970, he was shot six times and nearly died, according to the BBC.