Mujica to Obama: Democracy is not exported by force

President José Mujica of Uruguay said that next month, when he meets with President Barack Obama in the White House, he will stress the “big mistakes” that wealthy countries make with Latin American countries.

“Humbly, I’m going to stress the very big mistakes that the rich world, beginning with the United States, commit with us,” Mujica said in an exclusive statement to Channel 4 in Montevideo.

The president said that he will dialogue with Obama, who will welcome him to Washington on May 12, “without stridency, without being aggressive, but without renouncing what I think.”

[The Uruguayan newspaper El País reported that, while Mujica had first cast doubt on his trip, he reconsidered it because of his good relationship with U.S. Ambassador Julissa Reynoso.

“I have to go. If I don’t, I leave the lady ambassador hanging from the high wire. She has been very good to Uruguay,” the president said about the Dominican-born diplomat.]

Mujica, 78, was one of the leaders of the Tupamaro guerrillas and was imprisoned for 13 years, under harsh conditions, before and during the dictatorship that ruled Uruguay between 1973 and 1985.

The United States “must realize” that Latin Americans “are the owners of our history” and “whether its good or bad, we have to write it ourselves,” he said.

In Mujica’s opinion, “we are living in a very complex world” that “needs tolerance” and that presupposes that we must “learn to coexist with those who think differently.”

“Democracy cannot be exported by force and what a country thinks cannot be imposed” on other countries, he said.

“Real republicanism” is “to respect what’s different,” the president said.

Mujica is one of the candidates for the World’s 100 Most Influential People, a special issue published every year by TIME magazine.

Before making the classification, the magazine polls its readers via the Internet, and Mujica appears on the list.

Last month, the president announced that his country, at Obama’s express request, agreed to shelter six inmates from the military prison at Guantánamo, Cuba.

At present, the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State Department are negotiating the arrival of the prisoners that Uruguay will receive as refugees or immigrants, Uruguayan Foreign Minister Luis Almagro said recently.

[Photo of President Mujica with U.S. Ambassador Julissa Reynoso.]