Former Uruguayan president Mujica diagnosed with esophageal cancer

SANTIAGO, Chile, April 30, (AP): Uruguay’s former guerilla-turned-president, José Mujica, widely known as a leftist icon who transformed his small country into one of the most socially liberal in all of Latin America, said Monday that he has esophageal cancer.
Mujica, 88, said he was diagnosed during a routine medical checkup last Friday. He said the tumor discovered in his esophagus is particularly dangerous because he also suffers from an autoimmune disease.
“This is obviously very complicated and doubly so in my case,” the ex-president who governed Uruguay from 2010 to 2015 told reporters Monday. He said doctors were assessing the best course of action but warned him that chemotherapy and surgery posed challenges.
Known among both fans and detractors as “Pepe” Mujica, the folksy leader of Uruguay, a country of just 3.3 million people, was first a leader of the Tupamaros, the Marxist guerilla group that drew inspiration from the Cuban revolution.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, Mujica wielded weapons on Montevideo’s streets in an effort to overthrow the government, getting shot by police several times and ultimately landing in prison until the fall of the country’s dictatorship led to his release in 1985.
He drew admiration in Uruguay and far afield as a politician who spoke with blunt honesty and lived up to his own values, shunning the presidential palace in favor of his modest house on the outskirts of Montevideo and donating most of his salary to charity.
“I live as I think,” he told The Associated Press in an interview last fall. “When we have companions, we’re not poor.”

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