
It is ten o'clock in the morning and the Senate of Uruguay has several hours of intense debate ahead of it. Only few minutes before midnight, the ruling coalition of parties will have put the lid on the criminal investigation against their partner and current leader of the Cabildo Abierto, investigated for the alleged omission of denouncing the confessions of crimes against humanity made by a former military man before a Court of Honor in 2018.

Some 75% of Brazilians support the country's current democracy, a poll by Datafolha released on Sunday showed, while just 10% of citizens support a dictatorship, the highest and lowest levels of support for the two forms of government in at least 30 years.

An Argentine ex-police officer linked to the murder of hundreds of people during the country's “dirty war” was on a plane to Buenos Aires on Monday, after France extradited him to face trial over the disappearance of a student.

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday questioned the credibility of a truth commission that investigated human rights abuses under the country's military dictatorship, suggesting it was politically influenced by the left.

The group of mothers of people who disappeared during Argentina's military dictatorship sent a government official packing on Monday after he tried to conduct an audit of their assets as part of a bankruptcy investigation.

The assassination squad created by Argentina’s military dictatorship to target dissidents during the 1970s had, like other state programs, its own bureaucratic rules: Employees punched in at 9:30 a.m. and were entitled to a two-hour lunch. They received a US$ 1,000 clothing allowance during their first overseas mission. And they were required to submit expense reports.

Uruguayan president and oncologist Tabare Vazquez has publicly admitted full responsibility for not having read, but approvingly signed, delicate documents referred to alleged crimes against humanity committed during the military dictatorship, and consequently, without consultation, he sacked the Defense minister and deputy, and seven generals.

Uruguay’s president has been involved in an embarrassing incident which forced him on Monday to remove the commander in chief of the army, the Defense Chief of Staff and four other generals for allegedly covering up that a retired member of the military committed a crime during the 1973-1985 dictatorship.

A judge has barred a planned celebration marking the anniversary of the 1964 Brazilian coup which overthrew the democratic government of the elected leader Joao Goulart. President Jair Bolsonaro had planned to celebrate the anniversary of the start of the military dictatorship on Sunday.

Thousands of Argentines took to the streets on Sunday to recall Memory Day, March 24th, on the forty-third anniversary of the military coup that led to the country's last military dictatorship that extended from 1976 to 1983.