Uruguay

10 Reasons to Love Uruguay’s President José Mujica

May 18, 2014 Medea Benjamin, www.codepink.org Educate! Uruguay

President José Mujica of Uruguay, a 78-year-old former Marxist guerrilla who spent 14 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, recently visited the United States to meet with President Obama and speak at a variety of venues. He told Obama that Americans should smoke less and learn more languages. He lectured a roomful of businessmen at the US Chamber of Commerce about the benefits of redistributing wealth and raising workers’ salaries. He told students at American University that there are no “just wars.” Whatever the audience, he spoke extemporaneously and with such brutal honesty that it was hard not to love the guy. Here are 10 reasons you, too, should love President Mujica. Mujica’s influence goes far beyond that of the leader of a tiny country of only 3 million people. In a world hungry for alternatives, the innovations that he and his colleagues are championing have put Uruguay on the map as one of the world’s most exciting experiments in creative, progressive governance.

Uruguay Agrees To Take Five Guantánamo Prisoners

March 24, 2014 Rosalba O'Brien www.reuters.com Educate! Guantanamo Bay, Uruguay

Uruguay has agreed with the United States to accept some prisoners held in the much-criticized detention center at the U.S. military base of Guantanamo Bay, President Jose Mujica said on Thursday. The South American country had accepted the request by Washington to take some prisoners and would consider them refugees, Mujica told journalists while attending an unrelated farming event. "It's a request for human rights reasons," Mujica said. Mujica said Obama "has asked a bunch of countries if they can take some and I told him yes." "They are coming as refugees and there will be a place for them in Uruguay if they want to bring their families," said Mujica, who spent 14 years in prison before and during his country's 1973-1985 dictatorship. U.S. officials confirmed that talks about Guantanamo had taken place with Uruguay, but would not give more details. "The U.S. government maintains high level conversations with the Uruguayan government on various global affairs," the U.S. embassy in Montevideo said in a statement. "One of those has been the closure of Guantanamo, one of the Obama administration's priorities for its humanitarian implications."

At the UN, A Latin American Rebellion

October 12, 2013 Laura Carlsen, www.fpif.org Educate! Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela

Without a doubt, the 68th UN General Assembly will be remembered as a watershed. Nations reached an agreement on control of chemical weapons that could avoid a global war in Syria. The volatile stalemate on the Iran nuclear program came a step closer to diplomacy. What failed to make the headlines, however, could have the longest-term significance of all: the Latin American rebellion. For Latin American leaders, this year’s UN general debate became a forum for widespread dissent and anger at U.S. policies that seek to control a hemisphere that has clear aspirations for greater independence. In a region long considered the United States’ primary zone of influence, Washington’s relations with many Latin American nations have gone from bad to worse under the Bush II and Obama administrations.

S. American States Recall Ambassadors Over Bolivian Plane Incident

July 13, 2013 Staff, www.rt.com Educate! Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Edward Snowden, Solidarity, Uruguay, Venezuela

“What the United States government is seeking is to obstruct Edward Snowden’s bid to seek asylum. Not to get asylum, but to seek asylum,” Tatchell said. “It has bullied and threatened and menaced other countries around the world to not grant him asylum and to not grant airspace so that a flight can take him to another country. That is a direct attack upon the United Nations’ refugee conventions, and it is shocking and appalling that a supposedly democratic government, in collusion with European governments - including the government in Britain - has been conspiring to not allow Mr. Snowden to make a valid asylum application.”

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