Former Uruguayan President José Mujica, known as "Pepe", has d!ed at the age of 89.The humble leader lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment.
"With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide, and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend," Uruguay's sitting president, Yamandu Orsi, posted on X.
The ex-guerrilla who governed Uruguay from 2010 to 2015 was known as the world's "poorest president" because of his modest lifestyle.
Leftist leaders from across Latin America and Europe paid tribute to the politician described by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as an "example for Latin America and the entire world."
Gustavo Petro of Colombia paid tribute to "a great revolutionary."
Former Bolivian president Evo Morales hailed Mujica's "experience and wisdom," while Brazil's government bid farewell to "one of the most important humanists of our time."
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Mujica had lived for "a better world," while Guatemala's Bernardo Arevalo held him up as "an example of humility and greatness."
The cardigan-wearing Mujica earned the moniker "world's poorest president" during his 2010-2015 presidency for giving away much of his salary to charity and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and three-legged dog.
Mujica himself had rejected the title in a 2012 AFP interview.
"I do not live in poverty, I live in austerity... I need little to live," he said.
He was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in May last year, and it spread to his liver.
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.
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 murd£r.
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.
During this period, Mujica was captured four times. On one of those occasions, in 1970, he was shot six times and nearly d!ed. He escaped from prison twice, on one occasion through a tunnel with 105 other MLN-T prisoners, in one of the largest escapes in Uruguayan prison history.
When the Uruguayan military staged a coup in 1973, they included him in a group of "nine hostages" whom they threatened to kill if the guerrillas continued their attacks.
During the more than 14 years he spent in prison during the 1970s and 1980s, he was tortured and spent most of that time in harsh conditions and isolation, until he was freed in 1985 when Uruguay returned to democracy.
He used to say that during his time in prison, he experienced madness firsthand, suffering from delusions and even talking to ants.
The day he was freed was his happiest memory, he says: "Becoming president was insignificant compared to that."
A few years after his release, he served as a lawmaker, both in the Chamber of Representatives and in the Senate, the country's lower and upper houses, respectively.
In 2005, he became a minister in the first government of the Frente Amplio, the Uruguayan leftist coalition, before becoming Uruguay's president in 2010. He was 74 years old at the time.
His election marked an important moment for the Latin American left, which was already strong on the continent at that time. Mujica became leader alongside other left-wing presidents such as Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.
However, Mujica governed in his own way, demonstrating pragmatism and audacity on several occasions, political commentators say.
While in office, Mujica rejected moving into the presidential residence (a mansion), as heads of state around the world usually do. Instead, he remained with his wife, politician and former guerrilla Lucía Topolansky, in their modest home on the outskirts of Montevideo, with no domestic help and little security.
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