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Uruguay10

A small country of 3 million people, Uruguay began experiencing social tension in the 1950s, during a period of economic decline. As the standard of living declined in the 1960s, a revolutionary armed movement emerged, the Movement of National Liberation, or Tupamaros. The campaign against the Tupamaros led to progressive suspension of civil liberties from 1968, culminating in June 1973 with the illegal dissolution of parliament on the instructions of the military. Despite an announcement that the Tupamaros had been destroyed, the coup11 marked the beginning of a 12-year brutal campaign to rid the country of "subversion." Thousands of people were held for months and years without charge: at the end of the 1970s Uruguay had the highest ratio of political prisoners to population in the world, and some of the worst mistreatment of prisoners anywhere. During the twelve-year period of de facto military rule, more than 100 political prisoners died as a result of torture and/or inadequate medical care; illegal kidnappings and disappearances were carried out at home and abroad; 30,000 civil servants were fired; 26 publications were closed or suspended.

In 1980 a plebiscite to approve a new constitution resulted in a vote against the government and forced the regime to enter into a period of transition and negotiation. However, before new elections took place in 1984, the armed forces signed an agreement, popularly known as the Naval Club Pact, whose terms were believed to include promises by a group of parties contesting the elections that the armed forces would retain considerable power in a future government, and that there would not be prosecutions of members of the armed forces for human rights violations. The leaders of the main parties opposing the Pact were detained and proscribed from all political activity. The country's military forces withdrew from government with their unity intact and with an army strongman as defense minister. Nevertheless, Julio María Sanguinetti, the candidate of the Colorado Party who won the presidential election, immediately took steps to reintroduce the rule of law. The new government reinstated the 1967 constitution; reestablished the independence of the judiciary; legalized trade unions, political parties and other banned groups; reinstated civil servants with back pay; and freed all remaining political prisoners, while excluding from the amnesty military and police personnel responsible for human rights abuses during the military regime. Attorneys representing victims of abuse presented evidence to civilian courts involving about 180 defendants, although the cases proceeded painfully slowly due to challenges to jurisdiction by the military courts.

This auspicious start was not maintained. In mid-1986 President Sanguinetti did an about-face, and began seeking a political solution in parliament to the issue of the military's accountability for past abuses. Shortly after the Supreme Court's decision in favor of civilian jurisdiction in two key cases of disappearance, President Sanguinetti made public a statement issued by seventeen retired generals in which they acknowledged full responsibility for human rights abuses committed by their subordinates during the anti-subversive campaign, and indicated that such excesses would not be repeated. Finally, after months of negotiation, Sanguinetti obtained the support of a majority in both houses of parliament for an amnesty law. The Ley de Caducidad de la Pretensión Púnitiva del Estado (Law Nullifying the State's Claim to Punish) exempted from prosecution military and police officers guilty of "crimes committed ... either for political purposes or in fulfillment of their functions and in obeying orders from superiors during the de facto period." The amnesty did not cover proceedings in which indictments had already been issued, nor crimes committed for personal economic gain or to benefit a third party (nor, by implication, crimes committed by the military high command). Most importantly, the executive was mandated to conduct investigations into cases of disappearance and to inform the relatives of the victims of the results of the investigations.

In contrast to the procedure established in Argentina or Chile, Sanguinetti delegated the executive's duty to investigate not to an independent commission, but to a military prosecutor: only six cases were investigated,12 and the investigations were severely criticized both inside and outside Uruguay. Human rights organizations, including Americas Watch and Amnesty International, have concluded that Uruguay is in violation of its international law obligations to provide effective legal remedies in the cases of disappeared persons.13 An attempt to repeal the Ley de Caducidad by popular action failed: Uruguay is unusual in that its constitution provides for a referendum on an unpopular law if signatures representing 25% of the electorate are gathered in its support; but although a citizens' movement collected the necessary signatures and the vote took place in April 1989, the amnesty was upheld by 58% of voters nationwide, following a campaign in which significant censorship was imposed on the anti-amnesty movement. Sixteen outstanding claims for damages were settled by the government soon after, without proceeding to trial. Victims of abuse and their relatives in Uruguay have not been afforded even the limited satisfaction of official and public recognition of their suffering obtained by their counterparts in Argentina and Chile.14



10 Challenging Impunity: The "Ley de Caducidad" and the referendum campaign in Uruguay New York: Americas Watch, March 1989; Judiciary bars steps to identify child kidnapped during military regime, New York: News from Americas Watch, September 1991.

11 Although the dissolution of parliament had been carried out by the civilian president, Juan María Bordaberry, his actions were on the instructions of the military, and power resided thereafter in the 24 officers who made up the High Command of the Armed Forces (Junta de Officiales Generales), leading to a de facto military government despite the continuing presence of civilian figureheads as president.

12 A Parliamentary Commission on the Situation of the Disappeared and its Causes reported in 1986 that 164 people, including eight children, were disappeared between 1973 and 1982 after abductions carried out both within Uruguay and from other countries.

13 Articles 2 and 5(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Uruguay is a party.

14 The Uruguayan Service for Social Rehabilitation, which has assisted over 3,000 victims of human rights violations, has emphasized the importance of "social rehabilitation" in helping those who suffer mental or physical illness as a result of rights abuse to recuperate from their experiences and reintegrate themselves into society. Requests for psychiatric help increased after the amnesty law was passed and public interest in past violations declined.


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October 23, 1992