Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

RIGHTS-URUGUAY: Justice, 30 Years Later

Darío Montero

MONTEVIDEO, Nov 17 2006 (IPS) - Juan María Bordaberry, who staged the 1973 coup that ushered in a 12-year military dictatorship in Uruguay, is now in prison in connection with the 1976 assassination of two legislators who were living in exile in Argentina. His foreign minister, Juan Carlos Blanco, is also under arrest.

“Emotion overcame reason” after so many years seeking justice, lawyer Hebe Martínez Burlé told IPS.

Martínez Burlé represents the family of Senator Zelmar Michelini, a leader of the leftist Broad Front, who was killed along with Deputy Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz of the traditional National Party, the speaker of the lower house until Congress was dissolved by the military in 1973.

Bordaberry and Blanco are also charged with the murders of William Whitelaw and Rosario Barredo, former members of the Tupamaros guerrillas, who were killed in the same operation.

Michelini and Gutiérrez Ruiz, whose bodies were found bearing signs of torture on May 21, 1976, two days after they were abducted from their homes in Buenos Aires, led the opposition to the Uruguayan dictatorship abroad along with leftist leaders, trade unionists and National Party politician Wilson Ferreira, who escaped with his life because he was warned just in time.

Late Thursday, Judge Roberto Timbal ordered the arrest of Blanco and Bordaberry – who turned himself in on Friday after his whereabouts were unknown for several hours – on charges of “extremely aggravated” homicide.

That charge was requested by prosecutor Mirtha Guianze, to avoid the statute of limitations, Martínez Burlé pointed out. The two men face a minimum sentence of 10 years.

The judge has classified the murders as crimes against humanity, which are subject to no statute of limitations.

In his ruling, Judge Timbal referred to abundant evidence that implicates the accused in the murders, “which were committed in the framework of an accord or coordination between the de facto regimes in power in Uruguay and Argentina – known as Plan Condor, which involved the dictatorships of the Southern Cone” of the Americas.

The judge added that the existence of Operation Condor was confirmed in September 2001 when documents were declassified in the United States, proving that Washington was familiar with the strategy of secret coordination of repression of dissidents among a number of South American countries.

Blanco was already facing prosecution in the case of the 1976 forced disappearance of schoolteacher and leftist activist Elena Quinteros, who was dragged out of the grounds of the Venezuelan Embassy by members of the Uruguayan security forces. Quinteros’ case was the first human rights case to go to trial in Uruguay.

Documents discovered by historian Oscar Destouet of the Human Rights Office played a key role in the prosecution of Bordaberry and Blanco. The documents had remained concealed in the Foreign Ministry until the Broad Front reached the government on Mar. 1, 2005.

Destouet told IPS that he had submitted to Timbal official documents signed by Blanco or his subordinates and telegrams referring to the four murders. One document was an order that each Uruguayan Embassy was to act as an intelligence agency, to monitor and combat opposition to the dictatorship abroad.

The embassy in Buenos Aires, in particular, was instructed to keep a tight check on the large community of Uruguayans who fled to Argentina after the Jun. 27, 1973 coup. Argentina’s coup was not staged until March 1976.

The documents also contain records of shipments of rifles and automatic weapons from Montevideo to the embassy in Argentina.

Among the most compelling evidence pointing to the direct responsibility of Bordaberry and Blanco in the murders is a written order to withdraw the official passports of legislators Michelini, Gutiérrez Ruiz and Ferreira, as well as the refusal to issue them common passports – moves clearly aimed at preventing them from leaving Argentina.

Destouet also handed the judge the official agenda of a meeting between Blanco and then Argentine foreign minister César Guzzetti, which took place just a few days before the murders. The operation was coordinated during that meeting, which provides further proof of the existence of Operation Condor.

With Bordaberry’s arrest, the courts finally decided to prosecute the first of the four dictators who ruled Uruguay from 1973 to 1985. Only one other is still alive.

When it comes to bringing human rights abusers to trial, the courts in Uruguay are well behind Chile, and especially Argentina, which struck down the amnesty laws that had let the military off the hook for the human rights crimes committed during that country’s bloody seven-year dictatorship.

An amnesty law, approved by Uruguayan voters in a 1989 referendum, kept human rights abusers out of court for two decades.

Bordaberry is also facing prosecution in another case, in which he is charged with deprivation of liberty, homicide and forced disappearance, as well as violating the constitution by carrying out a coup in conjunction with the military three years after he was elected president.

A judge had already ordered that the borders be closed to Bordaberry in connection with that case.

The 78-year-old former president-turned-dictator could face a combined total of up to 30 years in prison.

The other surviving former dictator, who could also end up behind bars, is Gregorio Álvarez. He is implicated in the forced disappearance of 200 Uruguayans, most of whom were “disappeared” in Argentina, the torture of thousands of political prisoners, and extrajudicial executions.

Retired general Álvarez was the real strongman of the regime. Today he is being investigated by prosecuting Judge Luis Charles, especially in connection with the transfer to Uruguay in a military plane of 22 people who were abducted in Argentina and tortured in the notorious Automotores Orletti torture centre in Buenos Aires.

The prisoners were killed in Uruguay and their remains have never been found.

One of those brought to Uruguay in that clandestine flight in 1976 was Adalberto Soba. Six retired military officers and two former police officers were arrested on Sept. 11 and charged with torture, deprivation of liberty and association to commit a crime, in connection with Soba’s murder. Another army officer fled to Brazil and yet another committed suicide when he was about to be arrested.

The existence of that flight was confirmed 30 years later, when the leftist government of President Tabaré Vázquez ordered the military to provide information on the whereabouts of the remains of some 30 political prisoners who died under torture.

Up to that point, there was only information on one illegal flight carrying political prisoners.

But new testimony indicates that there were many more clandestine flights transporting political prisoners between Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina, and perhaps other countries. The Uruguayan weekly Brecha reported Friday that there were at least nine flights.

Another obstacle in the process of bringing human rights violators to trial is the challenge of dealing with the boxes and boxes of records and documents dating back to the dictatorship, which Destouet unearthed in the Foreign Ministry.

“In Uruguay there is no law on the classification of documents, which means you cannot say that documents are being ‘declassified’ now,” said the historian.

“Written materials are one of the pillars that make it possible to see that justice is done,” he said.

Under conservative president Jorge Batlle (2000-2005), the Foreign Ministry roundly denied the existence of the documents, in response to requests from the courts, parliament and the government’s own Peace Commission.