Dirty Wars and Democracy

By RAUL O. GARCES (AP), Aug. 14, 2009

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Uruguay’s ruling party wants to pay $17.4 million in reparations to victims of state oppression during its dictatorship.

A reparations bill passed the Senate on Wednesday and now goes to the lower house of the legislature, where the ruling party has a comfortable majority, and leftist President Tabare Vazquez is expected to sign it.

The bill says Uruguay’s ruling military junta violated fundamental individual rights and was responsible for systemic physical and psychological torture, forced disappearances, murders, arbitrary sentences, political exiles and blacklists in the name of national security.

At least 26 victims are officially missing from Uruguay’s 1973-1985 dictatorship, according to an armed forces report released in 2005. But human rights groups say thousands were tortured and many opponents of military rule were forced to flee the country in a “dirty war” against dissidents.

The bill also would pay reparations to victims of state oppression beginning in 1968, when Uruguay was still a democracy. But it excludes reparations for victims of family members of those affected the actions of subversive groups such as the Tupamaro Movement.

Leftists were responsible for an estimated 70 deaths as well as assaults, kidnappings, robberies and fires, according to the opposition National Party. Its presidential candidate, former President Luis Lacalle, said Thursday that the bill discriminates against vi

AFP, August 7, 2009

BRASILIA — Brazil’s Supreme Court has approved the extradition to Argentina of retired Uruguayan military officer, Manuel Cordero, wanted for his role in Operation Condor, a plan to eliminate political opponents., in the 1970s

The top Brazilian court said Thursday that Cordero faces several charges, including responsibility for the 1976 “disappearance” of Argentine child Aldaberto Soba Fernandes.

The charges are linked to Cordero’s involvement in Operation Condor, the secret plan hatched by South American dictators in the 1970s to eliminate their political opponents in the region.

He is wanted by Argentina for the torture, disappearance and killings of leftist Uruguayan activists in 1976 in the “Automotores Orletti” secret detention center in Buenos Aires.

Cordero, 70, has been under house arrest since December 19, avoiding prison due to an earlier heart surgery. He married a Brazilian woman 32 years ago.

After three years at large, the former Uruguayan Army colonel and intelligence officer was arrested in February 2007 in the Brazilian city of Santana do Livramento, just across the border with Uruguay.

Uruguay has also requested Cordero’s extradition but he is being sent to Argentina because that is where the alleged crimes took place.

(CNN) — June 22, 2009.

Uruguay has paid $42 million (973 million pesos) in compensation during the past three years to more than 3,000 former political prisoners and those who fled the country or hid from authorities, the state-run news agency said Monday.

The government paid out more than $15.5 million (359 million pesos) in 2007, $19.6 million (454 million pesos) in 2008 and $6.9 million (160 million pesos) in the first four months of this year, the Ultimas Noticias official news agency said.

The payments are being made to about 3,200 Uruguayans imprisoned between February 9, 1973, and February 29, 1985, when a military dictatorship held power, the news agency said.

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14 Dec 2008 23:45:01 GMT

Source: Reuters

MONTEVIDEO, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Uruguay’s ruling left-wing coalition on Sunday chose a former guerrilla leader as its official candidate for next year’s presidential election, but also decided he will face a primary. Jose Mujica, 74, who led the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement behind bombings and kidnappings in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was jailed during Uruguay’s 1973-1985 military dictatorship, has softened his image in recent years and is now a senator. His candidacy was backed by over 70 percent of around 2,400 delegates of the ruling Frente Amplio (Broad Front) coalition at a meeting on Sunday. “Together we can win,” Mujica, who is seen as a hard-line leftist within the coalition, told the gathering. Center-left President Tabare Vazquez, who became Uruguay’s first socialist leader in 2005 in another shift to the left in Latin American politics, cannot run for a consecutive term. Mujica could face former economy minister Danilo Astori, a moderate within the coalition who has been criticized for promoting closer ties with the United States, in June’s primary in the beef-exporting South American country bordering Argentina and Brazil. Astori won the backing of nearly 24 percent of the coalition’s delegates. The presidential election is due in October, and the ruling coalition faces a challenge from a cluster of opposition center-right parties, who between them currently muster more support, according to a recent poll. (Reporting by Conrado Hornos. Writing by Simon Gardner, Editing by Jackie Frank)

Observa (Montevideo), Nov. 5, 2008

El presidente deseó los mayores “éxitos” al mandatario electo en EEUU; reafirmó que el objetivo de Uruguay es “mejorar el relacionamiento” comercial, científico, cultural

El mandatario de la República, Tabaré Vázquez, envió “felicitaciones a Estados Unidos y al presidente electo” Barack Obama, quien en la madrugada de este miércoles hizo historia al triunfar en las elecciones.
Desde Trinidad, en Flores, donde este miércoles se realiza el último Consejo de Ministros abiertos de la gestión del Frente Amplio, el mandatario uruguayo resaltó la “estupenda jornada cívica” que realizaron los ciudadanos estadounidenses.

“Queremos desear el mayor de los éxitos, porque lo que él logre y tenga como suerte, será la suerte de todos los norteamericanos y de todos los (ciudadanos) del mundo”, dijo Vázquez.

El presidente destacó que seguirá apostando a “mejorar el relacionamiento” comercial, científico, cultural entre Uruguay y Estados Unidos. Agregó que Uruguay espera recibir también “un tratamiento igualitario y equitativo”.