DOUGLAS GAVRAS
Montevideo, Uruguay (Folhapress)-Before becoming president (2010-2015) and a reference from the international left, José Pepe Mujica was part of a fundamental piece to understand the recent history of Uruguay: the National-Tupamaros Liberation Movement.
The group in which he participated the former Mandanician, killed last Tuesday (13), began as a collective that sought to bring together different left currents in the country. As in other similar initiatives in Latin America, they were referenced by the leaders of the Cuban Revolution.
Contrary to the example of the revolutionary Che Guevara, but the Tupamaros did not follow the format of the rural guerrilla. They operated in urban spaces, as stated by the study “Los Tupamaros, La Guerrilla Robin Hood”, by Uruguayan historian Carlos Demasi. “But what undoubtedly impressed was his style of action, which at the time was called ‘Robin Hood’: some of his actions involved a redistribution of wealth through actions, taking goods from the rich to give them to the poor.”
The historian gives two examples of robberies practiced by the group that became famous at the time. “The robbery of Casino San Rafael or the robbery of a semi -clashing financial institution linked to some government figures, operations marked by touches of ‘fair play’ that reinforced the image of the organization as a justice,” says the author.
Their name comes from a nickname the Spaniards gave to the population near the Plata River that was in favor of independence. And the word, in turn, originated in the anticolonial uprising led by the Peruvian indigenous Túpac Amaru 2º, occurred in 1780 and which was harshly repressed.
According to the book “History of Los Tupamaros”, written by leader Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro, the first time the name Tupamaros appears recorded in a document was in November 1964, in a pamphlet distributed to college students. The group did not form a political party.
The Tupamaros aimed at a revolutionary government with two fundamental objectives: to do land reform and carry out a “new national liberation”. Even after the police forces practically dismantled the group in 1966, they remained in the armed struggle until 1972, when nine militants, including Mujica, were arrested. In 1985, with the end of the Uruguayan dictatorship, the prisoners were released. The faction, like other revolutionary movements of the region, began a new democratic phase.
From that moment on, the group becomes part of both the Large Front Coalition and the different compositions that formed within it, such as the MPP (Popular Participation Movement-Space 609), founded in 1989 by former guerrillas, including Mujica himself and his widow, former vice president and former senator Lucía Topolansky.
In 2004, the Broad Front comes to power in Uruguay, marking the end of the relay between the Colorado Party and the National Party, with the election of Tabaré Vázquez. In 2009, with the victory of Mujica, the Tupamaros complete the transition process to institutional policy.
Still in 1989, the current President Yamandú Orsi, 57, began the military in MPP, which currently has 35 national deputies and nine senators.
