MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguayan State admits guilt in 1974 “April Girls” murders

Vice President Argimón urged Uruguayans to provide information on missing persons

During a ceremony at the Legislative Palace in Montevideo presided over by Vice President Beatriz Argimón, and pursuant to a sentence from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), the Uruguayan State Thursday admitted its responsibility in the April 21, 1974, murders of Laura Raggio, Diana Maidanik, and Silvia Reyes by the military during the last civil-military dictatorship (1973-1985).

The organization Familiares de Madres y Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos summoned its members to the Parliament and placed a TV screen on the sidewalk of the Primero de Mayo Square.

During her speech, Vice President Argimón urged Uruguayans to provide information on missing persons. “We again want to exhort, request, and ask, any person who has knowledge about the possible whereabouts of human remains to please provide information. Thank you very much”, said the also president of the General Assembly.

Also speaking at the event was Karina Tassino, daughter of the disappeared detainee Óscar Tassino. “Although we still don't know who he is, a body appeared. I look carefully at the photo of Dad and ask: 'Is that you?' What a situation so out of chronological time, 46 years later I still ask myself: 'Is that you, Dad?',” Tassino pointed out.

On June 6, Prosecutor Ricardo Perciballe specialized in Crimes against Humanity, confirmed the discovery of human remains in Battalion 14 in Toledo.

“We regret the absence of the President of the Republic”, Tassino also said about Luis Lacalle Pou's no-show. ”We, the relatives, always proposed to define the date of the act according to his agenda, because we understood that his presence was fundamental, [as] commander in chief of the Armed Forces to comply with the resolutions of the sentence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) in the issues referred to the Armed Forces,“ she stressed, prompting a standing ovation from the audience.

Tassino explained that, according to the sentence of the Inter-American Court, in the act of reparation must participate and lead ”high authorities of the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary”, as well as military, representatives of the specialized prosecutor's office and of the National Human Rights Institution and Ombudsman's Office (Inddhh).

“How much we have denounced, how many generations [passed] so that today we have this sentence that says that we were right, that the Uruguayan State violated all our rights?” she said. “The right to recognition of legal personality, to life, personal integrity, personal freedom, judicial guarantees, and protection. The right of the relatives to know the truth, the right of our childhood, adolescence, youth, maturity,” she went on.

She also recalled that with this judgment of the IACHR a process that “began a long time ago” and “these breaths of air began during the dictatorship” was culminated. “The advances in the reconstruction of the facts still have to deal with the same obstacles since 1985,” she also pointed out.

Although Lacalle Pou was scheduled to have been out of the country by Thursday, he took part in the opening of an industrial complex in San José.