MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

‘Justice or democracy’, Uruguay’s dilemma according to The Economist

Former Senator and presidential candidate Wilson Ferreira Aldunate

The Economist in its latest edition publishes a piece on Uruguay in which it reveals accurately the dilemma facing the country as a consequence of the legacy of the military dictatorship, 1973/1984 with all the killings, disappeared and tortured.

But Uruguay on two occasions (1989 and 2009) voted in a referendum in support of an amnesty law that benefited both the military and guerrillas involved in that dark period of the country’s history.

However relatives and human rights groups insist in demanding the truth, justice and compensations. (*)

Follows The Economist article: “Justice or Democracy, an argument over past crimes”

“For most of the past 180 years, Uruguay has been a model democracy. But it did not escape the wave of military dictatorships that swept through South America in the 1970s, at the height of the cold war. After power returned to civilians, they enacted an amnesty covering the crimes of the dictators and their guerrilla opponents alike.

The amnesty has rankled with some Uruguayans and with foreign human-rights lawyers. Its many loopholes allowed prosecutors to secure convictions of two of the dictatorship’s leading figures, Juan María Bordaberry and General Gregorio Álvarez. But many other attempts to press charges foundered.

After considering one such case in 2011, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) decided that Uruguay’s amnesty law breached the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights and “lacks legal effect”. Shortly thereafter the country’s left-wing president, José Mujica, a former guerrilla who was locked up in a military prison for 14 years (and confined for two of them at the bottom of a well), issued a decree annulling the application of the amnesty law.

After heated debate, the Congress went on to approve a law scrapping the amnesty and declaring the dictatorship’s misdeeds crimes against humanity, not subject to the statute of limitations. A criminal-court judge, Mariana Mota, opened investigations into more than 50 cases of murder, torture and forced disappearance under the dictators.

But last month Uruguay’s Supreme Court ruled that much of the 2011 law was itself unconstitutional, because it was retroactive. Weeks earlier the court had announced the transfer of Ms Mota to a civil court; the cases she was handling will be greatly delayed. Both decisions were greeted with angry protests outside the court, and with criticism from international human-rights groups. The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, worried that the ruling “could restore the shadow of impunity in a country that had just begun to reconcile itself with truth and justice.”

It is more complicated than that. Uruguayans have twice voted in referendums, in 1989 and again in 2009, explicitly to uphold the amnesty law. It is true that support for annulling the amnesty rose from 42% of the vote in 1989 to 48% in 2009. But the popular will has been clearly expressed. Just like the country, the ruling Broad Front coalition is divided over the issue. Although Mr Mujica championed the 2011 law, his predecessor, Tabaré Vázquez, also from the Broad Front, has remained silent. Some lawyers think that cases can still be brought by invoking the IACHR’s judgment, but others disagree.

Uruguay thus faces a clash between popular sovereignty and international law, at least as this has evolved in the past two decades. That is not an easy conflict to resolve”.

(*) As a background to the current situation, a look further into the past is needed. In effect the Uruguayan urban guerrilla movement took off in the early sixties when Uruguay was a model democracy, but the Cold War was at a peak and in Latinamerica the Cuban revolution became a sort of beacon.

With its armed actions and killings the guerrilla movement also contributed to trigger the military coup of 1973, in two chapters, (February and June) which finally closed down congress, suspended all civil rights, part of the Constitution plus persecuting whom the new leaders considered enemies of the fatherland.

The military had intelligently tested the response from the political system in February, which showed the two main parties not supportive of then constitutionally elected President Juan Maria Bordaberry since the November 1971 election was won by a minimum margin. This had left deep scars and doubts about that razor edge difference of the winning Colorado Party and was challenged by the National party, the two which dominated the country’s electorate at the time and had done for the previous 150 years.

However the then incipient Broad Front coalition (15% of the vote in 1971), now in office, which included a catch-all movement with Christian Democrats, trade unions, left wing media, the Communist party and obviously the guerrillas openly supported the February ‘test’ coup because the military showed themselves as “Peruvianist” in line with the military in Peru which embraced many of the sixties-left government program. June obviously proved it tuned out to be a trap.

When the time for the dictatorships in Latinamerica was up, in 1983/84 a political agreement was reached with the outgoing military, (including representatives from the Broad Front) which opened the way for the return of civilian rule but is also included a non written amnesty for both sides (except for blood crimes and disappearance of children): the military and police officers allegedly involved in human rights violations and the guerrillas, many of them who had been in prison since before the coup under the democratic regime, such is the case of President Mujica sentenced for sedition and wanting to throw down a constitutional government.

But the newly elected parliament in 1985 only kept half of the deal: amnesty and compensation for the imprisoned. This forced a long battle in parliament to approve a bill that basically filled the other half by having the Uruguayan state drop its prosecution claim against the military and police officers involved in human rights crimes.

A key figure in having the bill approved was the leader of the National party, Wilson Ferreira Aldunate, the same person who as a defeated presidential candidate in 1971 challenged the electoral results also contributing to debilitate the already deeply divided an weakened political system. He is remembered and revered for the last parliamentary epic battle, not so much for his challenging of the 1971 results.

The bill was passed in 1986 and since it was considered a highly sensitive issue a referendum in 1989 was organized which upheld the amnesty. Twenty years later and under a government of the Broad Front a second referendum again ratified the original amnesty bill and with a higher margin.