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MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) \u2014 In the soaring palace of Uruguay\u2019s parliament, leftist presidents from the region came to remember former President Jose Mujica<\/a> on Thursday as a generous and charismatic leader whose legacy of humility remained an example for the world\u2019s politicians.<\/p>\n \u201cA person like Pepe Mujica doesn\u2019t die,\u201d Brazil\u2019s President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva said as he paid his respects to his longtime friend, widely known as Pepe, at the Legislative Palace in Montevideo where his body lay in state, eulogizing the onetime Marxist guerrilla who spent over a decade in prison in the 1970s as a \u201csuperior human being.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHis body is gone. But the ideas he put forward over the years demonstrate the generosity of a man who spent 14 years in prison and managed to emerge without hatred toward the people who imprisoned and tortured him,\u201d Lula said.<\/p>\n Approaching the coffin, tears streamed down his face. Lula pulled Mujica\u2019s lifelong and fellow politician, 80-year-old Luc\u00eda Topolansky, into a hug and planted a kiss on her forehead.<\/p>\n Mujica, a member of Uruguay’s leftist Broad Front coalition elected in 2009, and Lula, the standard-bearer of Brazil’s Workers\u2019 Party who started his second term in 2007, belonged to a generation of leftist leaders elected to office across Latin America in the early years of this century.<\/p>\n The movement’s power faded in recent years as some governments became embroiled in corruption scandals. But Mujica stood out for keeping his reputation for honesty and humility intact.<\/p>\n Lula frequently met Mujica in his three-room farmhouse on the outskirts of Montevideo, where, after retiring from the Senate, the former president tended to his chrysanthemums and dispensed wisdom to a range of visitors \u2014 from rock band Aerosmith to philosopher Noam Chomsky. It’s also where Mujica died at age 89 on Tuesday, after more than a year spent battling esophageal cancer.<\/p>\n Another leftist leader paying tribute to Mujica in Montevideo on Thursday was Chile’s president, Gabriel Boric.<\/p>\n On learning of Mujica’s death on Tuesday, both Boric and Lula jetted to Uruguay from Beijing, where they had been meeting Chinese officials.<\/p>\n They were received by Uruguay’s moderate left-wing president, Yamand\u00fa Orsi<\/a>, who was Mujica’s preferred candidate in last fall’s presidential elections.<\/p>\n \u201cLife goes on, causes remain,\u201d Boric wrote on social media. \u201cThank you, dear Pepe, we will carry you with us in every fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n