Sowing the Seeds of War in Uruguay

October 8, 2015
Sowing the Seeds of War in Uruguay
by Brandon Jordan

Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez announced, on his first day in office earlier this year, an investigation into the military dictatorship of 1973 to 1985. The investigation, led by the Truth and Justice Working Group, would look into crimes committed by the dictatorship:

This group will analyze the existing archives and will search information relevant to the material, organize the registry of testimonies by victims or families about crimes against humanity, monitor the compliance of judgments against the state both nationally and internationally, and address other actions leading to the objective raised.

In spite of a previous investigation under former President Jorge Batlle Ibáñez in the early 2000s, the dictatorship of Uruguay is still an important issue, especially for families of the “disappeared.”

This is because lawmakers, in 1986, passed the Expiry Law, which limited prosecutions against leaders of the dictatorship. It was done out of necessity for fear of rebellion among military officials as pointed out by researcher Francesca Lessa. The Uruguayan public voted twice, in 1989 and 2009, on upholding or ending the law. In both cases, they kept the law.

Yet the “Switzerland of the Americas,” a nickname given to Uruguay, still cannot escape the memories of the dictatorship, which was not spontaneous. Rather, for decades, structures eventually created conditions, mostly anti-communist, for the rise of a dictatorship in the first place. Of course, it would not be easy to dismantle such structures—or attitudes—in short time.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/08/sowing-the-seeds-of-war-in-uruguay/