Former Ecuadorian President Rodrigo Borja died this Thursday at the age of 90, President Daniel Noboa reported on social networks.
Borja, who governed between 1988 and 1992, faced the country’s first indigenous uprising during his term and ceded title to about a million hectares to indigenous communities.
It was the “first time” that a government granted land to indigenous peoples, Borja recalled in an interview with AFP in 2019. He added that the measure aimed to “give them ownership of the land so that they can cultivate it”.
Noboa expressed his condolences for the death of the former social democratic president: “Rodrigo Borja will forever remain in the memory of Ecuador. Today, this country honors his legacy,” the president wrote on his X account.
The causes of death have not been disclosed.
The Izquierda Democrática party, founded by Borja with limited economic resources, called him “a statesman in every sense of the word.”
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“Thank you Rodrigo, the people are with you,” added the political movement through which he came to power in 1988.
His government obtained the demobilization of the Alfaro Vive Carajo rebel group. “They came out of hiding, abandoned their weapons and returned to a peaceful life,” said Borja, who was also a deputy.
He also promoted a literacy campaign and the distribution of school breakfasts.
The former president withdrew from public life to write a political encyclopedia, work to which he devoted “14 hours” a day, according to reports.
He was a boxer, a motorist and a football and tennis fan. He was arrested during his university years for opposing the government of President José María Velasco Ibarra.
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