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The Correo Uruguayo presented a postal stamp last Tuesday in tribute to former president José «Pepe» Mujica, marking exactly one year since his passing, featuring a photograph of his presidential inauguration and the phrase that defined him: "In my garden, I do not cultivate hatred", reported the newspaper Página/12.
The event was attended by his widow, former vice president Lucía Topolansky, the president of Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi, and other officials from the government and the Frente Amplio.
Mujica, a historical figure of the Latin American left, was one of the most outspoken progressive leaders who criticized the Cuban regime in the last months of his life.
In an interview with the newspaper El País published on November 21, 2024, Mujica was emphatic: "I set the Cubans apart... they defined the dictatorship of the proletariat and a single party about 70 years ago. It doesn't work, it doesn't work."
In that same interview, the former president expanded his criticism to Venezuela and Nicaragua, stating that their leaders "play at democracy" and manipulate elections, concluding with a phrase that resonated throughout the region: "They are not leftist; they are authoritarian."
That stance represented a significant evolution in his thinking: in November 2022, Mujica was still hesitant to label the Cuban regime as a dictatorship and even stated that "it seems there is a shift" on the island, without committing to a direct condemnation.
The Cuban government declared an official mourning for his death on May 16, 2025, three days after he passed away at the age of 89 after battling esophageal cancer with liver metastasis.
In the presentation of the stamp, the president of the National Postal Administration, Gabriel Bonfrisco, described the former president as a "contemporary philosopher, an office of ideas who wrote letters" by hand, and evoked his image with a poetic depiction: "Letters have carried loves, betrayals, condemnations, pardons, notifications of war, and announcements of peace. Each envelope is a capsule of time, and Pepe Mujica was also that, a man of the 20th century who turned his back on the accelerated consumerism of the 21st century," the source indicated.
Bonfrisco also emphasized the symbolic reach of the stamp: "This stamp will travel around the world, it will be sent in letters to Spain, to Mexico, to Argentina, to Brazil, to the most remote corners of the planet. Every person who sees it will receive something that came from a small country in the south where someone looked at things differently, because that’s what great symbols are like."
The president of the Frente Amplio, Fernando Pereira, reflected on the difficulty of preserving that legacy: "He was a cultivator of love and that must remain," he said, and cautioned that "it is quite a challenge, because it is not only about leaving the political legacy," the Argentine newspaper reported.
The Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining, Fernanda Cardona, recalled Mujica "for the support he gave to public companies as a driving force for the development of Uruguay" and added: "I believe a stamp, and what philately implies, defines Pepe."
While Uruguay pays tribute to those who dared to speak aloud what many on the regional left remained silent about, Cuba is experiencing its worst crisis in decades: CEPAL projects a 6.5% drop in GDP for 2026, placing the island in last place in Latin America, while blackouts reach up to 20-25 continuous hours and more than a million Cubans have left the country since 2021.
The single-party regime that Mujica called useless remains in place, but the emblem bearing his image and words will travel the world as a testament that, even from the left, there were those who were not afraid of the truth.
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