Uruguay'S Evolving Experience of Amnesty and Civil Society'S Response

URUGUAYS EVOLVING EXPERIENCE OF
AMNESTY AND CIVIL SOCIETYS

RESPONSE
BY LOUISE MALLINDER *
WORKING PAPER NO. 4 FROM BEYOND LEGALISM: AMNESTIES, TRANSITION AND
CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION
INSTITUTE OF CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
QUEENS UNIVERSITY BELFAST
MARCH 2009
1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................ 1
2. URUGUAYS EXPERIENCE OF MILITARY RULE, 1976-1984 ............................................................................. 4
3. DEMANDS FOR AMNESTY AND POLITICAL CHANGE, 1980-1984 ................................................................. 13
4. TOP-DOWN TRANSITION: 1984 PACTO DEL CLUB NAVAL AND LIMITED PRISON RELEASES ....................... 18
5. ELECTIONS AND LIMITED TRUTH RECOVERY ............................................................................................... 25
6. 1985 LEY DE PACIFICACIN NACIONAL ....................................................................................................... 28
A) PRISON RELEASES ............................................................................................................................................... 32
B) RESTITUTION AND REPATRIATION .......................................................................................................................... 34
C) EVALUATING THE LAW OF NATIONAL PACIFICATION .................................................................................................. 36
7. GROWING PRESSURE TO HOLD THE MILITARY ACCOUNTABLE ................................................................... 38

A) BATTLING FOR JURISDICTION OVER HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES ....................................................................................... 38
B) BOTTOM-UP TRUTH-RECOVERY: SERPAJS NUNCA MS PROJECT............................................................................ 40
8. SLIDING TOWARDS ENACTING MILITARY IMPUNITY .................................................................................. 41

A) THE FIRST COLORADO PARTY BILL, JULY 1986 ......................................................................................................... 44
B) THE BLANCO BILL ............................................................................................................................................... 45
C) BREAKING THE IMPASSE ....................................................................................................................................... 47
The author will like to thank all of our interviewees within Uruguay.
Funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, this two-year comparative research project is
exploring the relationship between amnesties and transition from conflict. Through a combination of research
methods, including fieldwork, the project is examining amnesty processes in South Africa, Uganda, Argentina,
Uruguay and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is looking in particular at the following themes: (1) amnesty, political
power and the construction of legitimacy; (2) amnesty, truth recovery and public memory; (3) amnesty and
accountability; (4) amnesty and the construction of victim and perpetrator; (5) amnesty, forgiveness and
reconciliation; and (6) amnesty and the limitations of legalism.
Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

and Civil Societys Response
9. LEY DE CADUCIDAD DE LA PRETENSIN PNITIVA DEL ESTADO, LEY NO 15,848 (1986) .............................. 50
10. FIRST ANTI-IMPUNIDAD REFERENDUM CAMPAIGN, 1987-1989 ............................................................... 53
11. IMPACT OF THE REFERENDUM AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LEY DE CADUCIDAD ........................ 55
12. INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE LEY DE CADUCIDAD: COMPLAINTS TO THE INTER-AMERICAN
COMMISSION AND THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE ............................................................................. 59
13. IMPLEMENTING ARTICLE 4 OF THE LEY DE CADUCIDAD: COURT ORDERED INVESTIGATIONS AND THE
COMISIN PARA LA PAZ ................................................................................................................................. 60
14. REINTERPRETING THE AMNESTY AND CURRENT CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS .......................................... 65
15. SECOND REFERENDUM ANTI-IMPUNIDAD CAMPAIGN ............................................................................. 68
16. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................ 70
KEY SOURCES ................................................................................................................................................. 72
A) BOOKS ............................................................................................................................................................. 72
B) JOURNAL ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS ............................................................................................................... 73
C) REPORTS AND CONFERENCE PAPERS....................................................................................................................... 75
D) STATUTES, REGULATIONS AND AGREEMENTS ........................................................................................................... 75
E) CASE LAW ......................................................................................................................................................... 75
F) USEFUL WEBSITES .............................................................................................................................................. 76

1. INTRODUCTION
During the Uruguayan transition from repressive military rule to democracy during the
1980s, two contrasting amnesty laws were introduced. The first, enacted in 1985 soon after
the inauguration of the civilian president, benefited those who had suffered directly from
military abuses in numerous ways including being dismissed from government posts, being
forced into exile, being detained and tortured, and in many cases being imprisoned for
lengthy periods. Although some of the individuals who were released from prison in
accordance with this amnesty were left-wing guerrillas, the majority had been punished for
their perceived political views, rather than as a result of any criminal behaviour.
Consequently, in many cases, rather than being a tool for impunity, the 1985 amnesty law
can be viewed as a form of reparations which sought to undo some of the harm that had
been inflicted during military rule. Furthermore, many of the individuals who benefited had
been convicted for their (alleged) actions, and in such cases, the 1985 amnesty did not shield
individuals from criminal liability, but rather lessened the punishments. In contrast, the
second amnesty law, enacted in 1986 in response to military demands, granted automatic,
blanket immunity from prosecution to those who were deemed to have committed political
crimes in the course of carrying out official functions, including members of the armed and
security forces who had been explicitly excluded from the 1985 amnesty.
The heated debates surrounding the enactment of these laws were reflective of the balance
of power between the parties to the transition, and the amnesties became a nexis for the
contested narratives over the actions of the military and the left-wing guerrillas before and
during the dictatorship, the threat posed by the military to democracy following the
transition, and understandings of the nature of democracy. In this context, as with
experiences elsewhere in South America, during and after the handover of power, sectors of
armed forces, with the support of some democratic politicians, demanded an amnesty. They
argued an amnesty would be a recognition that, notwithstanding some excesses, the
militarys actions in the war against subversion had not been criminal, but rather had been
to protect the state from the threat of communism. This understanding of amnesty as an
acknowledgement of the selfless actions of the armed forces counters not only the reality
of the crimes perpetrated by the military juntas, but also the assumption underpinning
amnesty laws that crimes have been committed and that, without the amnesty, the
offenders would be liable for prosecution. As will be explored in this report, these contested
narratives provide a prism through which to explore the construction of collective memory
and legitimacy within transitional states.

The background to the amnesty processes in Uruguay shares many characteristics with
political transitions in Latin America and elsewhere, notably the experience of brutal military
dictatorship. However, it retains some unique characteristics. Firstly, Uruguay, unlike its
neighbour Argentina, did not have a long history of political conflict and military
assertiveness. Consequently, amnesty laws had not been a frequently implemented political
tool prior to the transition.
Secondly, the main forms of human rights violations during military rule were torture and
prolonged imprisonment, rather than disappearances or massacres. As most of the human
rights violations perpetrated did not result in the death of the victim, the military regime in
Uruguay could be argued to have been less brutal than its neighbours. However, as will be
argued in this report, the comparative smallness of Uruguay (both territorially and
demographically), coupled with the extent of state control over both the public and private
spheres meant that military repression can be argued to have directly affected the lives of all
Uruguayans.
Thirdly, the Uruguayan military initiated the transition and negotiated their withdrawal from
power with political elites in a secretive, top-down process, which enabled them to maintain
significant influence over the transition, and to maintain a political role following the
democratic elections. Furthermore, unlike more recent transitional negotiations elsewhere,
the Uruguayan talks were conducted with little international input on the human rights
violations, although the violence of the military was part of a hemisphere-wide campaign of
repression of left-wing activists.
Fourthly, as the transition began rather rapidly, civil society had not been campaigning
against military rule and human rights abuses for as long as in Argentina, and consequently,
was less organised and united during the negotiations. This was mirrored by a lack of
consensus on justice issues among the political parties. However, following the enactment of
the 1986 amnesty, civil society mobilised and launched a mass campaign to overturn the
amnesty, which culminated in a referendum in 1989, in which the population voted in favour
of the amnesty. The experience of this referendum, in which civil society used legal
approaches to ignite a national conversation on crimes of the dictatorship and to try to
overturn the amnesty law, is highly significant for the Beyond Legalism study as it speaks to
issues of legitimacy in the use of amnesty laws. Furthermore, at the time of writing, the issue
has been reopened as civil society has launched a second campaign to force a referendum
on the amnesty. As yet, it is unclear whether sufficient signatures will be gathered in time to
trigger the referendum to coincide with the next presidential election due in October 2009,
but this ongoing process, which corresponds to current efforts to address historical

amnesties in countries such as Spain, provides a context in which to explore how the
legitimacy of amnesty develops over time and how far developments in the international
campaign against impunity can impact on attitudes towards the amnesty within Uruguay.
Finally, the 1986 amnesty law is significant as it gave the judiciary the power to implement
the amnesty, but it awarded the executive control over investigations into disappearances.
Whilst in theory this meant that the amnesty could co-exist with truth-recovery initiatives
and trials, in practice for much of the time since the laws enactment, the executive has
relied on the amnesty to curb judicial investigations into the crimes of the past.
This report was initially drafted as part of a series of background papers that were written in
preparation for fieldwork in each of the five jurisdictions being investigated in the Beyond
Legalism project. As with the other background papers, this report aims to explore:
The political context that gave rise to the amnesty laws and the reaction of civil society
to these laws
The scope of the amnesties that were enacted
The process of implementing the amnesty and whether the amnestys scope changed
over time as a result of judicial decisions and executive policies
The relationship between the amnesty and other transitional justice mechanisms, both
national and international
In addition, each of the background papers attempts to consider the impact of amnesties
within the states concerned. Following the Beyond Legalism teams fieldwork in Uruguay in
November 2008, this paper was redrafted drawing on our increased understandings of the
Uruguayan context. This working paper does not, however, draw directly on the views
expressed by our interviewees. Instead, their views will be discussed in depth in our final
project publications, which will be released during 2009 and 2010.
In charting the history of amnesties in Uruguay, this paper will begin in Part 2 by providing a
brief overview of the circumstances that gave rise to military rule and the consequences of
the dictatorship on society. Then in Part 3 it will explore the moves towards a negotiated
transition and the growing civil society demands for amnesty for political prisoners. Part 4
will analyse the terms of the Naval Club Pact and the role that amnesty played in the
negotiations. This pact led to democratic elections and the creation of parliamentary
investigative commissions which will be discussed in Part 5. Part 6 will subsequently explore
the scope and impact of the National Pacification Law, which benefited political prisoners
and exiles. The elite driven Naval Club Pact and National Pacification process were followed

by bottom-up pressure for truth and justice, which will be considered in Part 7. This
pressure contributed to the issue of amnesty for military and police officers resurfacing in
1986 as outlined in Part 8 and the resulting Ley de Caducidad will be explored in Part 9. The
referendum challenge of civil society to the amnesty will be discussed in Part 10 and the
impact of the referendum and the Ley de Caducidad will analysed in Part 11. Although the
amnesty provided broad impunity for state officials, attempts to provide truth, justice and
reparations continued at the international level, as explored in Part 12, and then increasingly
at the domestic level from the late 1990s, which will be discussed in Part 13. Part 14 will look
at the current efforts to reinterpret the amnesty law and Part 15 will discuss the current
campaign to trigger a second referendum to annul the amnesty.
This paper will argue that Uruguay provides an important case study that highlights how civil
society can engage with the amnesty issue, and how the wider population respond.
Furthermore, the experience of the amnesty laws in Uruguay illustrates how the scope of
amnesty laws can change over time through new interpretations in response to changing
political contexts and legal developments.
2. URUGUAYS EXPERIENCE OF MILITARY RULE, 1976-1984
Before the military coup in 1973, Uruguay was often referred to internally and externally as
Uruguay Feliz or the Switzerland of the Americas.1 These favourable descriptions were
based on a number of factors. Firstly, Uruguay, along with Chile, had the longest tradition of
democracy on the continent, which predated the democratic traditions of many European
countries.2 Secondly, Uruguay at this time benefited from a social and political consensus,3
which permitted it to develop progressive social welfare policies and advanced educational
and health systems.4 Due to these favourable conditions, Uruguay, unlike Argentina, did not
have a tradition of frequently using amnesty laws as political tools in its recent history.5 This
1
Eg Philip Taylor, Government and Politics of Uruguay (Tulane University Press, New Orleans 1960) or La Suiza
de Amrica y Sus Mitos in Gerardo Caetano & Milita Alfaro (eds) Historia del Uruguay Contemporneo:
Materiales para el Debate (1995).
2
Alexandra Barahona de Brito, Truth and Justice in the Consolidation of Democracy in Chile and Uruguay
(1993) 46 Parliamentary Affairs 579, 581.
3
Ronaldo Munck, Latin America: The Transition to Democracy (Zed Books, London 1989) 174.
4
Zelmar Lissardy, Uruguay Releases Leftist Guerrillas under Amnesty United Press International (Montevideo
13 March 1985).
5
However, according to Roniger and Sznajder, amnesties had been used in the decades following Uruguayan
independence: In Uruguay, amnesties and pardons were granted in 1835 at the end of the wars of
independence and again in 1854 and 1860; in 1872 an amnesty put an end to a rebellion of Timteo Aparicio; in
1875 those involved in the Revolution of the Tricolor were pardoned; in 1897 pardons were granted to those
involved in the rebellion of Aparicio Saravia, followed by a formal agreement between the victors and the
defeated in 1904; pardons followed the uprising of Cerillos in 1926; in 1935 the Terra Dictatorship was closed

makes the Ley de Caducidad, which offered a broad amnesty for crimes committed during
the military dictatorship exceptional in the Uruguayan context, and it can be speculated
whether this affected the laws perceived legitimacy.
The political and social conditions in Uruguay began to deteriorate from the 1960s when a
slump in the countrys basic exports led to labour strikes and the formation of left-wing
guerrilla groups,6 notably the left-wing Movimiento de Liberacin Nacional, or Tupamaros.7
The Tupamaros, began secretly organising in 1962 and launched their military offensive in
1966 following national elections. Their primary objective was to build a popular political
consciousness around the assertion that Uruguays traditional power structures were
corrupted beyond repair, and that nothing short of their total destruction would bring
satisfactory change.8 Their operations were focused in Montevideo and their tactics
included [r]aiding banks, casinos, factories, and other symbols of upper-class power and
United States imperialism.9 In seeking to influence public opinion, the Tupamaros often
used satire in their propaganda and redistributed, Robin Hood-style, the goods they
seized.10 They also sought to minimise civilian casualties and accomplish their direct
missions from a moral high ground.11 Furthermore, in a Carta Abierta de los Tupamaros a la
Polica (Open Letter to the Police) published in the leftist magazine, Epoca, on 7 December
1967, the Tupamaros sought to justify their armed struggle by stating [w]e have placed
ourselves outside the law because
This is the only honest action when the law is not equal for all; when the law exists to
defend the spurious interests of a minority to the detriment of the majority; when
by a law of pardon. See Luis Roniger and Mario Sznajder, The Legacy of Human Rights Violations in the
Southern Cone: Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay (Oxford Studies in Democratization, Oxford University Press,
Oxford 1999) 140.
6
Ibid. During the early 1970s there were other smaller left-wing guerrilla groups active in Uruguay including the
Organizacin Popular Revolucionaria 33 (OPR-33) and the Movimiento Revolucionario Oriental (MRO).
7
The name Tupamaros is derived from an ill-fated 1780 insurrection against the Spanish conquistadors led by
an Inca chieftain named Tupac Amaru.
8
Christopher A. Woodruff, Political Culture and Revolution: An Analysis of the Tupamaros Failed Attempt to
Ignite a Social Revolution in Uruguay (Lonzano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at
Austin, 4 January 2008) 2.
9
Ibid 2.
10
Zelmar Lissardy, Uruguay Releases Leftist Guerrillas under Amnesty United Press International (Montevideo
13 March 1985).
11
Woodruff (n 8) 15. Woodruff cites a study by Eduardo Rey Tristn which argues that in seven years of
operations, the Tupamaros were only responsible for 40 deaths.

the law works against the countrys progress; when even those who have created it
place themselves outside it, with impunity, whenever it is convenient to them.12
In this way, the Tupamaros sought to distinguish their actions from purely criminal
behaviour and tried to carve a niche within societys conception of legitimacy.13 Although
such radicalism was antithetical to Uruguayan societys traditional convictions, the
Tupamaros gained considerable public support in the late 1960s,14 and for a while were
regarded as Latin Americas best organised urban guerrilla force.15 This success was shortlived, however, as by 1973 the military had crushed them.16
Although the military did not assume complete control of government until after their
defeat of the Tupamaros, the 1966 elections that had preceded the guerrillas armed
campaign brought to power a repressive, right-wing Colorado government, under the
presidency of Jorge Pacheco Areco. President Pacheco rapidly began to suppress dissent by
banning left-wing political parties and closing down newspapers, and in 1968 he used the
guerrilla threat to impose a state of emergency, a measure which was unopposed by
Congress.17 From this period, the police began to use force to suppress demonstrations and
torture became routine during interrogations.18 Furthermore, from 1969 President Pacheco
ordered the military to intervene to stop strikes19 and following the escape of 100
Tupamaros from Punta Carretas prison in 1971, Pacheco handed the military full control of
counter-insurgency operations.20 In the subsequent general elections in November 1971,
12
Lawrence Weschler, A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers (University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, Ill. 1998) 103. Unsurprisingly, this characterisation of the Tupamaros actions contrasted strongly with
their portrayal in military propaganda in which the other, the Marxist or the urban guerrilla (lexical items
that denote difference and foreignness) is represented as breaking the laws and not defending the interests of
the citizens. Achugar argues that *i+n opposition to this, incompetence and foreign interests, the military
appears as the authentic representation of the law and national interests by supporting the constitutional
president and being defined as the last bastion of Orientalidad (authentic national identity). See Mariana
Achugar, Between Remembering and Forgetting: Uruguayan Military Discourse about Human Rights (19762004) (2007) 18 Discourse and Society 521, 529.
13
Woodruff (n 8) 2.
14
Ibid 2.
15
Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South
America, and Post-communist Europe (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1996) 155.
16
Neil J. Kritz, Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies reckon with Former Regimes (United States
Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C. 1995) 383.
17
Weschler (n 12) 105.
18
Alexandra Barahona de Brito, Human Rights and Democratization in Latin America: Uruguay and Chile
(Oxford Studies in Democratization, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1997) 40.
19
20
Barahona de Brito (n 18) 40.

Pacheco handpicked a successor as reactionary as himself, Juan Mara Bordaberry, who

became president in 1972.21
President Bordaberry continued and expanded the policies of his predecessor in suspending
civil liberties, banning political opponents and awarding the military increased power. These
moves were similar to that of the Peronist government in Argentina during the early 1970s,
and were in accordance with the Doctrine of National Security that was prevalent across the
Americas in this era.22 In 1973, Bordaberry, under pressure from the military, dissolved
congress and banned some political parties, which marked the effective start of military rule.
However, Bordaberry, a civilian, continued as president until June 1976 when the military,
seeking to discredit him, released a secret memorandum in which he suggested permanent
abolition of all political parties, and the construction of a corporatist and civilian regime,
under his command.23 It appears that the military, which remained rhetorically committed
to democracy, hoped to boost its own legitimacy by ousting the anti-democratic Bordaberry.
The military replaced Bordaberry with a civilian politician from the Blanco party,24 Aparicio
Mndez, who had even less influence over decision-making than his predecessor.25 The
incremental nature of the militarys seizure of power has been labelled as a slow coup,26
and a defining feature of military rule in Uruguay was the extent to which civilians remained
involved in the administration. This is significant as it may have influenced some politicians
attitudes towards amnesty during the transition and has been highlighted in recent efforts to
reinterpret the 1986 amnesty. Indeed, from June 1973 until August 1981, all the presidents
were civilians and civilians headed all government departments, except the Ministries of the
Interior and Defence. Indeed, in its propaganda, the military pointed to the role of civilian
politicians, and in particular, the constitutional president to legitimise its own actions.27
During the Pacheco and Bordaberry administrations, human rights violations against
perceived political opponents were widespread and, at the time of writing, Bordaberry is
under arrest pending trial in Uruguay for his role in multiple murders.28 The abuses of this
21

For more information on the Doctrine of National Security see J. Patrice McSherry, Predatory States:
Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham 2005).
23
Charles Guy Gillespie, Uruguays Return to Democracy (1985) 4 Bulletin of Latin American Research 99, 100.
24
This party is also known as the National Party, but for clarity Blancos will be used in this paper.
25
Gillespie (n 23) 100.
26
David Pion-Berlin, To Prosecute and Pardon: Human Rights Decisions in the Latin American Southern Cone
(1994) 16 Human Rights Quarterly 105, 117-8.
27
Achugar (n 12) 534.
28
His arrest was ordered on 16 November 2006. The order relates to the murder of four Uruguayan citizens
(Zelmar Michelini, Hctor Gutirrez Ruiz, Rosario del Carmen Barredo and William Whitelaw) who sought
refuge in Argentina after Bordaberry led a civilian-military coup (together with his former foreign minister Juan
22

period meant that by the time the military assumed control in 1973, the security forces
were already organised and mobilised for waging a broadened war against subversion, and
important wartime legal restrictions on the population were already in effect.29 These
conditions meant that many potential spaces for organized resistance were restricted or
eliminated before the coup.30 However, although the military had defeated the Tupamaros
before assuming control, they used the left-wing threat to justify recourse to even greater
repression during their dictatorship.31 Thus, as Barahona de Brito highlights [a]s in
Argentina, human rights abuses of all varieties in Uruguay were especially loathsome since
they continued long after the armed opposition movements had been subdued, and were
thus directed at defenceless citizens.32 Furthermore, as will be discussed below, during the
transition the military and even democratically-elected President Sanguinetti continued to
maintain this narrative by portraying the military as having fought a just war against a
dangerous left-wing threat and therefore as deserving of an amnesty.
The military regime endured until 1985. During this period, Uruguay differed from its
neighbours, as the militarys abuses were primarily acts of torture, rather than killings and
disappearances. These abuses, which the military continually denied, affected large numbers
of Uruguayan citizens, as it is estimated that by the late 1970s, one in 500 citizens were sent
to jail for political reasons, giving Uruguay the highest per capita rate of political prisoners in
the world.33 Indeed, it has also been noted that one in every 47-50 citizens (about 2 per cent
of the population) were detained for interrogation and most were tortured. According to
Loveman, many of those arrested were detained for thought crimes that had been created
through laws that criminalised the intention to commit a crime or to damage the honour
Carlos Blanco Estrad). On 20 December 2006, Bordaberry was charged on ten more counts of murder, and he
has been charged with violating the constitution in carrying out a coup. He was hospitalised with pulmonary
problems on 24 January 2007 and kept under house arrest thereafter. In September 2007, the court ruled that
the charges for violating the constitution exceeded the statute of limitations, but upheld the aggravated
murder charges. See , Uruguay: Former Dictator Arrested Latinnews Daily (17 November 2006).
29
Mara Loveman, High-Risk Collective Action: Defending Human Rights in Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina
(1998) 104 American Journal of Sociology 477, 504.
30
Vania Markarian, Uruguayan Exiles and Human Rights: From Transnational Activism to Transnational Politics,
1980-1984 (2007) 64 Anuario de Estudios Americanos 111, 124.
31
Pion-Berlin (n 26) 110.
32
Ibid 109.
33
Chandra Lekha Sriram, Confronting Past Human Rights Violations: Justice vs. Peace in Times of Transition
(Cass Series on Peacekeeping, Frank Cass, New York 2004) 71. According to the SERPAJ Nunca Ms report
[t]here were two waves of arrests, the first between 1972 and 1974 and the second between 1975 and 1977.
The report further states of those arrested 4,933 persons were convicted by military courts and estimates that
a further 3,700 individuals were imprisoned without trial. Furthermore, some individuals were imprisoned on
multiple occasions. See Servicio Paz y Justicia, Uruguay Nunca Ms: Human Rights Violations, 1972-1985
(Temple University Press, Philadelphia 1992) 65-6.

of the armed forces or otherwise threaten the nation.34 Such high rates of victimisation
within a state with a small population, victims can encounter their torturers on the streets of
Montevideo, and other Uruguayan cities.35 Among those detained, some were held for brief
periods, but many were held for years in horrific conditions.36 The political prisoner
population at its peak number of 7,000 prisoners, including 450 women, was believed to
comprise about 1,900 Tupamaros, with the remaining 5,100 prisoners being detained for
their Marxist ideas, for their work among trade unions or simply criticising the government,
which meant that journalists were particularly targeted.37 Among the political parties the
main target of the military repression after the defeat of the Tupamaros was the left-wing
political coalition, Frente Amplio, whose leader, retired General Lber Seregni, was held in
prison for nine years until early 1984.38
A survey of political prisoners, conducted by Servicio Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ), a local human
rights non-governmental organisation (NGO), as part of their Nunca Ms truth-recovery
project, indicated that 99 per cent of prisoners interviewed said they had been tortured.39
Furthermore, according to Julio Csar Cooper, a former member of the armed forces and
torturer, up to 90 per cent of the Uruguayan officers were made to carry out tortures. 40 This
widespread and systematic use of torture has been explored by Pion-Berlin who argues that
[I]nterrogation sessions were devised not only to physically and psychologically
degrade each prisoner but to send a chilling signal to all [the militarys] political
opposition. Torture was the states principal instrument of intimidation. Nearly all of
those who suffered the physical and psychological traumas associated with these
actions were returned to society so they could exhibit to others the horrors of their
ordeals. Moreover, sessions were carefully orchestrated to extract maximum
amounts of information to be used in tracking down other suspects.41
34
Loveman (n 29) 505-6.

Kritz (n 16) 383.
36
For a description of the conditions in the prisons, see Servicio Paz y Justicia (n 33) and Weschler (n 12).
37
Alan Riding, For Freed Leftists in Uruguay, Hidden Terrors New York Times (Montevideo 7 March 1985) 2.
38
Ibid. Unusually for Latin American politics, General Lber Seregni was an army general who founded a leftwing political party, Frente Amplio, and stood for presidential election for this party in 1971. In response to the
military takeover of power in 1973, he joined left-wing protests and as a result was sentenced to 14 years
imprisonment for betraying the army. He was released in 1984 as part of the transition from military rule and
continued to lead Frente Amplio until 1996.
39
Servicio Paz y Justicia (n 33)79.
40
41
35

He further argues that in comparison to Argentina where detentions and torture were often
brief and were soon followed by the murder of the detainee, in Uruguay, doctors attended
the torture sessions, so that the suffering of the detainees could be prolonged in order to
purposefully and consistently break the will of the prisoners in order to acquire
information. In this system, detainees would be brought to the brink of death and then
back again.42 Interestingly, during the early years of the transition, the Uruguayan Medical
Association became the most active professional association in investigating and sanctioning
its members for complicity with the dictatorship.43
Despite these efforts to keep the prisoners alive, 32 persons died as a result of torture44
and the 1985 report of a parliamentary investigation found that 164 Uruguayan citizens
disappeared during military rule, including nine children.45 Among those who disappeared,
only 32 disappeared in Uruguay, whereas 127 disappeared in Argentina,46 under the
auspices of Plan Cndor.47 Similarly, some Argentines were brought into Uruguay to be
disappeared.48 Although these disappearances represent a small fraction of the abuses
committed by the Uruguayan military, to date, much of the efforts to address the militarys
crimes have focused on investigating the fate of these individuals.49
In addition to illegal practices such as torture and disappearances, military repression also
severely undermined the rule of law in Uruguay. Initially during the Pacheco administrations
parliament voted for declarations of the states of emergency and then in April 1972, it voted
in a state of internal war under which the judiciary and the parliament lost all control over
arrests and ordinary courts ceased to have jurisdiction over civilians accused of subversion.
This erosion of the powers of civilian courts was formalised in July 1972 by the Ley de
Seguridad Internal del Estado y Orden Publica. Barahona de Brito argues that [a]ll these
measures were used abusively, far beyond the letter of the law. Their application annulled
42
Ibid 110.
44
Servicio Paz y Justicia (n 33) 177.
45
Comisin Investigadora Parlamentaria Sobre Situacin de Personas Desaparecidos y Hechos que la
Motivaron, Cmara de Representantes, Informe Final, (16 July 1985).
46
Ibid. The fates of those who disappeared in Uruguay (both Uruguayan and Argentine citizens) were later reinvestigated by the Comisin para la Paz, which will be discussed below.
47
Operacin Cndor was a coordinated, US-backed plan among the military governments that ruled Argentina,
Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in the 1970s and 1980s, involving cooperation in tracking down,
capturing and eliminating left-wing opponents. See McSherry (n 22).
48
The most high-profile of these cases is the investigation into the disappearance of the family of renowned
Argentine poet, Juan Gelman.
49
Elin Skaar, Legal Development and Human Rights in Uruguay 1985-2002 (2007) 8 Human Rights Review 52,
54.
43
10

or rendered ineffective all the procedures established by law to protect human rights and
fundamental freedoms.50 Thus, a democratically-elected parliament voted in a judicial
system entirely controlled by the armed forces that turned into a state-imposed machine of
terror.51
Following the coup, the Armed Forces consolidated the repressive legal framework through
a series of Institutional Acts,52 under which the legal limits on military power were
bypassed ... without ever departing from formal constitutional rule.53 For example, under
Institutional Act No. 8, the independence of the judiciary was severely impaired; the
Supreme Court was made subordinate to the executive, and the court system, in general,
was deprived of its status as a coequal branch of government.54 The military were eager to
legitimise their assumption of power by presenting their actions as being in defence of the
democratic traditions of their country and contrasting them with the illegal actions of the
left-wing guerrillas. This meant that despite the militarys violence suppression of its
opponents, it maintained a rhetorical respect for the rule of law causing it to deny its most
heinous crimes and to reiterate in the fifth Institutional Act of 1976 that human rights were
guaranteed in the country.55 In this context, according to SERPAJs Nunca Ms report, [t]he
rule of law was emptied of content, and wide gaps separated what was said from what was
done, but all came about according to how things were supposed to be done.56 For
example, the military courts maintained a veneer of due process in which the formalities of
trials and the opportunity for a semblance of a defence were visible, but in which secret
hidden documents from the intelligence services were not verified and confessions
extracted under torture were accepted by the courts without further confirmation and
without any other evidence.57 Furthermore, the military judges were bound by the will of
their superiors.58 As with other sectors of civil society, protest against the militarys
assumption of power was muted among the legal profession and the few lawyers who
defended those accused by the regime were themselves persecuted.59 Indeed, there was no
50

Servicio Paz y Justicia (n 33) 109-10.
52
53
Ibid 41.
54
Martin Weinstein, Uruguay: Democracy at the Crossroads (Westview Press, 1988) 55.
55
56
57
Ibid 111.
58
Ibid 111-12.
59
Loveman (n 29), fn 43. For a discussion of the weakness of the judiciary during the dictatorship, see Leon
Cortinas, El Poder Ejecutivo y su Funcion Jurisdiccional: Contribucin al estudio del estado autoritario, del ocaso
de la justicia en Amrica Latina (UNAM, Mexico 1982).
51
11

legal association to defend the regimes victims until 1981, when the anti-regime sectors
won the internal elections of the Colegio de Abogados (Bar Association) for the first time
since the coup.60 In addition, Comisin Nacional de Derechos Humanos61 and the Uruguayan
Institute of Legal and Social Studies (IELSUR), founded in 1983 and 1984 respectively, both
began taking human rights cases.62 Furthermore, during the dictatorship, the military courts
did not punish those members of the security forces who were responsible for human rights
violations.63
Finally, the military repression also involved controlling all aspects of the social and political
landscape in Uruguay to the extent that the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights,
described Uruguay under military rule as the closest approximation in South America of the
Orwellian totalitarian state.64 The countrys relatively small territory and small homogenous
population facilitated this repression.65 For example, [a]ll faculty and curricula, from primary
school through university were closely monitored and forced to adhere to the regimes
ideology.66 Furthermore, [e]very adult was investigated and graded on their level of
democratic faith.67 Under this military ideology,
[W]hole categories of individuals and institutions [were] excluded from the
collectivity, as alien to the Nation, its spirit, tradition, well-being and future. Marxism,
Leninism, Socialism and Communism and whoever promoted these ideologies or
merely sympathised with them had to be marginalised or eliminated due to the
threat posed to the Nation and its values.68
This ideological screening resulted in 30,000 civil servants losing their jobs.69 Furthermore,
during the period of military rule, an estimated three to four hundred thousand
60
Markarian (n 30) 122 and Barahona de Brito (n 18) 85.

After SERPAJ, which was founded in 1981, was banned in 1983 it was known briefly as the Comisin Nacional
de Derechos Humanos. At this point it began organising to take human rights cases.
62
Markarian (n 30) 122. According to Barahona de Brito IELSUR founded by lawyers who abandoned the
Colegio in protest against the directorates decision to limit itself to the administrative processing of human
rights cases on behalf of the National Human Rights Commission, began to take on human rights cases in
coordination with SERPAJ from 1984 onwards, only a year before the democratic government took power. See
63
An exception to this occurred in 1983 when the 50 officers were tried by the military Tribunales de Honor for
their role in the torture and killing of Dr Vladimir Roslik. See Barahona de Brito (n 18) 96.
64
Cited in Loveman (n 29) 503-4.
65
Ibid 503-4.
66
Kritz (n 16) 383.
67
Ibid 383.
68
Luis Roniger, Human Rights Violations and the Reshaping of Collective Identities in Argentina, Chile and
Uruguay (1997) 3 Social Identities 221, 238.
69
Kritz (n 16) 383.
61
12

Uruguayans, of a population that stood at 3 million in 1970, went into exile.70 Although
these sufferings were less violent than the torture and imprisonment, they were also areas
that had to be addressed in the transitional governments human rights policy. Furthermore,
the widespread suppression of political life, combined with the detention of opponents and
the high level of exiles meant that for much of the dictatorship the parties and the social
organisations within Uruguay were unable to respond to the repression and to focus
opposition around the issue of human rights. However, some political opponents mobilised
in exile to campaign for amnesty for political prisoners and the restoration of democracy.71
3. DEMANDS FOR AMNESTY AND POLITICAL CHANGE, 1980-1984
Among Uruguayan exiles, demands for amnesty for political prisoners began early in the
military dictatorship. In 1977, the Secrtariat International de Juristes pour lAmnistie en
Uruguay (SIJAU), was founded in Paris with the support of all the major leftist parties and
groups acting in exile.72 In addition, these exile organisations worked to raise international
awareness of the human rights abuses in Uruguay by bringing the militarys crimes to the
attention of the UN Human Rights Committee, the Organisation of American States and the
International Committee of the Red Cross. These campaigns also received significant support
from international NGOs, such as Amnesty International and the International Commission
of Jurists. The campaigns brought financial and political pressure on the military dictatorship
and contributed to the militarys desire to legitimise its dictatorial rule by rhetorically
supporting democracy. Consequently, in 1977, following Bordaberrys removal from the
presidency, the military announced that it would draft a new constitution to strengthen
democracy, which it would put to the people in a plebiscite in 1980.73
This draft constitution sought to entrench the repressive policies that the military had
implemented through its Institutional Acts and other extralegal measures in numerous ways.
For example, it would have curtailed the legislatures authority to lift a state of emergency,
removed legal safeguards against arbitrary arrest, mandated military courts to try civilians
accused of subversion, and established a legal justification for the bans, political dismissals,
and abuses committed by the dictatorship.74 Furthermore, it would have provided for the
continued direct presence of the armed forces in key decision-making bodies.75 Although
70
Sriram (n 33) 71. See also Markarian (n 30); Vania Markarian, Left in Transformation: Uruguayan Exiles and
the Latin American Human Rights Networks, 1967-1984 (Routledge, 2005).
71
72
Markarian (n 30) 120.
73
Linz and Stepan (n 15) 152.
74
Weinstein (n 54) 74.
75
Ibid 75.
13

clearly this constitution would have condoned a model of authoritarian democracy, the
militarys decision to put it to a plebiscite illustrated its desire to reach legitimacy and
reconstruct consensus.76
The military was so confident of victory in the plebiscite that they pledged in advance to
respect the results. However, they were disappointed when their draft constitution was
rejected by 57.2 per cent of voters.77 Following their defeat, some prominent military
officers began to question the militarys right to rule. For example, the transcripts of the
constitutional working group that met the day after the plebiscite reveal that some of the
top military officials, for the first time ever, began to refer to the military government simply
as the gobierno de facto.78 Furthermore, the defeat had left the military facing a dilemma:
If they retained power collectively, their hierarchies of command might be disrupted
by internal politicization and bureaucratic capture. If they allowed a strong-man
emerge, they could become chained to his mistakes, alienated by his ambitions, and
ultimately tempted to sacrifice him. Yet the alternative of allowing elections, as
repeatedly promised, left the question of how to prevent Wilson Ferreira, their most
feared opponent, from winning.79
This dilemma appears to have contributed to divergences among the branches of the armed
forces, although the military maintained a united public face. According to Gillespie, the
navy had become largely disillusioned with the proceso, the air force was split, and much
of the army was favour of sustaining military rule, and its generals had an overall majority in
the Junta de Oficiales Generales.80 Furthermore, the justification for continued military rule
had been weakened by the defeat of the left-wing guerrillas, the failure of the militarys
economic policies81 and its increased isolation both domestically and internationally.82
Eventually in 1981, a former army general, Gregorio lvarez was made president, and he
launched a timetable for the restoration of civilian government. This called for a lengthy
transition with the remainder of 1981 being devoted to the elaboration of a law regulating
the political parties; 1982 being the year for the reorganisation of the traditional parties,
76
Luis Roniger and Mario Sznajder, The Legacy of Human Rights Violations and the Collective Identity of
Redemocratized Uruguay (1997) 19 Human Rights Quarterly 55, 60.
77
Munck (n 3) 156.
78
Linz and Stepan (n 15) 152-3.
79
Charles Guy Gillespie, Negotiating Democracy: Politicians and Generals in Uruguay (Cambridge Latin
American Studies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1991) 108-9.
80
Ibid 109-10.
81
82
14

including the election of party leaders; followed in 1983 by the drafting of a new
constitution by the military and the new party leadership. In November 1984, it was planned
that there would be a plebiscite on this constitution, to coincide with a general election, and
power would be handed to the elected government in March 1985.83 Unlike its Argentine
counterparts, who had been humiliated by their defeat in the Malvinas war, the Uruguayan
military was able to demand such a lengthy transition as it retained considerable power
during the transitional negotiations,84 particularly since it left power of its own accord and
unbowed.85 Indeed, Pion-Berlin argues that
First and foremost, this was a negotiated transition, with the democratic opposition
and the military sitting down at the bargaining table as co-equals. Those negotiations
insured that neither side would enjoy a decisive advantage once the elected
government had been installed. A relative balance of power between two sides
resulted, where neither had a dominant strategy to deploy nor realistic hopes of
imposing its preferred outcomes in the short term.86
Therefore, the military had significant, but not total control over the shape of the future
political landscape.87
Although much political activity had been suppressed under military rule, Uruguayan
political parties were active in voicing their opposition to the proposed military constitution
before the 1980 plebiscite by, for example, smuggling speeches by exiled politicians
denouncing the proposal into Uruguay. Following the militarys defeat, the traditional
political parties emerged from the plebiscite energised, less frightened and newly selfconfident.88 For the most part, they accepted the militarys timetable for the handover of
power and following the passing of legislation in 1982 calling for internal elections to
appoint new leaders in the traditional parties, most parties simultaneously held internal
elections on 28 November 1982 in which voters could select party representatives who
would participate in the negotiations with the military.89 Even supporters of the left-wing
Frente Amplio, which was officially banned, participated by either casting blank ballots to
show their support for their imprisoned leader, General Lber Seregni, or by voting in
support of the partys alliance in exile with the Blanco partys leader, Wilson Ferreira
83
Ibid 76-7.
Ibid 172.
85
Sriram (n 33) 42.
86
Pion-Berlin (n 26) 113-4.
87
Sriram (n 33) 43.
88
Linz and Stepan (n 15) 152-3.
89
Julio Maria Sanguinetti, Present at the Transition (1991) 2 Journal of Democracy 3, 8.
84
15

Aldunate.90 The military in a gesture of goodwill in this period gradually began releasing
political prisoners who were not suspected of belonging to the Tupamaros. 91 Nonetheless,
the electorate again voted against the military as opposition sectors obtained a large
majority of the vote.92 Furthermore, during 1982, the first public calls within Uruguay for an
amnesty for political prisoners were made by a minor opposition paper, La Plaza, and the
relatives of the political prisoners sent a signed petition to President lvarez demanding the
release of the prisoners.93 This was one of the first public challenges to the regime over the
issue of human rights violations.94
The unfavourable election results for the military coupled with a further economic slump
forced the military to enter into negotiations with the political parties.95 The 500 elected
representatives of each of the political parties voted for a 15-member party executive, which
then selected delegates to participate in formal negotiations.96 These negotiations, known as
the Parque Hotel talks, began on 13 May 1983 and were conducted under the glare of
publicity. The military, predictably, were particularly concerned with the question of trials
for human rights violations, although there was no direct reference to the issue. Supporters
of President lvarez within the military argued that the military courts should retain
jurisdiction over military personnel, including those accused of human rights abuses, and
over civilians accused of subversion whether in peacetime or wartime. 97 According to
Barahona de Brito, [i]t was largely due to the unwillingness of the parties to accept the
militarys jurisdictional demands that the talks became a dialogo de sordos or a dialogue of
the deaf and then broke down,98 with the Blanco Party pulling out first, followed eventually
by the Colorado Party in July 1983 (the left-wing Frente Amplio was still banned and hence
90
Markarian (n 30) 115. Prior to the negotiations there was a cooperation between Frente Amplio and the
Blanco Party in an exile opposition front, Democratic Convergence, which had helped to unite the two groups
on the issue of human rights violations. This cooperation broke down when Frente Amplio agreed to
participate in the Club Naval talks, despite the continued imprisonment of the Blancos leader, Wilson Ferreira
Aldunate, and the Frente Amplio leader, Lber Seregni. The Blancos, in contrast, refused to take part in the
talks. This breakdown has been argued to have inhibited the development of a consensus on human rights
issues during the transition. See Barahona de Brito (n 2) 587; Americas Watch, Challenging Impunity: The Ley
de Caducidad and the Referendum in Uruguay (1 March 1989).
91
Jimmy Burns, Uruguays Military opens a way back toward Democracy, Christian Science Monitor
(Montevideo 5 March 1982) 5.
92
93
94
Ibid 86.
95
96
97
98
Ibid 76.
16

did not participate).99 The failure of these talks caused both civilian and military negotiators
to favour private negotiations away from public scrutiny and to deliberately ignore the
human rights issue in future negotiations, in order to avoid derailing the process. 100
The failure of the Parque Hotel talks resulted in increased political tensions. The military
launched a new crackdown on its opponents by issuing a decree temporarily suspending all
public political activity and banning even more politicians.101 The Blanco and Colorado
parties responded by uniting in radical opposition to military rule, together with the
banned left-wing groups. Public protests demanding the release of political prisoners and an
end to military government erupted and on 27 November 1983, at least a quarter of a
million people congregated at the foot of Montevideos Obelisk to hear a proclamation
calling for an immediate return to the 1967 constitution, and free and fair elections open to
all.102 This was the largest political demonstration in Uruguays history and it illustrated a
growing consensus around the question of military repression, however, this consensus did
not extend to demanding military accountability.
During this period, the exile community also continued to mobilise in favour of amnesty for
political prisoners. In particular, SIJAU continued to play a pivotal role by organising
conferences in So Paulo and Buenos Aires in 1983 and 1984 in which European and Latin
American jurists, lawyers, and human rights activists were brought together to discuss the
Uruguayan transition. Following both conferences, the delegates demanded the integral
restoration of democratic conditions, called for amnesty for political prisoners, and urged
debate on the future role of the Armed Forces.103 Furthermore, at the So Paulo meeting
two Uruguayan lawyers, Alejandro and Mercedes Artucio, delivered a paper advancing the
first detailed proposal for amnesty according to both international human rights law and
Uruguayan legal provisions prior to the authoritarian regime.104 They stressed
[T]he comprehensive character of the proposal, which involved the complete
restoration of civil and political rights as well as reparations to the victims of abuses,
... opposed involvement by the military justice, and called for the restitution of all
powers to ordinary judges to prosecute human rights violations.105
99

101
102
Ibid 103.
103
Markarian (n 30) 120-1.
104
Ibid 120-1.
105
Ibid 120-1.
100
17

Subsequently, at the Buenos Aires meeting, a representative of SERPAJ called for amnesty
for political prisoners and prosecutions of the armed forces.106 These meetings were also
attended by the representatives of the Uruguayan Bar Association, the relatives of political
prisoners and disappeared, Frente Amplio and the trade unions.107
In April 1984, these external calls for amnesty for political prisoners and accountability for
human rights abuses gained greater media attention and public support within Uruguay
following the arrest and death from torture of Vladimir Roslik, a doctor of Russian descent
from a small town in the interior of Uruguay. Rosliks death was an embarrassment for the
military. However, there were allegations that it was a result of internal plots to discredit
General Medina, commander of the Third Military Region, where the event took place.
Medina, who was in line to become Commander-in-Chief was alleged to have a
commitment to military professionalism and to favour sticking to a timetable for
withdrawal, which caused hardliners to attempt to force his removal by killing Roslik.
However, if this was a deliberate strategy, it was unsuccessful as General Medina became a
pivotal figure in the negotiations, the Colorado Party adopted the banner of human rights,
a wide public consensus emerged against the violation of human rights,108 and the officers
involved in the torture were court martialed, the first time that the military personnel had
been held accountable for human rights abuses.109
4. TOP-DOWN TRANSITION: 1984 PACTO DEL CLUB NAVAL AND LIMITED
PRISON RELEASES
The Roslik Affair appears to have encouraged the military to re-engage directly with
negotiations and the question of releasing political prisoners. On 6 July 1984, to coincide
with start of talks between the military and politicians at the Naval Club, the military
released several political prisoners. Furthermore, during the talks the military pledged to
suggest that the military tribunal review the cases of those prisoners who had served more
than half their sentences, to determine whether some should be freed, which was one of
the main demands of the political parties.110 Subsequently, on 25 July 1984, while the talks
were still ongoing, the president of Uruguays Supreme Military Court announced that the
court would review the cases of over 700 political prisoners, in response to opposition
106
Ibid 122.
Ibid 122.
108
Roniger and Sznajder (n 5) 79.
109
110
, Uruguay: Military Court to Review Political Prisoner Cases Inter Press Service (Montevideo 25 July
1984).
107
18

demands.111 These moves appear to have been timed to encourage the politicians to make
concessions during the talks. However, excluded from those prisoners who were released
was the leader of the Blanco Party, Wilson Ferreira Aldunate, who had recently been
imprisoned immediately upon his return to Uruguay from exile. His imprisonment meant
that unlike the previous Parque Hotel talks, the Blanco Party refused to participate in the
Club Naval negotiations in protest at the detention of its leader. Instead, the military
legalised the left-wing Frente Amplio to enable it to participate, so the Colorado Party would
not have to take all the responsibility for selling out by reaching an agreement with the
military.112 Other left-wing groups, including the Communists remained banned, and the
leader of Frente Amplio, Lber Seregni, who had been released from prison in March 1984
remained banned from political activity during the talks.113 The Naval Club talks also differed
to those at the Parque Hotel, as they were conducted in total secrecy. This emphasis on
secret elite negotiations marginalised human rights groups, particularly SERPAJ, and popular
mobilisation efforts.114
During these negotiations, the military hardline complained to the junta about the need for
explicit guarantees of non-prosecution to be included in the settlement.115 According to
Barahona de Brito, the junta responded to this pressure by ordering the main military
negotiator, General Medina, to propose an amnesty. However, the Colorado politician and
main civilian negotiator, Julio Mara Sanguinetti, reportedly persuaded General Medina to
refrain from doing this, arguing that to do so would cause the talks to collapse. Therefore,
instead of complying with the juntas demands, Sanguinetti and Medina pre-empted further
pressure from the military hardline by calling a joint press conference to announce the
successful completion of the talks.116
In keeping with the secretive nature of the negotiations, no minutes had been taken during
the talks and no formal document was signed at their conclusion. 117 However, the
negotiating parties implicitly subscribed to Institutional Act No. 19,118 published on 3 August
1984. This Institutional Act outlined the following bases of the accord:
1. Institutional Act No 1 suspending elections was repealed
111
Ibid.
113
114
115
116
Ibid 77-8.
117
Ibid 77.
118
Acto Institucional N 19 (3 August 1984).
112
19

2. Army promotions to the rank of commander in chief would be made by the

president from a list of three candidates provided by the generals; for the
other services, from a list of only two candidates
3. The National Security Council would survive in an advisory capacity, meeting
at the request of the president alone, and including a majority of cabinet
ministers over the military
4. At the initiative of the president, Parliament would have the right to vote a
state of insurrection to suspend habeas corpus
5. A protective legal mechanism (recurso de amparo) would allow appeals
against government decisions or military actions
6. Military courts would continue to try civilians only when parliament had voted
a state of insurrection
7. The National Assembly elected in 1984 would act as a constituent assembly to
consider permanent incorporation of the provisions of this last institutional
act into the Constitution
8. If amended, the new text of the constitution would be submitted to plebiscite
in November 1985119
The terms of this Institutional Act illustrate that the pact was agreed between equals as
the military did not succeed in getting the guarantees they initially sought, but the party
representatives were in turn unable to impose a strong break with the authoritarian
institutions.120 For example, the military had given up its long-sought demand for a
National Security Council, and instead, accepted an advisory role in which they would be
outnumbered by civilians.121 In exchange, the politicians agreed to restore the vote to
Uruguays soldiers and policemen, and to repeal a decree that had suspended the immunity
of civil servants from firing, which according to Gillespie, the military had requested in the
the hope of protecting the regimes loyal servants in the future.122 Furthermore, some of
the powers that the military retained under Institutional Act No. 19 were provisional for one
year, and could be abolished or modified by parliament, acting as a constituent assembly
119
Gillespie (n 79) 177-8.

121
Weinstein (n 54) 84-5.
122
120
20

during its first year in power.123 In this way, much as the militarys assumption of power had
been a slow coup, their removal from government was also gradual. However, according to
Linz, with the agreed upon lapse of the Naval Club Pact, one year to the day after the
inauguration of a democratic parliament, there were no de jure constraints on the policy
freedom of the democratic government,124 although de facto limits remained due to the
militarys continued position of strength. Furthermore, despite the agreement to return to
the 1967 constitution, which formally meant that the military had no greater power than it
had possessed before the breakdown of democracy,125 in practice, under the pact, General
Hugo Medina, the key military figure in the negotiations, remained as armed forces
commander and became Minister of Defence in the civilian government in November
1987.126 In addition, the pact resisted introducing any social or economic changes to society,
and instead, represented the restoration of the pre-authoritarian political system,127 to the
extent that Munck has argued that
There was no democratic revolution initiated in Uruguay in 1985. The tendency
towards continuity applied equally in the economic, political and social arenas. The
predominance of restoration over renewal was clear cut. There is no obvious
hegemonic project emerging from either the dominant or the dominated classes. 128
These limitations in the transformational nature of the agreement caused it to be
denounced by the Blanco party who had not participated in the negotiations. The Blancos
described it as the embodiment of continuismo: the continuation of military rule, and
authoritarian economic policies, behind an electoral facade.129
The most notable exception from Institutional Act No. 19 is the omission of any reference to
amnesty or accountability for human rights violations. As discussed above, the negotiators
had learnt from the failure of the Parque Hotel talks that forcing the issue would result in the
collapse of the negotiations. This reluctance to engage with the legacy of the human rights
abuses not just enveloped Sanguinetti and Medina, but also encompassed the left-wing
Frente Amplio, which had only recently joined the negotiation process. Although some
radical left-wing groups which were part of Frente Amplio, notably the Communists and the
Partido por la Victoria del Pueblo (whose members had suffered disproportionately from
123
Weinstein (n 54) 84-5.

125
126
127
128
Munck (n 3) 174.
129
124
21

military repression) had long campaigned for investigations and punishment of human rights
violators, the negotiating sectors - the majority of the left - preferred to avoid a strong
position on these matters,130 preferring to focus instead on the release of political prisoners
and the restoration of civil and political rights.131 Their reluctance has been credited to both
a fear of derailing the negotiations and a desire to position Frente Amplio as a credible
political option in the elections by embracing a conciliatory approach that precluded strong
human rights claims from their immediate platform.132
Although the manoeuvres by Sanguinetti and Medina meant that the military had agreed to
hand over power to elected politicians without first gaining a formal guarantee that they
would not be held accountable before civilian courts, the politicians had also not sought a
clear acceptance from the military that there would be prosecutions of human rights
violators. Indeed, immediately after the end of the talks, Medina gave a press conference
stating that
[T]he Armed Forces were ready to accept justice over those elements which form a
part of the ranks that have demonstrated dishonesty or over elements which are in
the ranks that acted on their own account; but for those that acted on orders or on
the command of a superior, those will deserve our greatest backing.133
He also claimed that the normal changes in the jurisdiction of the Military Justice system
and the Civil Justice system will not affect the army or its members.134 These statements
indicate that the military was only prepared to accept accountability for those members
whom it deemed to have acted dishonestly, but that it would not accept accountability for
perpetrators of human rights violations who had been obeying orders.135
Since the agreement of the Naval Club Pact, there has been much speculation that General
Medina and future president Sanguinetti had in fact reached a gentlemans agreement that
the civilian government would refrain from prosecuting the military for their human rights
violations, although it would not prevent civilians bringing legal proceedings.136 It is alleged
that this agreement was intended to provide the military with an effective amnesty.137
Barahona de Brito has suggested that Sanguinetti was willing to make such an agreement
130

132
133
Cited in Barahona de Brito (n 18) 78.
134
Ibid 78.
135
136
Sriram (n 33) 43.
137
Roniger and Sznajder (n 76) 72; Americas Watch (n 90).
131
22

due to the close ties between the military and Sanguinettis Colorado party138 and the close
personal relationship of Sanguinetti and Medina.139 Indeed, writing in 1991, Sanguinetti
himself referred to importance of developing relationships during the long negotiation
process:
In Uruguay there was a gradual transition through negotiations, which was very
important. Why? Because the dialogue between the political and military leaders
permitted us to get to know each other. The politicians learned to understand
military reasoning, and the military learned to negotiate and compromise. From 1980
to 1984 we talked, argued, left the negotiating table, returned again, and finally
agreed to hold elections. This was a very significant asset for us in our transition
process, one which was lacking in countries like Argentina, where democracy was
restored with no period of debate or negotiation.140
As was explored above, the close ties between the military and the Colorado Party predated
the militarys seizure of power in 1973 as members of the Colorado Party were implicated in
the militarys crimes during the Pacheco and Bordaberry regimes, and also through the
involvement of civilian politicians in the civico-military period. As such, right-wing elements
of the Colorado Party may have been supportive of such a tacit agreement with the military
for fear of implicating themselves or their colleagues. In addition, General Medina tried to
justify to the military hardline his failure to demand an explicit amnesty by arguing that to
have done so would have been tantamount to admitting guilt,141 whereas leaving without an
amnesty allowed the military to hand over power with honour, which is what we had hoped
for.142 The existence of such a pact, although widely believed, has consistently been denied
by all parties to the negotiations. According to Weschlers detailed account of this period,
for a while, Sanguinetti maintained in interviews that the subject hadnt even come up. In
138
The Colorado Party, which was to lead the democratic government, had become increasingly authoritarian
in the mid-sixties, and from 1973 onwards, it had participated in the military government. See Barahona de
Brito (n 2) 583.
139
Alexandra Barahona de Brito, Truth, Justice, Memory and Democratization in the South Cone in Alexandra
Barahona de Brito, Carmen Gonzlez Enrquez and Paloma Aguilar Fernndez (eds), The Politics of Memory:
Transitional Justice in Democratizing Societies (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001) 129-30.
140
Sanguinetti (n 89) 7.
141
142
Barahona de Brito (n 18) 78-9. In addition to trying to placate the military hardline, in 1985, the new
government did make some changes to the leadership of the armed forces, by withdrawing hardliner General
Julio Csar Bonelli from the command of the strategic first military region and replacing him with the director
of the military academy and former military attach in Washington, General Carlos Berois who was considered
to be more supportive of democracy. See , Politics: Power Struggle over Amnesty Latin America Weekly
Report (15 March 1985) 9.
23

fact, Sanguinetti told a journalist that not discussing the amnesty question was an intelligent
omission as [w]e were seeking ways to remove obstacles, not to create them. You cant
make a peace treaty discussing the origins of war.143
Following the enactment of Institutional Act No. 19, the military announced on 10 August
1984 that it would release 154 political prisoners, in accordance with the promise it had
made during the negotiations that the Supreme Military Court would review the cases of 400
prisoners. Of the other reviewed prisoners, the government decided to keep another 181 in
jail, and did not make a final decision in the other 65 cases.144 This review of prisoners who
had served half their sentences did not include all the political prisoners in Uruguays jails at
this time, as in July 1984, the armed forces had said there were 694 people convicted of
treason in prison, and although many prisoners were released over the next few months, at
the time of the November elections, almost 500 remained in jail, including former
Tupamaros guerrillas and Blanco leader Wilson Ferreira Aldunate.145
Even for those prisoners who were released, victimisation at the hands of the armed forces
continued as they each received bills for their accommodation and food during their
imprisonment. In cases of long detentions, the bills could equal twice the salary of an
average Uruguayan worker.146 Where individuals were unable to pay these bills, the state
placed a lien on all bank accounts and property of former inmate, and prevented them
from obtaining passports.147 Furthermore, when they were not paid the bills were adjusted
upward on a monthly basis to account for inflation at a time when the rate of inflation in
Uruguay was 63 per cent annually.148 Notwithstanding the injustice of charging such bills
given the inequities of the military justice system and the horrors the prisoners had faced
during their interrogations and detention, in many cases upon release the former political
prisoners faced considerable difficulties gaining access to employment for a variety of
reasons. However, in a few cases, individuals appealed their bills in court and had the
amounts reduced.
143
Weschler (n 12).
, Military Says It Will Begin Releasing Political Prisoners Associated Press (Montevideo 11 August 1984).
145
146
Daniel Gianelli, Freed Political Prisoners Get Bills for Jail Room and Board Associated Press (Montevideo 24
September 1984).
147
Ibid.
148
Ibid.
144
24

5. ELECTIONS AND LIMITED TRUTH RECOVERY

In accordance with Institutional Act No. 19, elections were scheduled for 25 November 1984,
but both Lber Seregni, head of Frente Amplio, and the still-imprisoned Wilson Ferreira
Aldunate,149 leader of the Blancos, the parties with traditionally the greatest commitment to
human rights,150 were prohibited from standing for election or even voting, along with up to
5,000 other politicians.151 However, both Frente Amplio and the Blanco party still contested
the election,152 but the prohibition of their leaders contributed to Sanguinettis victory.
During the electoral campaign, the question of accountability for human rights violations
arose, particularly as trials of military junta had begun in Argentina. It has been argued that
the four leading presidential candidates, publicly committed themselves to bring to justice
those responsible for human rights violations during the military regime.153 However,
according to Barahona de Brito, unlike other transitional states, truth and justice were not
dominant issues during the transitional electoral campaign.154 She argues that the left-wing
Blancos and Frente Amplio, although expressing sympathy with accountability, did not
consistently or determinedly champion it.155 For example, Frente Amplio referred to the
competence of the judicial system to prosecute all alleged criminals once it recovered its
autonomy, but did not outline any concrete government policy to enforce successful
prosecution.156 Furthermore, Gillespie contends that Lber Seregnis image was one of
reconciliation and moderation, despite his long imprisonment under military rule.157
However, Frente Amplio, eager to prove both to the more radical leftists and to the public
at large that participation in the pact did not imply an abdication of principle, strongly
denied acquiescing to a secret agreement between Sanguinetti and Medina not to prosecute
the military.
Politicians from Frente Amplio and the Blancos did, however, strongly converge on the need
to investigate disappearances and for amnesty for all remaining political prisoners. In
contrast, the Colorado Party was reluctant to release those who had been imprisoned for
149
Wilson Ferreira Aldunate was finally released five days after the elections had taken place.
151
152
Tim Coone, Uruguay set to End Political Crisis Financial Times (5 December 1986) 6.
153
Americas Watch (n 90).
154
Barahona de Brito (n 139) 127. For a more detailed exploration of the inter-party divisions on the human
rights issue in the electoral campaign and the reasons why human rights policies were not promoted more
strongly, see Barahona de Brito (n 18) 79-86.
155
156
157
150
25

violent crimes,158 a position which met with the approval of the military.159 Despite this, the
Colorado Party proved triumphant and on 25 November 1984, Julio Mara Sanguinetti was
elected president and he was inaugurated on 1 March 1985, whereas the parties advocating
a general and unrestricted amnesty represented only 44.6 per cent of votes.160
In accordance with his approach during the negotiations, Sanguinettis human rights policy
did not include the government pursuing criminal prosecutions against perpetrators of
human rights violations or establishing official truth telling processes as Colorado politicians
were opposed to having the legislative branch undertake investigative tasks,161 as it would
encroach on the powers of the judiciary. However, representatives from the Blanco Party
and Frente Amplio who had entered the legislature on 15 February 1985, two weeks before
Sanguinettis inauguration, in adherence with their election campaign commitments, were
eager to pursue investigations and by 2 March 1985, the opposition politicians had
established two parliamentary investigative commissions,162 to which the Chamber of
Deputies awarded special investigative powers by August 1985.163
The Investigative Commission on the Situation of the Disappeared People and Its Causes
(Comisin Investigadora sobre la Situacin de Personas Desaparecidas y Hechos que la
Motivaron), was created to investigate the fate of Uruguayan citizens who had disappeared
within Uruguay and abroad and the motives for their disappearances. 164 This commission
functioned for seven months, and in its interim report of 16 July 1985, 165 it reported on 32
Uruguayan citizens who had disappeared in Uruguay, and its brief final report of 4 November
1985, it reported 132 Uruguayan citizens who had disappeared abroad, particularly in
Argentina. The disappeared included nine children. The commission found evidence of
158
Ibid 182.
Ibid 182.
160
Barahona de Brito (n 18) 97. However, Barahona de Brito also notes that in May 1985, 44 per cent of
Montevideans thought that human rights violations had been the worst feature of the military regime, and a
year later 73 per cent of them were still convinced that human rights violators should be tried.
161
Barahona de Brito (n 2) 588-9.
162
, Uruguays new leader faces array of crises as military rule ends Reuters (Montevideo 2 March 1985).
The opposition Blanco and Frente Amplio politicians were able to push their agenda in the legislature, as
although the Colorados had won the presidency, they had minority representation in the legislature: out of 29
senate seats, he Colorados had 13, Frente Amplio had six and the Blancos had 11, and of the 99 seats in the
Chamber of Deputies, the Colorados had 41 seats, the Frente had 21 and the Blancos had 35. See Barahona de
Brito (n 18) 96.
163
164
Comisin Investigadora sobre la Situacin de Personas Desaparecidas y Hechos que la Motivaron, Cmara de
Representantes, Informe Final (4 November 1985). The fates of some Uruguayans, who were disappeared in
Argentina, were also investigated there by the Argentine truth commission, CONADEP.
165
Comisin Investigadora sobre la Situacin de Personas Desaparecidas y Hechos que la Motivaron, Cmara de
Representantes, Informe sobre Desaparecidas en Uruguay (16 July 1985).
159
26

involvement of 61 soldiers and police officers from Uruguay and three from abroad involved
in these disappearances. In early 1986, it forwarded this information to the Supreme Court,
but as will be explored below, judicial investigations were foreclosed by the 1986 Ley de
Caducidad.
Concurrently, a second parliamentary commission was established to investigate the
notorious assassinations of former Uruguayan parliamentarians, Zelmar Michelini and
Hctor Gutirrez Ruiz, in Buenos Aires in 1976166 (Comisin Investigadora sobre el Secuestro
y Asesinatos Perpetrados contra los ex legisladores Hctor Gutirrez Ruiz y Zelmar Michelini).
According to McSherry, these assassinations had caused shockwaves across the
Americas,167 and have remained the most high profile deaths resulting from military rule in
Uruguay. In October 1985, the Commission found that the military regime was guilty of
crimes against humanity, including genocide.168 In November, after recommending that its
findings be handed over to the courts, the commission gave its findings to the executive for
review.169 However, the executive did not pursue the findings; instead, the Minister of
Defence, General Medina handed the report to the military courts.170
The work of these commissions was hampered as the mandate of the crimes they were
permitted to investigate, excluded most of the militarys repressive tactics such as the
widespread use of illegal imprisonment and torture.171 Furthermore, although Frente
Amplio, with the support of the Blancos, had proposed that the commissions be awarded
the power to compel people to testify, this was blocked by the Colorados who argued that
it invaded the jurisdiction of the judicial system.172 Furthermore, the final statement of the
commission on the disappeared was negotiated between the participating parties, so it was
very ambiguous in its conclusions,173 as although it recognised the disappearances involved
senior military and police leaders, as well as the lower ranks, it stated that [t]he Commission
cannot conclude that these deficiencies are attributable to organisational decisions. Instead,
the report highlighted the activities of particular individuals who were repeatedly
166
The exiled leader of the Blanco Party, Wilson Ferreira Aldunate was also targeted in this operation but
survived.
167
McSherry (n 22) 5.
168
169
170
Ibid 589.
171
Hayner (n 176) 53-4.
172
173
Ibid 589.
27

denounced and who may have been acting for personal motives.174 President Sanguinetti
responded to these conclusions by claiming that, although the commission had given the
names of alleged individual perpetrators to the courts, none of the investigations had
concluded with the clarification of the authors of the crimes, that responsibilities had not
been established.175 Furthermore, the impact of the commission on the disappearances
report was restricted as although a public document, [it] was not widely distributed, nor
were its findings ever officially announced to the public.176 Nor did the reports elicit an
official explanation or response from the previous government and military authorities.177
These investigative commissions are not generally thought of as truth commissions for a
number of reasons, notably the fact that they had limited mandates and were parliamentary
bodies, rather than independent. Furthermore, Barahona de Brito argues that
In Uruguay ... no distinction was made between truth-telling per se and judicial
prosecution. The results of the legislative investigating commissions were destined
for the courts, they did not explicitly aim to form the basis for an official, publicly
announced national truth. Thus, truth as a policy objective in and of itself never
acquired autonomous life.178
As a result, when prosecutions were prevented by the introduction of the 1986 amnesty,
truth-recovery also stalled.179
6. 1985 LEY DE PACIFICACIN NACIONAL
President Julio Mara Sanguinetti has been described by commentators as the most
politically pragmatic of the Southern Cone heads of state and as a consummate
dealmaker.180 It was this pragmatism that influenced his human rights policy, as despite
recognising the veracity of complaints detailing gross human rights violations under the
174
Ibid 589. Conclusion 7 of the final report states La Comisin no puede concluir en que estas irregularidades
sean imputables a decisiones orgnicas. Aparecen en cambio, fundados indicios de que existieron elementos
policiales y militares, reiteradamente denunciados, cuya posicin es seriamente comprometida. Conclusion 3
states Que existe un caso particularmente distinto en las motivaciones, ocurrido en el Uruguay, ya que si bien
en el mismo aparecen involucrados altos jerarcas militares y policiales, las motivaciones estaran referidas a un
ajuste de cuentas por motivas personales y que se conectan con actividades delictivas comunes.
175
Cited in Barahona de Brito (n 2) 589.
176
Priscilla B. Hayner, Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity (Routledge, New York 2001)
54.
177
178
Ibid 193.
179
Ibid 193.
180
Pion-Berlin (n 26) 117-8.
28

military dictatorship,181 he viewed amnesty as a political not moral decision.182

Consequently, his initial approach to the human rights violations was characterised as
laissez-faire as Sanguinetti stated that he would not undertake any official policies to ensure
justice, but he also promised that he would not prevent individuals from presenting their
cases in court.183 Furthermore, although ambiguous about truth and justice, the new
president emphasised pacification,184 by which he referred to the release of non-violent
political prisoners and the provision of restitution to those who had suffered at the hands of
the military.
This limited approach was insufficient for his political opponents. In addition to the
opposition parties moving quickly to establish the investigative commissions, in its first
session and before Sanguinettis inauguration on 1 March, the newly-elected Uruguayan
parliament began debating the issue of an amnesty for political prisoners. This bill, which
was introduced by Frente Amplio, breached an agreement made between the political
parties in late 1984 that the legislature would not pre-empt the executive by introducing
substantive bills in parliament before 1 March. The Blancos quickly followed Frente
Amplios example by introducing their own bill on amnesty five days later. In response, the
Colorado Party refused to reveal its own proposals until Sanguinettis inauguration and
opposed any further debates before then. Undeterred, the Blanco party and Frente Amplio,
who together formed the majority in parliament, proceeded to create a multi-party
Comisin Especial Para el Estudio de la Amnista or a Special Commission for the Study of
Amnesty to study the opposition proposals,185 which was mandated to end its deliberations
two days before Sanguinettis inauguration. On 25 February 1985, the Special Commission
approved a unified Blanco-Frente project.186 However, the opposition politicians were
unable to vote on their plan before the election as the Colorado politicians refused to
181
On 6 March 1985, President Sanguinetti sent Alberto Zumarn, a National Party presidential candidate, and
Lus Hierro Gambardella, a Colorado politician, to a session of the UN Commission on Human Rights where
Zumarn gave a speech describing the militarys human rights violations. In this speech, in accordance with
Sanguinettis approach to these crimes, Zumarn stated [n]either the people nor the Government of Uruguay
are motivated by any spirit of revenge, but that anyone considering that they have suffered prejudice or
affront shall be entitled to turn to a respected legislative power to seek remedy for the violation or
infringement of their rights during the dictatorship. See Statement by Senator Dr. Alberto Zumaran Especial
Representative of the Government of Uruguay to the United Nations Commission of Human Rights 8 March
1985, (1985) 7 Human Rights Quarterly 574.
182
183
184
Ibid 127.
185
Ibid 128.
186
Ibid 128.
29

participate.187 Whilst these debates were ongoing, prison releases continued as 99 prisoners
were freed on 27 February, leaving 226 remaining in prison.188
Following President Sanguinettis inauguration, the executive sent a national pacification
bill to the congress on 1 March, the day of his inauguration. This bill provided for the release
of all political prisoners within a three-month period, except those responsible for violent
crimes. Furthermore, he made veiled threats to veto any bill that extended beyond these
parameters.189 He asserted that a granting amnesty for blood crimes would amount to
condoning the use of violence as a means to political change and distinguished between
those jailed by the military for their ideas or their actions.190 The armed forces were also
known to oppose an amnesty for their political opponents.191
The executives proposal differed markedly from the opposition plans that had called for a
general and unrestricted amnesty for all political prisoners, including former Tupamaros
guerrillas. The opposition responded angrily and blocked discussion of the Colorado
proposal, arguing that retaining any of the prisoners lends validity to the actions of the
military in violation of constitutional rights.192 Instead, the opposition politicians held a vote
on their joint amnesty proposal.193 Despite the presidents vocal opposition to an amnesty
for former guerrillas, the House of Representatives passed a bill to release all political
prisoners by 55-39 votes late in the evening of 5 March 1985.194 President Sanguinetti
immediately condemned the vote.195 Although much of the energy behind Frente Amplios
and the Blanco Partys rush to push through an amnesty for all prisoners may have come
from humanitarian concerns to end the suffering of those who were imprisoned, Barahona
de Brito has argued it may also have been influenced by arguments over the role that each
party had played during the Naval Club talks. She maintains that
Given suspicions regarding a possible secret agreement favouring impunity, which
emerged in the wake of the so-called Naval Club Pact, the [Frente Amplio] wanted to
show the public that participation in the talks did not mean they were not the true
representatives of the victims of repression and political prisoners. The [Blanco
187
Ibid 128.
Ibid.
189
, Politics; Power Struggle over Amnesty Latin America Weekly Report (15 March 1985) 9.
190
, Uruguay: Senate Approves Amnesty Bill Inter Press Service (Montevideo 8 March 1985).
191
, House gives new president first setback Associated Press (Montevideo 6 March 1985).
192
Ibid.
193
194
, House gives new president first setback Associated Press (Montevideo 6 March 1985).
195
, Uruguay: Senate Approves Amnesty Bill Inter Press Service (Montevideo 8 March 1985).
188
30

Party], on the other hand, claimed that moral status for itself alone; unlike the
inconsistent [Frente Amplio], it said, it had not participated in any dubious dealings
with the military and its Colorado allies.196
Newspaper reports from the time say that once the opposition parties had achieved their
aim of demonstrating their parliamentary power through approving their blanket amnesty
in the House of Representatives, they opted for a negotiated solution instead of open
conflict.197 This solution was reached at meetings sponsored by President Sanguinetti
between the party leaders, which agreed that the Comisin Especial Para el Estudio de la
Amnista would study both the joint Blanco-Frente bill ... and the presidential proposal in
order to arrive at a consensus solution.198 The Special Commission developed a proposal
which combined the oppositions demand for speedy releases and the governments
resistance to a blanket amnesty.199 Subsequently, on 8 March, the House of Representatives
passed this consensus bill by 86 votes with 91 representatives in session.200 This vote
followed an all-night debate in the Senate, which had passed the Ley de Pacificacin
Nacional by 24-3 votes exactly a week after Sanguinettis inauguration.201 The only sector of
parliament to vote against the amnesty proposals was the right-wing pro-Pacheco element
of the Colorado Party.202 Sanguinetti signed the law immediately after it was passed.203
The National Pacification Law was a compromise between the Colorado Party and the
opposition majority in which the left abandoned their commitment to an unconditional
amnesty for all political prisoners, and the Colorado Party agreed that all violent offenders
could be released under special early release provisions, that were distinguished from an
amnesty. These special provisions were viewed as removing the possibility of any
appearance of condoning their actions.204 Despite the parties reaching agreement over this
amnesty, Barahona de Brito argues that
These events, rather than contributing to inter-party unity and cordial relations
between the Colorado executive and the opposition-dominated legislature,
196

, Politics; Power Struggle over Amnesty Latin America Weekly Report (15 March 1985) 9.
198
199
Ibid 129.
200
Zelmar Lissardy, Uruguay Approves Amnesty for Political Prisoners United Press International (Montevideo
8 March 1985).
201
Ibid.
202
203
Ley de Pacificacin Nacional, Ley No 15.737 (8 March 1985).
204
,Accord Reached on Amnesty Plan; Passes Senate Associated Press (Montevideo 8 March 1985).
197
31

exacerbated underlying tensions and prepared the ground for future

confrontation.205
This confrontation became apparent during the following year when the amnesty debate
resurfaced. There are multiple aspects to the implementation of the Law of National
Pacification which will be explored below.
a) Prison Releases
As discussed above, the Law of National Pacification was intended inter alia to provide for
the release of individuals who had been imprisoned by the military regime, including both
those who had been convicted and those who had been detained without trial. This law
provided amnesty for all political crimes, and related common military crimes committed
after 1 January 1962.206 The law continued by providing guidance on the nature of political
and military crimes. Firstly, focusing on the motivations of political crimes, it stated,
For purposes of this Act political crimes are considered to be crimes committed for
directly or indirectly political motives, and military and common crimes related to
political crimes are crimes committed with the same objectives or committed to
facilitate, prepare, consummate, exacerbate their effects or prevent punishment.207
It continued in Article 3, by outlining provisions of the Military Penal Code and the ordinary
Penal Code, which were expressly included in the amnesty. This material and temporal scope
of law provided for a very broad amnesty for political crimes and it extended the coverage
back to 1 January 1962, the year in which the Tupamaros were formed.
With regard to the personal scope of the amnesty, Article 4 provides that perpetrators, coperpetrators or accomplices and abettors can be eligible for amnesty whether or not they
have already been convicted or are recidivists. The amnesty does, however, have restrictions
in terms of its personal jurisdiction. Firstly, Article 5 excludes police officers or members of
the military who were perpetrators, co-perpetrators or accomplices to inhumane, cruel or
degrading treatment or the detention of people who disappeared, or who have concealed
any such behaviour. It continues that this exclusion is applicable even where the crimes
were committed for political motives, or where the perpetrators were acting in an official
capacity. Secondly, Article 1 provides that for authors or accomplices of intentional
205

Law of National Pacification, Art 1.
207
Ibid, Art 2.
206
32

homicide, the legislation only provides for a review of their cases and a sentence reduction,
which will be explored below.
For those individuals who are eligible for amnesty, (as opposed to sentence reduction), the
law extinguishes all legal penalties, including criminal, administrative, or financial (in terms
of pensions or debts arising from the legal expenses of prison) sanctions.208 Following its
enactment, the amnesty immediately ended surveillance of the amnesty beneficiaries, who
had already been released from prison, cancelled outstanding warrants, rescinded
limitations on beneficiaries ability to enter and exit the country, and ended every
investigation of crimes which fall within the scope of the amnesty.209
In order to implement the amnesty and sentence reductions, the Law of National
Pacification required the Supreme Military Court to give the Supreme Court a list of all
detainees covered by the legislation within 48 hours. The Supreme Court would then order
the release of all detainees, except those who had been convicted for intentional homicide,
who would remain under the control of the Supreme Military Court until their cases are
transferred to the civilian courts, which must take place within five working days of the
amnestys enactment.210 Once the cases relating to intentional homicide were transferred,
the Law of National Pacification required the criminal appeal courts to decide within 120
days whether to acquit the accused or uphold the conviction. Individuals who were
acquitted would be released immediately, whereas individuals whose convictions were
upheld would have their sentences reduced, using the formula that each day spent in prison
during the military regime, equalled three days of their sentence.211 Therefore, individuals
who were sentenced to 30 years but had already served 10 years, would be freed. This
sentence reduction was intended to recognise the harsh penal regime that they had
endured. The law further provided that all prisoners who were amnestied or had their
sentences reduced, would not be charged for the expenses of their incarceration. 212 Finally,
the amnesty provided that the executive would regulate these procedural steps.213 However,
the implementation of the amnesty was overseen by Supreme Court Chief Justice, Rafael
Addiego.
208
Ibid, Art 6.
Ibid, Art 7.
210
Ibid, Art 8.
211
Ibid, Art 9.
212
Ibid, Art 9.
213
Ibid, Art 14.
209
33

The amnesty was implemented promptly and on 10 March 1985, 173 men and 20 women
were amnestied.214 The releases provoked very emotional responses and the freeing of
prisoners at La Libertad prison, one of the militarys main detention centres, was televised.
Allegedly, there were attempts within the prisons to encourage some the prisoners to sign
documents before their release to say that they had been treated well in jail, but it was
possible to refuse.215 A few days later, the sentences of 62 prisoners who had been
convicted of intentional homicide were reduced to allow for their release, including Ral
Sendic, the leader of the Tupamaros,216 and Spanish national Antonio Mas Mas who was
convicted of executing Dan Mitrone, a US police advisor to the Uruguayan security forces.217
According to SERPAJs Nunca Ms report, as the civil courts reviewed the sentences of those
who had been convicted of intentional homicide and hence were ineligible for amnesty,
magistrates were perplexed by the absence of fundamental guarantees and realised it was
not possible to speak of military justice having had any process at all.218 Nonetheless, as
the emphasis of the process was on the speedy release of all political prisoners, rather than
truth recovery, the courts did not attempt to investigate or verify the original sentences in
detail.
b) Restitution and Repatriation
In addition to releasing political prisoners from prison, the Law of National Pacification
provided for restitution for these prisoners. It stipulated in Article 12 that
Within 120 days following the enactment of this law assets which have been
abducted, seized or confiscated, will be returned to people amnestied, with the
exception of the impact of crime and instruments for its implementation... If
restitution is not possible, through destruction, extinction, transfer or re-registering
214
On 1 March 1985, there had been 338 political prisoners in jail, by 15 March all of them had been freed, see
Zelmar Lissardy, Uruguay Approves Amnesty for Political Prisoners United Press International (Montevideo 8
March 1985).
215
216
Zelmar Lissardy, Uruguay Approves Amnesty for Political Prisoners United Press International (Montevideo
8 March 1985).
217
The Tupamaros and other leftist groups allege Mitrone was teaching torture techniques to Uruguayan
authorities fighting subversion. He was kidnapped by the guerrillas on 31 July 1970, sentenced to death and
shot in the head ten days later. Mas Mas was captured in 1972, he was convicted in closed military courts of
involvement in nine assassinations, but he never publicly admitted the killings, and leftist groups maintain he
was unfairly convicted. See ,Free 16 Ex-terrorists, including Alleged Killer of American United Press
International (Montevideo 13 March 1985). Interestingly, contemporary news reports do not mention any
American reaction to this release, which is unusual as they have strongly criticised similar releases in other
countries.
218
34

as state property assets seized or confiscated the responsibility of the State and
the acting officials will be regulated by Articles 24 and 25 of the constitution and will
include cases where the property has been damaged or disabled by mismanagement
or continued use.
It further provided in Article 13 that the state would repay incarceration fees that had been
charged to released prisoners within 120 days of the laws enactment.219 Unlike amnesty
laws for political prisoners in other countries, this law did not, however, explicitly
acknowledge the extent to which political activity had been criminalised under military rule,
not explicitly declare the innocence of the amnesty beneficiaries.
In addition to the political prisoners, the Law on National Pacification also created the
Comisin Nacional de Repatriacin (National Commission for Repatriation) to facilitate and
support the return of all exiles to Uruguay. It provided that the commission would work
under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and Culture, which would provide the
commissions resources, and that the commission would comprise one delegate each from
the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Interior Ministry,
the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, the Banco Hipotecario del Uruguay, and the
Comisin Nacional del Reencuentro (a civil society initiative described below). It further
stated that the president of the commission would be appointed by the president and that
the executive would regulate the work of the commission.220 Under Decree No. 135/985, the
Commission was mandated to make a register of all Uruguayan citizens living abroad who
had demonstrated an interest in returning to Uruguay; develop and implement programmes
to assist these citizens to return, including providing information on available resettlement
support; and coordinate the activities of organisations working in this area and make
recommendations regarding the return of exiles to other government departments,
including the allocation of available resources.221 According to Markarian, this commission
provided aid to 16,000 returning exiles, including jobs, medical insurance, and housing.222
Finally, Article 25 of the Law of National Pacification stated that public officials who had
been dismissed by the military junta because of their political beliefs could be reinstated in
their former posts, or where this was not possible, they or their relatives could be awarded a
pension. This measure alarmed the Colorados, who were concerned about the increase in
219
The implementation of the financial restitution was regulated in Decreto No. 259/985. Reglementacin Ley
15.737 (Amnista). Sobre los Bienes de las Personas Amnistiadas (27 June 1985).
220
Law of National Pacification, Art 24.
221
Decreto No. 135/985. Cometidos de la Comisin Nacional de Repatriacin (11 April 1985) Art 1.
222
Markarian (n 30) fn 51.
35

government budgets, but was viewed as necessary compensation by the other parties.223 On
28 November 1985, the government also passed the Ley de Reposicin de Destituidos (Law
for the Reintegration of the Exonerated),224 which permitted the rehabilitation of 10,500
former state employees, and extended the retirement benefits to another 6,000.225
In addition to these governmental initiatives, there were also several civil society projects to
help former political prisoners, exiles and their families. For example, before the law was
promulgated, the Servicio de Rehabilitacin Social was created in August 1984 by a group of
psychologists and social workers who wanted to provide social and psychological
assistance.226 In addition, the Comisin Nacional del Reencuentro (National Commission for
the Re-Encounter) was founded in December 1983 by representatives of the major
parties,227 and former political prisoners volunteered in its offices.228 This Commission ran a
number of programmes to help the exiles readapt to their country, including some legal
matters such as recovering their jobs in the public sector, transferring credits from foreign
universities, and helping their children adjust to the Uruguayan educational system.229 It
also tried to provide social support, psychiatric help, and aid finding work.230 Finally, the
Servicio Ecumnico de Reinsercin was also founded in 1983 to help returning exiles.231
c) Evaluating the Law of National Pacification
As explored above, the Law of National Pacification addressed the needs of several different
groups who had suffered under military rule, and consequently, efforts to evaluate the laws
impact necessarily entail considering not just its overarching goal of achieving national
pacification but also its effects for the different groups that fell within its scope.
223
, Politics: Sanguinetti takes the drivers seat; Gearing up for a difficult first term in government Latin
America Regional Reports (8 March 1985) 7.
224
Ley N 15.783 se establece el derecho a ser reincorporadas al drganismo correspondiente a todas las
personas que hubieran sido destituidas entre el 9 de febrero de 1973 y el 28 de febrero de 1985 (28 November
1985).
225
226
For more information on Servicio de Rehabilitacin Social, see its website at www.sersoc.org.uy (accessed 8
January 2009).
227
228
Johnthan Steele, Uruguays Taste of Freedom / Political Prisoners Released The Guardian (19 October
1984). Steele notes that English has no exact translation for Re-encuentro a word that combines reunion and
reconciliation.
229
230
Johnthan Steele, Uruguays Taste of Freedom / Political Prisoners Released The Guardian (19 October
1984). Steele notes that English has no exact translation for Re-encuentro a word that combines reunion and
reconciliation.
231
36

Firstly, with regard to political prisoners, the law clearly facilitated the prompt release of
individuals who had not committed violent crimes and it ended the social restrictions and
financial penalties on other former non-violent political prisoners who had previously been
released. Furthermore, the law provided for the release of individuals who had been
convicted of murder through a sentence reduction programme, but it explicitly excluded
soldiers and police officers who had committed violent crimes. This approach of
distinguishing between the levels of culpability of the offenders was innovative and
according to Carlos Demassi meant that the 1985 Uruguayan amnesty was internationally
lauded as a model for other transitional states.232 However, as will be explored below, its
legacy was diminished by the subsequent amnesty for the armed forces which halted further
efforts at transitional justice. These later developments caused Barahona de Brito to note
that [t]he liberation of political prisoners was the only successful officially sponsored human
rights policy in Uruguay.233
Secondly, with regard to the reinsertion of civil servants who had been dismissed by their
military for their perceived political views, it appears that the Law of National Pacification
achieved rapid results as thousands of former state employees returned to their posts, and
thousands more received pensions. The return of these individuals to government jobs may
have enhanced the legitimacy of state institutions that had been tarnished by military rule.
However, the extent to which this was possible, may have been impaired by the terms of the
Naval Club Pact, under which the functionaries of the military regime could not be dismissed
by the elected politicians. Furthermore, it is unclear what effect swelling the ranks of the
civil service had on governmental efficiency and financial burdens.
Thirdly, assessing the impact of the Law of National Pacification on the return of exiles is
more complex. Clearly, as described above, institutions were created to facilitate the returns
and several thousand exiles did opt to return to Uruguay. However, large numbers of
individuals chose to remain in their host countries. It is difficult to determine their reasons
for doing this, which could relate to a diverse array of factors such as a lack of knowledge of
the amnesty law and the accompanying support structures, a continued sense of fear
resulting from earlier experiences, a recognition that financial opportunities might be better
outside Uruguay, or perhaps a reluctance to uproot families that had become settled in their
homes in exile. Nonetheless, the assumption of responsibility for the reintegration of exiles
by the state can be viewed as a positive indicator of the Law of National Pacifications
impact.
232
233
Interview with Carlos Demassi, Montevideo, 18 November 2008.

37

Finally, the overarching goal of the Law of National Pacification as described in the title
would be to promote the pacification of Uruguayan society. This should be understood as
returning harmony and consensus to Uruguay, rather than simply bringing peace as there
was no armed conflict in country when the law was enacted. The law itself gives little
indication of whether the process of pacification was viewed as a closing a door on the past,
and the fact that the military were excluded from the laws terms would indicate that this
was not the case. However, as discussed above, there was little political will during the
transition to push for truth and justice, and rather national pacification was framed in
terms of addressing current human rights issues by releasing prisoners and restoring civil
and political rights, which the law did achieve, rather than engaging with the crimes of the
past. Furthermore, the law sought further stabilise Uruguayan society by creating
mechanisms to reintegrate the former prisoners and exiles. However, as will be discussed
below, in the wider context, by providing for the release of the former guerrillas, the Law of
National Pacification contributed to further political upheavals within Uruguay and
generated demands for an equivalent amnesty to cover the actions of the military and the
police.234
7. GROWING PRESSURE TO HOLD THE MILITARY ACCOUNTABLE
Despite the Sanguinetti governments reluctance to push for prosecutions of perpetrators of
torture and disappearances committed during military rule, in the early stages of the
transition both opposition politicians and civil society began to mobilise to press for truth
and justice. These efforts will be explored below.
a) Battling for Jurisdiction over Human Rights Abuses
From 1984, civil society organisations, SERPAJ and IELSUR, began to assist victims wishing to
bring private prosecutions against members of the armed forces. In early 1986, these legal
efforts were supplemented by the Investigative Commission on the Situation of the
Disappeared People, which presented the evidence it had gathered on disappearances to
the Supreme Court. The number of cases quickly escalated and by December 1986, 734
allegations of human rights violations were being investigated and the ex-president
Bordaberry and the former junta members were under investigation for violating the
Constitution.235 The number of investigations initiated seemed to shock Sanguinetti, who
when asked later why the military were excluded from the 1985 amnesty and then
amnestied one year later said,
234
235

38

The reason that the amnesty for the terrorists and the political prisoners, as theyre
generically called, didnt include the military was that at the time it didnt seem that
denunciation of their crimes would become so important. There might be a few
accusations, but it wasnt going to be a big deal. Then things began to grow accusations, confrontations, bigger confrontations.236
These moves towards accountability quickly angered the military causing the Supreme
Military Tribunal to ask the Supreme Court to award the military courts jurisdiction over
human rights violations.237 The government openly supported the position of the military
courts and in April 1985, President Sanguinetti declared that the military courts should have
jurisdiction over human rights violations.238 Then, in May 1985, the government tried to
postpone the Supreme Courts decision on jurisdiction by vetoing the oppositions majority
vote against the continued presence of two military-appointed judges in the Supreme
Court.239 Furthermore, according to Roniger and Sznajder, in October 1985
President Sanguinetti and the commander of the armed forces, Lt General Hugo
Medina, reached an agreement by which the military courts had to bring to trial and
punish those who had committed the worst violations of human rights, to serve as
exemplary cases.240
Opposition politicians responded to the governments actions and pressure for justice from
civil society by presenting a bill that attempted to limit the scope of prosecution of the
military and thus make limited justice politically feasible,241 by imposing time limits on the
resolution of cases and finding suitable criteria to limit the number of cases, such as the
concept of due obedience.242 However, the Sanguinetti government strongly opposed this
proposal, arguing that they would not negotiate with or make scapegoats of a few
names. Consequently, the proposal never made it to Congress.243 Subsequently, in April
1986, when the Minister of Defence was presented with the evidence from the
parliamentary investigation into the assassinations of Hctor Gutirrez Ruiz and Zelmar
Michelini, he sent it to the military courts, rather than the civilian courts.244 Furthermore,
236

Ibid 130.
238
Ibid 130.
239
Ibid 130.
240
241
Skaar (n 49) 54-5.
242
243
Skaar (n 49) 54-5.
244
Ibid 54-5.
237
39

during 1986, President Sanguinetti promoted several army officers accused of human rights
violations.245
The civilian judiciary viewed the governments actions as an encroachment upon its
jurisdiction246 and refused to comply with the military courts assertion of jurisdiction.
Instead, they continued their investigations, and at the end of August 1985, issued arrest
warrants against three military officers accused of human rights violations, including the
notorious torturer Jos Nino Gavazzo. However, these warrants were held back in official
channels until the military courts could file suit disputing jurisdiction.247 Finally, in June
1986, the Supreme Court ruled that the civilian courts should have jurisdiction over the
human rights abuse cases.248 By this time, the courts were already investigating forty cases
of violations involving 180 military and police officers.249 President Sanguinetti responded
by officially accusing the Supreme Court of partiality and claimed that it was not in a
position to arbitrate on the issues of human rights violations.250 As will be explored below,
this decision caused the Sanguinetti government to formally enact immunity for human
rights violations.
b) Bottom-Up Truth-Recovery: SERPAJs Nunca Ms Project
In March 1986, in response to the limitations of the parliamentary investigative commissions
and the reluctance of the political parties to push for truth and justice, SERPAJ, a local NGO
initiated its own truth-recovery project. This project was supported by various international
Church-related and other domestic organisations, although not by the state251 and was
initially intended to provide evidence for court proceedings, as SERPAJ had been involved in
taking human rights cases since 1984.252 As the project did not have government support, it
did not have access to military documentation. Instead, the researchers used SERPAJs large
documentation archive, information from several international and exile organisations, and
direct testimony. In addition, SERPAJ commissioned a statistical survey of 311 former
political prisoners from a respected Uruguayan public polling company.253 The large amount
245

247
248
249
Ibid 128.
250
Skaar (n 49) 55.
251
252
During 1984, SERPAJ was known as the Comisin Nacional de Derechos Humanos.
253
Servicio Paz y Justicia (n 33) xxiv-xxv.
246
40

of data used to compile the report added enormously to their volumes sense of authority,
of undeniability.254
Its report, entitled Nunca Ms like the Argentine truth commission, was released on 9 March
1989, just weeks before the referendum on the 1986 amnesty for military regime, and it
became a national best seller.255 The report provided a more detailed account of the
militarys human rights abuses than the parliamentary investigative commissions, and it
discusses not just disappearances, but also illegal detentions and torture.256 The Nunca Ms
project is significant as following the narrow approach to past crimes pursued by the political
parties, civil society responded and truth-telling was directed from below.257 However,
the results of the investigation have never been officially announced or endorsed by the
government258 and Barahana de Brito argues that due to a lack of governmental support
and military engagement, its impact was limited:
In publishing these reports, the human rights groups reaffirmed their status as truth
tellers, isolated to a large extent from the formal political arena, representing, rather,
the aspirations for justice and truth of civil society in the face of government inertia
and hostility, and in the face of the failure of a deeply partisan approach to the
human rights issue as a whole.259
8. SLIDING TOWARDS ENACTING MILITARY IMPUNITY
Following the decision of the Supreme Court to award jurisdiction over human rights cases
to the civilian courts, President Sanguinetti determined that to stop the investigations, he
would need to enact a second amnesty law to cover the crimes of the military junta.260 In
interviews, Sanguinetti gave several justifications for this deciding to end the human rights
investigations:
First, few of the accusations were going to lead anywhere there wasnt enough
evidence. It was going to disturb society, and there would simply be a lot of
confrontation.
254
Ibid xxiv-xxv.
256
Skaar (n 49) 54.
257
258
259
260
255
41

Second, it was a question of moral equivalency: we felt that if we were going to have
a settling of accounts for the left and the terrorists the military should be amnestied,
too. A lot of those involved in violent left-wing groups had never been jail at all. To
begin the arithmetic of judging levels of responsibility, we would have been faced
with complications of such magnitude that we thought it best to amnesty everybody
the left and the military.
Third, it was necessary to have a climate of stability so as to consolidate democracy.
Having lived through such turbulence for so many years, we felt that we needed a
more peaceful solution. If the country, was going to insist on maintaining the old
conflicts from before the coup, it was unlikely that we would ever be able to
consolidate democracy.
And, finally, for historical reasons. Traditionally, after all great conflicts in a county
the situation has been an amnesty for both sides.261
Sanguinetti viewed efforts to uncover the truth about the violations as dangerous, 262 and it
is also possible that he wanted to ensure military loyalty in the face of a bleak economic
outlook. Clearly, Sanguinettis justifications are problematic. Firstly, in the cases of the
disappearances, the investigatory commissions had already uncovered evidence that they
had given to the courts. Furthermore, civil society had been active for several years in
gathering information relating to torture and imprisonment.
Secondly, the concept of moral equivalency seems repugnant in a context where the leftwing guerrillas had been defeated before the military came to power. However, it seems to
have been a commonly asserted position among the Uruguayan right-wing. For example, in
November 1986 an editorial in a conservative newspaper said of the Law of National
Pacification, [i]nstead of having served to pacify the country, the amnesty had the effect of
proclaiming one side victorious, thereby re-igniting tensions.263 Similarly, Sanguinetti in an
interview with a journalist asserted that originally, I personally wanted some trials and a
partial amnesty But once a general amnesty was declared for one side it became almost
indispensable for the other.264 In addition, government representatives during this period
noted that the desaparecidos were not a product of deliberate strategy as in Argentina, but
largely accidental. Instead, they claimed that guerrillas had killed more soldiers than vice261

Ibid 189.
263
Eduardo Cue, Fears of Coup Grow in Uruguay as Military demands Total Amnesty The Times (20 November
1986).
264
Ibid.
262
42

versa.265 However, this view overlooks the widespread and systematic use of illegal
detention and torture and obscures the brutality of the military regime, perpetrated in most
cases against ordinary citizens going about their ordinary lives, [who] had never belonged to
any side or any putative war.266 Furthermore, those who had benefited from the 1985
amnesty had been imprisoned and tortured, and had suffered for their alleged crimes,
whereas those who had been administering the torments and had never suffered even the
slightest inconvenience as a result.267
Thirdly, although the Uruguayan military were stronger than their Argentine counterparts
during the transition, there has been much debate over the threat they posed to democracy.
It seems clear that as the debate over the amnesty became more heated during 1986, the
military became more vocal in its opposition to prosecutions, and in November 1986, a
government spokesperson, Edison Rijo asserted [e]ither we extend the amnesty to military
and police officers or we must assume we are going to find ourselves in a new situation of
violence that will lead to the fall of democratic institutions.268 From this perspective,
Uruguayan democracy was still fragile and needed to be protected from the threat posed
by the military. This view of democracy was contested by opponents, who argued that an
amnesty vindicates the methods adopted by the armed forces during and after 1973, and
creates a justification for them to intervene again if they deem political developments to
be against their liking.269 Furthermore, the observers have argued that the chance of a coup
was minimal.270 Indeed, Pion-Berlin argues [t]he armed forces had been anxious to hand
power back over to the civilian authorities after a difficult and embarrassing period of rule,
and after the shocking defeat of their 1980 constitution.271
Finally, although amnesties often follow internal conflicts, as the guerrillas had been
defeated before the coup; the period of military rule cannot be described as a conflict.
265
Munck (n 3) 172.
Weschler (n 12) 167-8.
267
Ibid 168.
268
Eduardo Cue, Fears of Coup Grow in Uruguay as Military demands total Amnesty The Times (20 November
1986).
269
Tim Coone, Uruguay Human Rights Amnesty shows Fragility of Civilian Rule Christian Science Monitor
(Buenos Aires 30 December 1986) 10.
270
Eduardo Cue, Fears of Coup Grow in Uruguay as Military demands total Amnesty The Times (20 November
1986).
271
266
43

a) The First Colorado Party Bill, July 1986

Sanguinettis formal moves towards enacting an amnesty for the armed forces began in late
July 1986, after the Supreme Court awarded the civilian courts jurisdiction over human rights
abuses. Sanguinetti instructed his education minister, Adela Reta, to draft an amnesty law
for the military and police implicated in human rights crimes. The resulting bill was
presented to the Senate on 6 August 1986. This bill would have granted unconditional
amnesty to the security forces for all crimes committed during anti-subversive operations
between 1 January 1962 and 1 March 1985 and would have terminated ongoing legal
actions.272 However, the two opposition parties, the Blancos and Frente Amplio, defeated
the measure by 16 votes on 29 September.273 At this stage, the oppositions refusal to
endorse the amnesty was reflective of public opinion. For example, in June 1986, polls of
Montevidean voters showed that an overwhelming majority ... in all parties favoured
punishing the guilty members of the security forces, and only 9 per cent said they were in
favour of an amnesty for the military.274 However, only a slender minority believed that [the
military] would in fact ever be sanctioned.275 Furthermore, when the voters were asked
whether punishment of the military should be avoided because this could lead to another
coup, the support for continuing trials dropped to only 8 per cent.276
During the debates on enacting the amnesty, sections of the military, which as a whole had
been relatively quiet until now, became more restive, especially members of a club for
retired and active officers called the Military Circle, which had described the Argentine
human rights trials as Marxist vengeance.277 They contended that communists only
understand violence, force and terror, and this must be answered in the same manner.278
The increasingly hard-line rhetoric was echoed by the government, who despite the findings
of the parliamentary investigative commissions and the SERPAJ Nunca Ms project, claimed
that there was no evidence linking the armed forces to human rights violations and accusing
critics of being part of the subversive threat.279 Furthermore, Sanguinetti increasingly
labelled those who had been released under the 1985 amnesty as terrorists even though,
272

Ibid.
274
275
276
277
Ibid. For information on these trials, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Beyond Punishment: Justice in the Wake of
Massive Crimes in Argentina (1999) 52 Journal of International Affairs 669.
278
Barahona de Brito (n 18).
279
273
44

as discussed above, very few individuals, were granted a reduced sentence rather than
amnesty.
However, it appears that the amnesty question was divisive within the military. For example,
in July 1986, a group of retired generals, mostly men accused of human rights violations,
issued a statement claiming that an amnesty would destroy the honour and military
principles, since in their view, no crime had been committed.280 Subsequently, 16 retired
generals issued a declaration in which they proclaimed their solidarity with those accused of
violations, and rejected the possibility of an amnesty.281 These declarations prompted the
Commander-in-Chief General Medina to meet the most vociferous retired generals to
persuade them to claim responsibility for all actions undertaken in the battle against
subversion.282 Medina was successful and in a statement on 19 August 1986, 17 army
generals, including five former army commanders, said they would assume full responsibility
for actions during military rule. They said they view the future with hope and without
nostalgia for power.283
Newspaper articles from this period reveal that the possibility of amnesty also triggered
heated disputes between the rival political parties: [t]he debate among civilian politicians
has become so severe that some fear it could lead to bloodshed if the issue is not
resolved.284 However, although the political opposition were against a blanket amnesty,
they were not entirely opposed to the amnesty idea, and the Blancos in particular were
growing increasingly nervous about the prospect of widespread and blatant military
disobedience.285 They therefore responded to the governments amnesty proposal by
submitting an alternative proposal in late September 1986, which has become known as the
Blanco bill, or the Proyecto de Ley de la Defensa de la Democracia.
b) The Blanco Bill
This measure differed from the amnesty proposed by the government as it only offered
amnesty for less serious offences, whilst preserving the possibility of prosecutions for the
gravest human rights abuses, such as murder, rape, disappearances and serious
woundings, provided that such cases had been filed with the civilian courts before 22
280

Ibid 138.
282
Ibid 139.
283
Daniel Gianelli, Civilian-Run Uruguay Grapples with Military-Human Rights Issue Associated Press
(Montevideo 27 August 1986).
284
Ibid.
285
281
45

September 1986.286 This bill did, however, treat torture as a less serious offence that
would not be prosecuted.287 Given that torture was the most widespread crime during the
military period, this proposal seems quite broad and reports at the time suggest that it
would have limited the human rights trials to 38 cases.288 The bill would also have granted
the Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction to hear human rights cases, set sanctions for future
coup attempts, exempted civilians from being tried by military courts, and established
torture as a crime.289
As with the previous proposal, the Blanco bill provoked widespread criticism as it was too
little for the Colorados, who were holding out for a blanket amnesty, whereas Frente
Amplio were outraged by the possibility of amnesty for torture,290 and unsuccessfully
attempted to amend the bill.291 The Frente Amplio seemed unlikely to ever support an
amnesty for the military as its more left-wing radical sectors would not accept any
agreement associating them with impunity.292 Persuading the Blancos to support greater
impunity was also problematic as why should its leader, Wilson Ferreira Aldunate, agree to
pay the political price of supporting closure when he had not even been present at the Naval
Club negotiations?293 Furthermore, during the amnesty debates, the Tupamaros, who had
become politically active again following the 1985 amnesty, said they intended to operate
only within a political framework, but that they would adopt a new position if the
government and the public became hostages to the military.294 The Blanco bill also
provoked a strong public reaction as in August 1986 a mass protest to demand the bills
rejection attracted over 10,000 people.295 Furthermore, in October 1986, opinion polls
conducted in Montevideo indicated that 82 per cent of Montevideans thought that human
rights violations should be punished and 81 per cent believed that violations should be
investigated.296
286

Ibid.
288
, Congress Agrees on an Amnesty Latin America Weekly Report (9 October 1986) 9. Colorado senator
Carlos Cigluitti rather ironically labelled that the bill as an amnesty minus 38.
289
Ibid.
290
291
292
293
Ibid 128.
294
Bradley Graham, Move to Democracy is Uneasy Balance Washington Post (Montevideo 12 November
1986) A21.
295
Roniger and Sznajder (n 76) 62-3.
296
287
46

Despite its generous provisions, the Blanco bill also angered the military and in early
October, 19 retired generals warned that trying an army that has won a war against
subversion could pose serious risks to the democratic system.297 Then, during the Senate
debate, the armed forces reportedly advised leaders of the [Blancos] that they would not
tolerate any inquiry by civilian or military courts into the armed forces actions during the
the war against subversion.298 On 17 October 1986, the Blanco bill was defeated in a
Senate vote by both the Colorados and Frente Amplio by a vote of 11 to 30.299
c) Breaking the Impasse
Following the defeat of the second amnesty proposal, the Colorado and Blanco parties
began high-level talks to break the impasse,300 and on 1 December 1986, a meeting was held
between government and opposition leaders, with armed forces commanders present as
advisers.301 At the start of this meeting, Sanguinetti publicised a statement in which the
leaders of the armed forces admitted to excesses in a harsh campaign against leftists, but
said that subordinate officers should not be held responsible.302 Subsequently, on 5
December 1986, General Hugo Medina told soldiers at a parade that the military would not
support those in its ranks that had been involved in the excesses or committed crimes for
personal gain during the repressive campaign.303 This vaguely defined acceptance of
limited prosecutions reiterates the comments made by General Medina following the
agreement of the Naval Club Pact.
As discussed above, concurrent with these gestures of military good will, was an increasing
belligerency towards the ongoing investigations. This came to head in November 1986, when
the Supreme Court upheld the civilian courts claim to jurisdiction in two key cases,
implicating members of the Uruguayan military in disappearances.304 By December 1986,
734 cases of human rights violations were under investigation and 13 military and police
officers, including Jos Nino Gavazzo, had been issued subpoenas to appear in court on 22
December. On Friday 19 December, Commander-in-Chief General Hugo Medina ordered the
officers not to appear in court and reportedly
297

Ibid.
299
300
301
, Uruguayan Military Admits Rights Abuses as Political Talks Start Associated Press (Montevideo 1
December 1986).
302
Ibid.
303
Tim Coone, Uruguay set to End Political Crisis Financial Times (5 December 1986) 6.
304
298
47

informed the president that he had decided to keep court summonses issued to a
number of his men in his personal safe, thus indicating that a political solution would
have to be found in order to avoid military institutional insubordination against the
rule of law.305
According to Barahona de Brito, after the amnesty was enacted, it became apparent that
Medina had faced threats to military leadership from lower-level officers, who were
demanding protection in return for not implicating the hierarchy in corruption and
violations.306 In particular, it is alleged that Jos Nino Gavazzo, who was accused of
disappearing Uruguayans in Argentina, had personally requested institutional protection
from Medina, which despite initial refusals, Medina appears to ultimately have provided.307
It soon became clear that the subpoenaed officers would fail to appear in court on direct
orders from their superior. The president feared that if an amnesty was not approved before
this 22 December deadline, it could provoke an institutional crisis between the armed
forces and the government.308 These fears were shared by Blanco leader, Wilson Ferreira
Aldunate, who following meetings with General Medina, shifted his view from ardent
opposition to the amnesty for human rights violations by the military to supporting it.309
According to Barahona de Brito, Wilson Ferreira Aldunate was persuaded by the Colorados
that the transitional pact of 1984 had ensured impunity for the military. Despite his partys
refusal to participate in the Club Naval talks, he claimed that the only policy consistent with
the political logic of the pact was to vote for an amnesty.310 News reports at the time argue
that Ferreira was persuaded by General Medina that the military would not back down.311
With the support of the Blancos negotiated, a new amnesty bill was introduced to Congress,
just two days before the 13 officers were due to appear in court. The parliamentary debates
were angry and violent, with fist fights between rival politicians, which allegedly almost
culminated in a gun fight in Congress.312 Furthermore, the congressional representatives had
to order security personnel to empty the spectators gallery after onlookers began booing
305
Barahona de Brito (n 139) 128. Uruguayan historian Carlos Demassi casts doubt on the validity of this story
describing it as a myth which has evolved with little evidential basis. Interview with Carlos Demassi,
Montevideo, 18 November 2008.
306
307
Ibid 138.
308
309
310
Ibid 588.
311
Eduardo Cue, Fights in House as Amnesty Granted to Uruguay Soldiers The Times (23 December 1986).
312
Barahona de Brito (n 139) 130; Gerardo Maronna, Senate OKs end to Human Rights Prosecution of Military
Associated Press (Montevideo 21 December 1986).
48

one government party deputy.313 Nonetheless, the Chamber of Deputies approved the
amnesty on the morning of 22 December 1986 by a vote of 60-37 after an all-night
debate,314 just over an hour before the officers were due to arrive at the court.315 All but one
of the 41 deputies from Sanguinettis party voted for the amnesty, as did 20 members of the
centrist Blanco Party, although Blanco leader Wilson Ferreira Aldunate reportedly wept as he
cast his vote. Voting against it were one Colorado legislator, 13 Blanco Party members, all 21
deputies of the leftist Frente Amplio coalition and the two-member conservative Civic
Union.316 The bill was approved by the Senate by 21-9 votes after 17 hours of debate. It was
supported by all 13 Colorado senators and eight Blanco representatives, and was opposed by
three Blancos and six senators from Frente Amplio.317 The bill was signed promptly into law
by President Sanguinetti, on the same day as the Full Stop law was passed in neighbouring
Argentina.
The violence inside the Uruguayan parliament during the debates was mirrored by violent
protest around the parliamentary buildings. According to contemporary news reports
around 2,500318 demonstrators opposed to the amnesty stoned police vans and smashed
Colorado and Nationalist Party legislators cars with rocks and crowbars.319 During the riots,
13 policemen were reportedly injured and 17 arrests made. Furthermore, the
demonstrators attacked two members of parliament and several people were hurt in clashes
with the police. Some reports even suggest that one of the attacked legislators suffered a
heart attack.320
In addition to the violent protests, the human rights and labour organisations revived
popular protests from the military era, called caceroleo, in which protestors bang pots and
pans. In addition, cars and buses drove up and down central 18th of July Avenue, their horns
blaring.321 These protests seem to have been in tune with popular opinion as in a Gallop poll
313
Zelmar Lissardy, Uruguay grants Human Rights Amnesty to Military United Press International (Montevideo
22 December 1986).
314
, Uruguayan President signs Amnesty Bill Xinhua News Agency (Montevideo 22 December 1986).
315
Gerardo Maronna, Amnesty Approved for Military and Police in Uruguay Associated Press (Montevideo 22
December 1986). After the laws promulgation Lieutenant Gavazzo finally appeared in court, only to be sent
home again untried and unsentenced.
316
317
Gerardo Maronna, Senate OKs end to Human Rights Prosecution of Military Associated Press (Montevideo
21 December 1986).
318
These estimates vary in the news reports.
319
Gerardo Maronna, Amnesty Approved for Military and Police in Uruguay Associated Press (Montevideo 22
December 1986).
320
Ibid.
321
Gerardo Maronna, Senate OKs end to Human Rights Prosecution of Military Associated Press (Montevideo
21 December 1986).
49

conducted in December 1986 68.1 per cent of Montevideans said that they would not have
voted for the amnesty law had they been legislators.322 Despite these grassroots objections,
the Ley de Caducidad was approved by the politicians in an elite settlement and entered into
force.
9. LEY DE CADUCIDAD DE LA PRETENSIN PNITIVA DEL ESTADO, LEY NO 15,848
(1986)
The framers of the Ley de Caducidad, which translates as Expiry Law purposefully avoided
using the term amnesty in the legislation.323 Americas Watch credited this to a provision
under Uruguayan law which prevented defeated measures (ie, the two earlier amnesty
proposals) being reconsidered in the same parliamentary session.324 It nonetheless
prevents prosecutions, stating that it is a consequence the logic of events stemming from
the Naval Club Pact and necessary in order to complete the transition to full constitutional
order.325 The amnesty provided that the state would relinquish the exercise of penal
actions with respect to crimes committed until 1 March 1985, by military and police officials
either for political reasons or in fulfilment of their functions and in obeying orders from
superiors during the ex post facto period.326 The broad material scope of the amnesty was,
however, restricted to exclude crimes that may have been committed for personal
economic gain or to benefit a third party.327 This provision, which adhered to General
Medinas earlier statements accepting limited prosecutions, has been criticised by
opponents of the amnesty who note that if a member of the military or police, acting on
orders, disappeared a person and also stole the victims car, he could not be prosecuted
for the disappearance but could be tried for the car theft.328 In addition, Article 2 explicitly
excluded cases in which indictments had already been issued.
As will be explored below, in recent years, the Vzquez government has attempted to
reinterpret this broad amnesty provision by highlighting a number of issues. Firstly, the law
refers only to crimes committed by military and police officials, but it does not explicitly
mention civilian politicians who collaborated with the military junta. Furthermore, the
temporal jurisdiction does not have a start date, but it does refer to the ex post facto
322

In addition, to the amnesty, the Ley de Caducidad changed military training and promotion procedures.
324
325
Ley de Caducidad, Art 1. The Supreme Court of Justice held in 1988 that the Ley de Caducidad, see Suprema
Corte de Justicia, Sentencia No. 184. Sobre denuncia de inconstitucionalidad Ley No. 15.848, Arts 1, 2, 3 y 4 (2
May 1988).
326
Ibid, Art 1.
327
Ibid, Art 2.
328
323
50

period and hence has been interpreted to exclude the human rights violations committed
under the Pacheco and Bordaberry governments. In addition, the provision that amnesty can
be granted to officers who were obeying orders had been interpreted to exclude highranking military and police personnel. Finally, although most of the disappearances of
Uruguayan citizens were conducted outside Uruguay, it is interesting to note that the
amnesty did not exclude crimes committed outside Uruguayan territory or by nonUruguayan citizens. However, the Vzquez governments reinterpretation of the law argues
that crimes committed outside Uruguay are excluded, which creates the possibility of
prosecuting notorious perpetrators, such as Jos Nino Gavazzo, who worked at the
Automotores Orletti clandestine detention centre in Buenos Aires.
The amnesty law created an assumption that all military and police personnel were covered
by the amnesty and, where allegations of human rights violations other than disappearances
had been made, the responsibility for determining which cases fell within the amnesty law
fell to the executive. The Ley de Caducidad required that
[T]he court in pending cases will request the executive branch to submit, within thirty
days of receiving such a request, an opinion as to whether or not it considers the case
to fall within the scope of Article 1 of the law.
If the Executive branch considers the law to be applicable, the court will dismiss the
case. If, on the other hand, the Executive branch does not consider the case to fall
under this law, the court will order judicial proceedings to continue.329
It further provides that all cases will be suspended until the executive makes its decision.330
By awarding the executive the power to determine when the amnesty is applicable, the Ley
de Caducidad differs from amnesty laws elsewhere, which more commonly allow for the
amnesty to be administered by the courts or an independent commission. Furthermore, the
law does not provide any guidance on whether the executive should investigate to
determine whether the violations were committed for political reasons, to comply with
orders or for personal or economic motives. It also does not specify criteria for determining
whether a crime can be deemed political. Although the law does leave open the possibility of
prosecutions continuing where a crime is found by the executive to not fall within the scope
of the amnesty, the lack of independence in the decisions to apply amnesty made this
unlikely.
329
330
Ley de Caducidad, Art 3.

Ibid, Art 3.
51

In respect of allegations of disappearances, the executive was given further discretion in

Article 4 of the law. This is the most significant provision and it provides,
Notwithstanding the above, the court will remit to the executive branch all testimony
offered until the date this law is approved, regarding persons allegedly detained in
military or police operations who later disappeared, including minors allegedly
kidnapped in similar circumstances.
The Executive branch will immediately order the investigation of such incidents.
Within a 120-day period from the date of the receipt of the judicial communication of
the denunciation, the Executive branch will inform the plaintiffs of the results of
these investigations and place at their disposal all information gathered.331
This means that although the executive can simply tell the courts to end investigations in
cases of all other crimes, for disappearances, the courts must provide the executive with all
the evidence in their possession; it does not appear that the courts can continue their own
investigations. The executive must immediately order the investigation of the
disappearance, and communicate the results of the investigation to the victims relatives
within 120 days of receiving the information from the court. The Ley de Caducidad does not
specify, however, what form these investigations must take; instead, that is left to the
discretion of the executive.332 The laws constitutionality was subsequently upheld on 2 May
1988 by the Supreme Court in a three-to-two vote.333
Although the Ley de Caducidad left open the possibility of investigations into
disappearances, even though it precluded prosecutions, according to Skaar, the
consequences of Article 4 were that where the executive has no will or interest to
investigate these matters, the cases will stall in the presidential office, and the
independence of the judiciary would be undermined.334 As will be explored below, this
proved to be the case as successive Uruguayan governments failed to fulfil their obligations.
For example, President Sanguinetti tried to dodge his duties in May 1987 by delegating the
authority to investigate to the Defence Minister, who assigned the task to a military
prosecutor, Col. Jos Sambucetti. The decision outraged the relatives of the disappeared,
who argued that Sambucetti, as an active duty officer and Medinas subordinate, lacked the
331
Ibid, Art 4.
333
Suprema Corte de Justicia, Sentencia No. 184. Sobre denuncia de inconstitucionalidad Ley No. 15.848, Arts
1, 2, 3 y 4 (2 May 1988).
334
Skaar (n 49) 56-7.
332
52

independence to conduct an impartial inquiry into wrongdoing by other members of the

military, and therefore, they refused to cooperate with him.335 Their concerns seemed
justified as, in the six cases Sambucetti investigated, he concluded that the evidence did not
substantiate allegations of security forces involvement.336
In exchange for granting amnesty to the armed forces, the Ley de Caducidad did, however,
provide the civilian politicians with greater control over the military. For example, it granted
the Senate control over military promotions,337 the Minister of Defence was put in charge of
the placement of intelligence services338 and parliament was granted supervision over the
military academy.339
10. FIRST ANTI-IMPUNIDAD REFERENDUM CAMPAIGN, 1987-1989
The frustrations of the torture victims, the Mothers and Relatives of the Disappeared,
human rights organisations, trade unions and anti-impunidad politicians (mostly from Frente
Amplio) meant that they continued their opposition to the amnesty after its enactment and
in February 1987, their representatives formed the Comisin Nacional Pro-Referendum
(National Pro-Referendum Commission) to campaign to get the amnesty repealed. 340 To
achieve this they planned to use the referendum provisions in Uruguays constitution.341
Under Article 79 of the 1967 constitution, within one year of a laws promulgation (ie by 22
December 1987) voters could force a referendum on the law by collecting petitions with
signatures of 25 per cent of the total number of people who had voted in the previous
election.342 This required them to get 555,000 signatures, which is a very high threshold.
During the referendum campaign, the Pro-Referendum Commission and its supporters,
known as the Green Ballot and the supporters of the Ley de Caducidad, known as the
Yellow Ballot, tried to persuade voters by articulating contrasting views on democracy. The
335

Presidencia de la Repblica, Informe sobre Denuncias que se encuentran comprendidas o no en el Artculo
1 de la Ley 15.848 (4 November 1988).
337
Ley de Caducidad, Art 11.
338
Ibid, Art 10.
339
Ibid, Art 14.
340
Weschler (n 12). The Commission was directed by Matilde Rodriguez and Elisa Dellepiane, the widows of the
Hector Gutierrez Ruiz and Zelmar Michelini, and Mara Esther Gatti de Islas, of Madres y Familiares de los
Detenidos-Desaparecidos.
341
Weschler (n 12).
342
Article 79 provides El veinticinco por ciento del total de inscriptos habilitados para votar, podr interponer,
dentro del ao de su promulgacin, el recurso de referndum contra las leyes y ejercer el derecho de iniciativa
ante el Poder Legislativo. Estos institutos no son aplicables con respecto a las leyes que establezcan tributos.
Tampoco caben en los casos en que la iniciativa sea privativa del Poder Ejecutivo. Ambos institutos sern
reglamentados por ley, dictada por mayora absoluta del total de componentes de cada Cmara.
336
53

Yellow Ballot argued that the amnesty was necessary to protect the nascent democracy from
the threat of another military coup designed to prevent the human rights prosecutions. 343 In
contrast, the Green Ballot argued that only a direct acknowledgement and treatment of the
issue would allow a full democracy to develop and that only upholding the primacy of law
over considerations of political contingency would preclude the recurrence of de facto
military government.344 The Green Ballot further portrayed the Ley de Caducidad as an
affront to the democratic ideals of the Uruguayan people, for whom justice and equality
before the law are fundamental and a violation of universal principles.345 Therefore, they
argued that signing the petition for referendum did not imply how the signatory citizen
would vote in the referendum itself, but rather was designed to enable the people to
decide.346
The referendum campaign also triggered debate on the 1985 amnesty law that had provided
for reduced sentences for former Tupamaros guerrillas. The Yellow Ballot supporters argued
that members of the armed forces should be entitled to the same treatment as their
opponents and hence should receive an amnesty. This view was disputed by the Green
Ballot who argued that the military had acted in a manner far beyond what was necessary
to ensure government stability and that the political prisoners who had benefited from the
amnesty had been tortured and imprisoned, whereas the military had yet to be held
accountable.347
During the campaign to collect signatures, the Green Ballot faced many hurdles including the
fears among the population of the military threat and strong government opposition,
including pressure on the Electoral Court, which was mandated to verify the signatures on
the petitions and supervise the subsequent referendum.348 Despite these difficulties, the
anti-impunity campaign exceeded expectations and in December 1987, it submitted
petitions containing 634,702 signatures to the Electoral Court for verification.349 This
number clearly exceeded the number of signatures required to trigger the referendum,350
343
Roniger and Sznajder (n 76) 68-9. During this period, the rhetoric of the Sanguinetti government was
influenced by the Easter Uprising in Argentina.
344
Ibid 68-9.
345
Ibid 66.
346
Ibid 66.
347
Ibid 68-9.
348
The Electoral Court is not a judicial body, rather it is composed of nine members elected by both houses of
parliament. Four are members of political parties, whereas five are supposedly impartial. For more information
on the hurdles faced by the referendum campaign, see Weschler (n 12).
349
350
Among the signatures to the petition were members of the police armed forces, who were punished by their
superiors for having signed, see Roniger and Sznajder (n 5) 64.
54

but during the year-long verification process, the Electoral Court disqualified many
signatures from the petition for dubious reasons.351 The verification process finally ended on
19 December 1988, with the requisite number of signatures being verified and the
referendum was scheduled for 16 April 1989.
In the weeks leading up to the vote, the pro-referendum campaign organised mass
mobilisations, but the pro-government television stations were reluctant to air proreferendum commercials and the government and the military made statements highlighting
the dangers of the referendum. The military also staged rallies the day before the vote,
which seemed calculated to intimidate the populace. It is impossible to know how effective
these tactics were on the voters, or whether they had already made up their minds, but on
16 April 1989 the Ley de Caducidad was ratified by a narrow majority of 56.63 per cent of the
vote, with a participation rate of 84.78 per cent of eligible voters.352 The votes were 56.60
per cent in favour of rejecting the amnesty in Montevideo, but this had been outnumbered
by voters in the rest of the country.353 In explaining this result, the Green Ballot cited the
fears of the population and their own failure to overcome the propaganda of the
government forces, which used the media on a much larger scale than the opposition,
creating a sense of danger to democracy in the event of a green victory.354
11. IMPACT OF THE REFERENDUM AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LEY DE
CADUCIDAD
Although the referendum campaign was unsuccessful, the extent of the public conversation
on the question of accountability for human rights violations that it produced was without
precedent. The mass mobilisation against the amnesty provoked by the referendum
campaign and SERPAJs Nunca Ms report that was published a few weeks before the vote,
[T]ransformed the issue of past human rights violations into the central topic on the
public agenda for months. It created a generalised awareness of the issue, even
among sectors previously unaware of or uninterested in this chapter of
contemporary Uruguayan history. It reinvigorated patterns of direct involvement of
citizens in the discussion of political and ethical issues. Politicians had to approach
351
For a discussion of this process, see Weschler (n 12) 182.

Barahona de Brito (n 139) 130-1. The exact figure seems to range from 52-58 per cent of the vote in the
literature.
353
Ibid 130-1.
354
352
55

the population on a face-to-face basis. Organisations of civil society tested their

muscles and attained a country-wide reach.355
This grassroots mass mobilisation was all the more remarkable given that the public realm in
Uruguay had traditionally been dominated by the political parties, who often reached
decisions through elite negotiations with little public involvement. In contrast, during the
referendum campaign, popular mobilisation was conducted without the hierarchical
leadership of professional politicians,356 although many politicians did play significant roles
in the campaign, particularly in the latter stages.357 However, according to Roniger and
Sznajder, this change was only an interregnum in the control exercised by professional
politicians over the public sphere.358 The referendum experience has also been viewed as
positively contributing to Uruguayan democracy as Uruguayans used a democratic
mechanism to address one of most thorny issues left over by military rule.359 Indeed, the
very process of attaining the referendum, carrying it out peacefully, and the acceptance of
the results were viewed as signs of the strength of Uruguayan democracy.
Pursuing a democratic referendum on the amnesty law was, however, a gamble as the fact
that the amnesty was accepted through a democratic vote meant that its legitimacy became
harder to question.360 Indeed, many saw the public support for the amnesty as sealing the
problem from a political and legal point of view.361 For example, President Sanguinetti
greeted the referendum result by proclaiming that [i]t means that Uruguay has resolved all
the problems of the past. The debate about the dictatorship period is over. The country is
facing the problems of the future.362 Sanguinetti later argued that [w]e can sum up this
chapter of Uruguayan history by drawing its most important lesson - that the ballot box is
the most powerful source of legitimacy.363 It can be speculated that this enhanced
legitimacy of the amnesty subsequently made it easier for governments to apply the law
more broadly than intended or to fail to fulfil their obligation under Article 4 of the Ley de
Caducidad to investigate disappearances, without being challenged. Furthermore, despite
arguments that the referendum solved the problem of the militarys legacy at the legal and
political level, the vote left many other aspects of the problem unaddressed, such as cultural
355

357
Ibid 87.
358
Ibid 90.
359
Ibid 165.
360
Ibid 145-6.
361
Ibid 90.
362
Roniger and Sznajder (n 76) fn 35.
363
Sanguinetti (n 89) 8-9.
356
56

memory and the needs of the former political prisoners for medical, psychological and social
support.364
The referendum has been argued to have altered perceptions of Uruguayan identity and
understandings of the military period. According to Roniger, before the referendum, the
military interregnum was conceived as a phenomenon of cataclysmic character that was
imposed upon Uruguayan society from the outside and which victimised that society as
a whole.365 However, when over half the voters opted to uphold the amnesty, it challenged
understandings of the democratic and consensual nature of Uruguayan society. Instead, it
posited understandings of the dictatorship as an integral part of Uruguayan history, as it
preserves many of the features of the countrys political life, while making explicit the
parallel tradition of violence and repression that the hegemonic historical discourse
attempted to relegate to oblivion.366 Despite triggering these conflicting understandings of
military rule, the amnesty impeded further efforts to assess institutional responsibilities for
the human rights violations.
Following the referendum campaign, evaluating the institutional responsibility of the armed
forces remained difficult as the military remained in a position of power and indeed, the
military budget continued to rise throughout the transition and after.367 Furthermore,
Sriram argues that in contrast to Argentina, the military remained united, which enabled it
to act as a political force and continue to resist demands for investigations. Their secrecy is
further strengthened as given the very specific nature of repression in Uruguay, the bodies
of the disappeared are buried in military installations, which means that, unlike in Argentina,
Brazil and Chile, exhumations cannot be undertaken without a direct confrontation with the
military.368 There are even some reports that the military continued to be involved in
Operacin Cndor during the early 1990s, and have so far been able to evade punishment
for murder committed in the context of this operation.369 Furthermore, in 2006 false bomb
364

Roniger (n 68) 234.
366
Ibid 234.
367
Sriram (n 33) 43.
368
369
eg In June 1993 a crisis erupted after military officers from Uruguay and Chile collaborated in a joint
operation to hide fugitive Chilean scientist Eugenio Berrios, a former agent of the Chilean dictatorship, at a
Uruguayan resort, in order to avoid him testifying in legal proceedings in Chile. It appears that Berrios was
killed in Uruguay in May 1993, although his remains were not found until April 1995. Legal proceedings into his
death are ongoing. The affair caused considerable concern among all political sectors who feel uneasy about
the absolute and impenetrable unity of the armed forces. The Uruguayan president Lacalle was forced to cut
short an official visit to return to Uruguay to deal with claims by political opponents and human rights activists
that he had not been firm enough in removing remnants of the old regime. See Eduardo Gallardo, Biologists
365
57

threats were made against the houses of judges investigating human rights violations.370
Despite the continued power of the military, the peaceful resolution of the amnesty
question has been argued to have contributed to stable democracy in Uruguay by easing the
institutional crisis which had threatened in late 1986. Indeed, following the referendum the
military made no explicit or implicit threats or demands on the democratic political
system.371 It is impossible to know whether this would have occurred if the referendum had
overturned the amnesty, however, in a 1991 interview General Hugo Medina stated that if
the population had not supported the Ley de Caducidad and prosecutions for the military
had been pursued a coup would have been attempted: If I had not assumed the
responsibility for the coup, it would have been assumed by the next officer in the hierarchy,
if not him, by the next. This is so because this was the thinking of the Armed Forces.372
However, the extent to which this posed a genuine threat to democracy is unclear.
Finally, the referendum campaign energised and strengthened Uruguayan civil society and
elevated human rights to a central issue within the public consciousness. This provided a
platform for human rights organisations to broaden human rights discussions to include
economic and social rights and problems of ongoing brutality within the unreformed police
and prison systems.373 However, the failure of the referendum campaign and the continued
impunity for perpetrators created a clear message concerning how current issues might be
dealt with in the future.374 As a result, the human rights movement became disillusioned
following the referendum and their capacity for mass mobilisation was reduced. However,
some groups continued to campaign for truth and justice.
Disappearance: Are Southern Cone Secret Police still Active? Associated Press (Santiago 11 June 1993); ,
Uruguay; Lacalle Reportedly Negotiates with Armed Forces to avoid Institutional Crisis BBC Summary of
World Broadcasts (14 June 1993); , Uruguay to investigate Murder of Chilean Secret Police Agent Agence
France Presse (Montevideo 22 June 1996); , Berrios Case Latin America Weekly Report (1 December
1998); , Chilean Officers indicted in Killing of Former Secret Police Agent in Uruguay Associated Press
(Santiago 18 October 2002); , Chile: Judge seeks Extradition of Uruguayan Soldiers Latinnews Daily (7 April
2004); , Extradition of three Uruguayan Military Officers to Chile Approved Xinhua News Agency
(Montevideo 9 September 2004); Raul Garces, 3 Uruguayan Officers Extradited to Chile in Case of Secret
Agents Killing Associated Press (Montevideo 18 April 2006); , Chile: Pinochet Faces Charges over Berros
Case Brazil Report (30 May 2006).
370
, Operation Condor Leaders held to Account Brazil Report (19 December 2006).
371
372
Ibid 155.
373
374
Ibid 165.
58

12. INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE LEY DE CADUCIDAD: COMPLAINTS

TO THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION AND THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS
COMMITTEE
Following the failure to overturn the amnesty law at the domestic level, six months after
referendum, Uruguayan NGO, IELSUR with the support of Americas Watch, took their
campaign against the Ley de Caducidad to the international level.375 They filed eight cases
involving against Uruguay before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.376 The
cases concerned serious violations of the right to life and the right to physical integrity
committed by state agents during the period of military rule. Their suits alleged that the Ley
de Caducidad violated the American Convention on Human Rights, which Uruguay had
ratified in March 1985, by depriving victims of their rights to judicial recourse and a remedy
by preventing criminal investigations and prosecutions.377
The Inter-American Commission prepared a report on these cases in September 1991, in
which it concluded that the Ley de Caducidad violates Article XVIII (Right to a Fair Trial) of
the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, and Articles 1, 8 and 25 of the
American Convention on Human Rights, relating to the duty to respect and ensure rights,
right to a judicial remedy and the right to judicial protection, respectively.378 The
Commission recommended that Uruguay pay just compensation to the victims or their
heirs for these violations.379 It did not, however, recommend that Uruguay repeal the Ley de
Caducidad or prosecute the perpetrators. This decision was historical as it was the first time
any intergovernmental body had directly addressed the question of the compatibility of an
amnesty measure with a states obligations under a human rights treaty.380 However,
according to Canton, the Inter-American Commissions decisions concerning amnesty laws
have had little or no legal or political impact in the country.381
375
This strategy had been discussed in the final days of the referendum campaign.
From a memo by Robert Goldman cited in Servicio Paz y Justicia (n 33) xxv-xxvii.
377
From a memo by Robert Goldman cited in Ibid xxv-xxvii.
378
Hugo Leonardo de los Santos Mendoza et al v Uruguay, Cases 10.029, 10.036, 10.145, 10.305, 10.372,
10.373, 10.374 and 10.375, Report No. 29/92, OEA/Ser./L/V/II.83 (1992).
379
Ibid.
380
From a memo by Robert Goldman cited in Ibid xxv-xxvii.
381
Santiago A. Canton, Amnesty Laws in Katya Salazar and Thomas Antkowiak (eds), Victims Unsilenced: The
Inter-American Human Rights System and Transitional Justice in Latin America (Due Process of Law Foundation,
Washington DC 2007). Canton explains this by arguing that Uruguay is one of the countries where the InterAmerican systems presence is nominal in the governmental arena as well as civil society. The IACHR has never
conducted an in loco visit to Uruguay. Together with the Dominican Republic, Uruguay has had the fewest
complaints in process before the Inter-American Commission.
376
59

Subsequently, complaints concerning the Ley de Caducidad were also made to the UN
Human Rights Committee. In 1994, the committee following a complaint concerning torture
by state agents stated that
[A]mnesties for gross violations of human rights and legislation such as Law No.
15,848, Ley de Caducidad de la Pretensin Punitiva del Estado, are incompatible with
the obligations of the State party under the Covenant. The Committee notes with
deep concern that the adoption of this law effectively excludes in a number of cases
the possibility of investigation into past human rights abuses and thereby prevents
the State party from discharging its responsibility to provide effective remedies to
the victims of those abuses. Moreover, the Committee is concerned that, in adopting
this law, the State party has contributed to an atmosphere of impunity which may
undermine the democratic order and give rise to further grave human rights
violations.382
Consequently, the Committee urged Uruguay
to take effective measures (a) to carry out an official investigation into the authors
allegations of torture, in order to identify the persons responsible for torture and illtreatment and to enable the author to seek civil redress; (b) to grant appropriate
compensation to Mr. Rodrguez; and (c) to ensure that similar violations do not occur
in the future.383
However, as with the decision of the Inter-American Commission, the committee did not call
upon Uruguay to repeal the amnesty and prosecute the perpetrator.
Whilst these decisions had little impact on government policy within Uruguay, they were
significant in international discussions of amnesty, provided symbolic support to the antiimpunity campaign within Uruguay and were cited by the national courts.
13. IMPLEMENTING ARTICLE 4 OF THE LEY DE CADUCIDAD: COURT ORDERED
INVESTIGATIONS AND THE COMISIN PARA LA PAZ
After the failure of the referendum campaign, successive governments used the Ley de
Caducidad to close investigations into human rights abuses. However, demands for truth and
justice did not evaporate and were in fact reinvigorated from the mid-1990s, following the
March 1995 publication of the confession of a retired Argentine naval officer, Adolfo
382
383
Hugo Rodrguez v Uruguay, Comm. No. 322/1988, UN Doc CCPR/C/51/D/322/1988 (1994), para 12.4.
Ibid, para 14.
60

Scilingo, of involvement in flights of deaths.384 This confession had repercussions in

Uruguay as most of the Uruguayan disappeared had been abducted in Argentina.385 This
was followed a few weeks later by anonymous confessions by members of Uruguays Naval
Fusiliers battalion that they had participated in acts of human rights violations, 386 and in May
1996, by a letter to the El Pais newspaper by retired Uruguayan Navy Captain Jorge Nstor
Trccoli, in which he confessed his recollections of military rule. Trccoli, who was a student
of anthropology at the time, had been accused of being one of the principal torturers in the
navy, but he denied participating in the worst acts of torture and assassination. However, he
acknowledged that he had fought a war in which the armed forces treated their enemies
inhumanely alluding to torture, disappearance and murder of many of them.387 Trccoli
then published a book in September 1996 in which he presents his vision of Uruguay
between 1963 and 1996.388
Following these confessions, human rights activists made renewed efforts to push for
investigations. On 20 May 1996, the anniversary of the assassinations of Zelmar Michelini
and Hctor Gutirrez Ruiz, human rights organisations began to organise an annual Marcha
del Silencio to demand truth and justice.389 In addition, on 15 April 1997, a criminal judge in
Montevideo, Alberto Reyes, in response to a report submitted to him by Senator Rafael
Michelini (a son of Zelmar Michelini), ordered that the executive, in accordance with Article
4 of the Ley de Caducidad, investigate disappearances before determining whether the
amnesty law applied.390 Judge Reyes stated the aim of the investigation was only to
determine the existence of the clandestine cemetery, exhume the bodies, and return them
to their families not to instigate punitive action against the perpetrators.391 The
government strongly opposed this ruling and the public prosecutor challenged. On 13 June
1997, the Tribunal de Apelaciones en lo Penal de 29. Turno overturned Judge Reyes ruling,
stating that it was the responsibility of the executive to order investigations, not the
judiciary. Judge Reyes complied with this ruling by forwarding the case to President
384
Horacio Verbitsky, The Flight: Confessions of an Argentinian Dirty Warrior (New Press, New York 1996).
386
Ibid 119-20.
387
Ibid 119-20.
388
Ibid 119-20. In December 2007, charges were issued against Trccoli in Uruguay for crimes against humanity
(as part of the prosecution of Gregorio lvarez) and he was arrested in Italy as part of an Italian investigation
into Plan Cndor. He is currently under arrest pending extradition to Uruguay.
389
Dario Montero, Former Dictator may Finally be brought to Justice Liquid Africa (Montevideo 21 May 2005).
390
Criminal Court of Montevideo, 15/04/97, Zanahoria case.
391
Skaar (n 49) 58.
385
61

Sanguinetti392 on 6 August 1997. Although the case related to disappearances, the

government announced that it fell under Article 1 of the Ley de Caducidad and ordered that
it be closed.393 The government also sanctioned Judge Reyes.394
During this period, President Sanguinetti stated that the Ley de Caducidad makes further
investigations impossible, which is clearly untrue.395 He also criticised those who sought
information on disappearances as being intolerant and a threat to democratic values.396
In March 1997, President Sanguinetti refused a request from the victims mother to
investigate the disappearance of a young Uruguayan woman, Elena Quinteros, in Buenos
Aires in 1976.397 However, when new information was leaked to the press in 1999, the
Supreme Court again sent it to President Sanguinetti, who again refused to investigate. In
response, the victims mother, Tota Quinteros, took the case to court. On 10 May 2000,
Judge Estela Jubette of the first instance civil court of Montevideo decided to hear the
case.398 In her decision, Judge Jubette criticised the executive for his inaction in the matter,
referring to his neglect of both national and international law, which obliges the executive to
act.399 She then held that the Ministry of National Defence should fulfil Article 4 of Law
15,848, and order the start of the administrative research aiming at clarifying the
circumstances in which the teacher Elena Quinteros disappeared and where she is now.400
The executive appealed the decision, and in May 2000, following a change in government,
the Appellate Court upheld Jubettes verdict,401 agreeing that Article 4 of the Ley de
Caducidad and the various international human rights treaties signed by the Uruguayan
state obliges the executive to investigate the matter.402 Subsequently, in June 2001, the
Human Rights Commission of the labour union PIT-CNT brought charges against former
foreign minister and Colorado deputy Juan Carlos Blanco and three other high level state
officials of involvement in the disappearance of Elena Quinteros.403 As will be explored
392
Julio Mara Sanguinetti was President of Uruguay from March 1985 until March 1990, and, again, from
March 1995 until March 2000.
393
Skaar (n 49) 58.
394
Ibid 58.
395
396
Ibid 144-5.
397
Skaar (n 49) 59.
398
First Instance Civil Court in Montevideo, 10/05/00, Almeida de Quinteros, Mara del Carmen c/Poder
Ejecutivo (Ministerio de Defensa Nacional), Amparo (Sentencia No. 28) Ficha 216/99.
399
Skaar (n 49) 59.
400
Ibid 59.
401
Appellate Court of Montevideo, 31/05/00, Almeida de Quinteros, Mara del Carmen c/Poder Ejecutivo
(Ministerio de Defensa Nacional) (No. 98).
402
Skaar (n 49) 59.
403
Ibid 62.
62

below, these cases involved a reinterpretation of the amnesty law to exclude civilians and to
treat disappearances as a continuous crime that falls outside the temporal scope of the
amnesty.404
Following his election, President Batlle Ibez reversed the policies of previous governments
by taking the importance of Article 4 of the Ley de Caducidad seriously. In March 2000, one
week after his inauguration, President Batlle began to address the issue of disappeared
children. Firstly, in the Gelman case, concerning the disappearance of the grandchild of
Argentine poet, Juan Gelman, in which Sanguinetti had refused to provide information, 405
President Batlle ordered DNA tests to be carried out on the girl Juan Gelman believed to be
his granddaughter.406 The test results were positive. Subsequently, in the case of the
kidnapping of Simn Riquelo, a child born in a detention centre in Buenos Aires in 1976
whose mother, Sara Mndez, had survived and continually searched for her child,407 Batlle
met with the boy who Sara Mndez suspected might be her long-lost son. Battle convinced
the boy to take the DNA test, but in this case, the results were negative.408 Then President
Batlle, Tabar Vzquez, leader of the Frente Amplio and Gonzalo Fernndez, a left-wing
politician and lawyer, reached an agreement to move beyond ad hoc responses to
allegations of disappearances to establish an investigative body. This resulted in the
Comisin para la Paz being established by decree on 9 August 2000.409 This decree did not
refer to the Ley de Caducidad.
This administrative commission was part of the state presidency, but it was composed of
appointed commissioners, headed by the Archbishop of Montevideo, Mgr Nicols Cotugno,
with six other members: Fr Luis Prez Aguirre (Jesuit priest and founder of SERPAJ), Jos
dElia (union leader), Jos Claudio Williman (teacher) and Gonzalo Fernndez and Carlos
Ramela Regules (lawyers). On the death of Fr Prez Aguirre, he was replaced by Fr Jorge
Osorio. One administrator supported the work of the commission. The commission was
mandated to discharge an ethical duty of the State by assuming responsibility for a task
considered to be indispensable in preserving the historical memory of the country and to
consolidate national reconciliation and to secure peace forever amongst all Uruguayans.410
To achieve this mission, the commission was empowered to receive, analyse, file and
404
Ibid 62.
Ibid 59.
406
Ibid 61.
407
Ibid 59.
408
Ibid 61.
409
Resolution 858/2000, 9 August 2000 (Uru.).
410
Ibid, Preamble.
405
63

compile information related to those detained/disappeared and to children who had been
disappeared.411 The objective was to determine the fate of the disappeared, but not to
identify perpetrators.
During the first six months, the commission attempted to reconstruct all the allegations of
disappearances using information provided by family members and NGOs, and by the United
States. From the early stages of the commissions operations, it worked closely with Madres
y Familiares de los Detenidos-Desaparecidos, a local victims group. The commission could
not compel anyone to cooperate with its work, but after gathering all available information
on disappearances, it began to hold confidential meetings with members of the armed
forces. According to Carlos Ramela, a lawyer and activist who was a commission member,
these confidential meetings gradually resulted in the commission obtaining 95 per cent of
the information that it was seeking (ie it was able to confirm the death in 95 per cent of
cases of alleged disappearances). However, he stipulated that the information given focused
on narrow details such as the place, circumstances and date of death, but not the names of
those responsible or details of why particular individuals had been targeted. In addition,
during its investigations, the commission kept in regular contact with the victims families to
exchange information and listen to the victims concerns. In a few cases, the commission
also facilitated meetings between victims families and members of the armed forces.412
The commission, which was originally intended to operate for 120 days had its mandate
renewed several times until 30 August 2002. Subsequently, it issued a preliminary report in
October 2002, which listed the allegations of disappearances that it had been able to
confirm including complaints of disappearance in Uruguay relating to 32 Uruguayan citizens
(including three who disappeared before the coup) and six Argentines, and Uruguayans who
disappeared in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Brazil.413 Subsequently, in its final report,414 it
reconfirmed these disappearances and publicly acknowledged that those Uruguayans who
died within the country were murdered whilst being tortured in military barracks, which has
provided the justification for the excavation of military grounds.415 The commissions final
report also contained recommendations to the government on question of disappearances.
These included providing the families of the disappeared with full and total reparations;
amending the Uruguayan criminal code to criminalise torture and enforced disappearances;
411
Ibid, 9 August 2000, Art 1.

Interview with Carlos Ramela, Montevideo, 20 November 2008.
413
Presidencia de la Repblica, Comisin para la Paz, Informe preliminar, Montevideo, (October 2002).
414
Presidencia de la Repblica, Comisin para la Paz, Informe final, Montevideo (10 April 2003).
415
For information on these excavations, see the website of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team at
http://eaaf.typepad.com/cr_uruguay/ (accessed 12 January 2008).
412
64

and establishing an official agency to continue its work into disappearances. Furthermore,
the commissions report was handed over to the Supreme Court.416 The government
responded to the commissions report by issuing Resolution 448/2003 on 16 April 2003 in
which it adopted the Commissions conclusions.417 It also created a secretariat to continue
the work of the commission.418 In addition, the government announced that it would pay
reparations to the families of victims who died whilst in detention during military rule and to
the victims of guerrilla violence.419 At the time of writing, it appears that this law is yet to be
introduced.
14. REINTERPRETING THE AMNESTY AND CURRENT CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS
Truth recovery further benefited from increased military cooperation following the election
of Uruguays first left-wing president, Tabar Vzquez of the Frente Amplio, in March 2005.
Vzquez, Uruguays first left-wing president, had made investigations a campaign pledge.420
But, despite agreeing to push for greater truth for disappearances, Vzquez had also pledged
not to repeal the amnesty. He justified this approach by arguing
My view is that all we Uruguayans have a responsibility for what happened in
Uruguay. I do not share the theory that there were goodies and baddies, the theory
of two demons, depending on where you look at the problem from. 421
Nonetheless, Vzquez faced demands from the left-wing of his party for greater military
accountability. Consequently, in November 2005 the Vzquez government sought to restrict
the application of the Ley de Caducidad by enacting an Interpretation Law. This bill was
submitted to congress by Gonzalo Fernndez, a government spokesman, on 15 November
2005. This bill did not seek to derogate from the amnesty entirely but rather transfer the
decision-making power of whether to apply the amnesty from the political to the judicial
realm, with the intention that the courts would investigate until they reach a point where it
is possible to decide whether the case is covered by the amnesty or not.422 This would
416
An overview of the mandate and operations of the Comisin para la Paz is available on the Trial Watch
website at www.trial-ch.org/en/international/truth-commissions/uruguay.html (accessed 6 November 2008).
417
Resolucin N 448/2003, Comisin para la Paz, se aceptan las conclusions de la Informe Final (10 April 2003)
Art 1. See also Decreto N 146/003.
418
Resolucin N 449/2003, Creacin de la Secretaria de Seguimiento de la Comisin para la Paz (10 April 2003)
Art 1.
419
Larry Rohter, Uruguay: Compensation for Dictatorship New York Times (22 April 2003).
420
Tabar Vzquez had made a similar pledge when he stood for presidential election in 1999, but on that
occasion was beaten by the right-wing candidate, Jorge Battle Ibez.
421
Quoted in Uruguayan President Rules out Amnesty for Dirty War Rights Violations BBC Monitoring
International Reports (19 August 2005).
422
, Government seeks to Redefine Military Amnesty Brazil Report (22 November 2005).
65

include the re-opening of cases that had previously been shelved under the amnesty.
Furthermore, the government sought to reinterpret the existing law from a broad amnesty
to an amnesty with the following exclusions:
Economic crimes
Disappearances
Crimes committed by civilians
Crimes committed by high-ranking military or police personnel (with the assumption that
lower ranks would still be covered as they had been following orders)
Crimes committed outside Uruguay
Crimes were committed before the start of the dictatorship, ie the early 1970s423
This interpretative bill was not framed as a sweeping change to the amnesty law, but rather
an effort to apply the existing law which the previous Colorado governments have distorted
as an all encompassing amnesty.424 However, from the above list, it is clear that with the
exception of economic crimes, the Interpretative Bill suggested the reading in of restrictions
that were not explicitly mentioned in the Ley de Caducidad. This seems to be case even for
the exclusion of military leaders as although the existence of superior orders was mentioned
in Article 1 of the Ley de Caducidad in the phrase: for political reasons or in fulfilment of
their functions and in obeying orders from superiors, the use of or seems to indicate that
military leaders could be covered if they acted for political reasons. Furthermore, the
decision to treat civilians who collaborated with the military differently from soldiers is
unusual. Finally, the definition of who is a high-ranking military official would require
interpretation by the courts.425 It seems likely that this government chose to propose
interpreting rather than repealing the amnesty as it viewed the former as a less politically
risky strategy. Furthermore, the previous government decided before the 2004 elections not
to nullify the amnesty as it is a contentious issue that could have damaged their election
chances.426
The proposed Interpretative Law was strongly resisted by the military and on 26 November
2005, it became public knowledge that the commander-in-chief of the army, Gen. Angel
Bertolotti, had commissioned the preparation of a dossier with legal opinions judging
unconstitutional the Interpretative Bill. He distributed this dossier to all the generals and
admirals, and it was expected to provide the grounds for any officer charged under the new
423
Ibid.
Ibid.
425
Ibid.
426
Emiliano Cotelo, Lanzan campaa para anular la Ley de Caducidad El Spectador (Montevideo 19 June 2006).
424
66

legislation to file a constitutionality suit.427 The government chose not to publicly criticise
Bertolottis actions.428 The Interpretative Bill also triggered opposition from the right-wing
parties who continued to argue that the amnesty was necessary for peace and
reconciliation.429
The exceptions to the amnesty law proposed by the Interpretation reflected developments
before the courts as since 2001 there have been a number of human rights cases, and each
has sought to find innovative ways to get around the Ley de Caducidad.430 For example, in
April 2002, first instance Judge Mara del Rosario Berro formally accused former Foreign
Minister, Juan Carlos Blanco, of participating in kidnapping and disappearance of Elena
Quinteros arguing that Blanco was a civilian and was therefore not covered by the amnesty
law. Moreover, the judge ruled that disappearance is an ongoing crime and can therefore be
investigated.431 The approaches employed to date have included arguing that the Uruguayan
amnesty law does not apply outside Uruguay, and hence cannot cover disappearances in
Argentina;432 that disappearance is a crime against humanity and subject to a duty to
prosecute under international law;433 that the amnesty only covers members of the armed
forces, and not civilians;434 and that disappearance is a continuing crime. As these cases
progressed and the Interpretation Bill faced stiff opposition from the other political parties,
the government decided not to force the legislation, and instead, to simply rely on the courts
to reinterpret the amnesty.
Despite not enacting the Interpretation Bill, since Tabar Vzquez became president in 2005,
several judicial investigations have been reopened in Uruguay and excavations of military
sites have been ordered. Furthermore, the government instructed the military to hand over
documents that would help the investigations. In August 2005, the military obeyed these
orders and provided the courts with information that had not been made available to the
Peace Commission, and which included information on the whereabouts of graves.435 It
seems that the military agreed to cooperate now, despite refusing since the transition, as
427
, Uruguay: Ruckus over Legal Shield for Past Crimes Latin American Weekly Report (20 December
2005).
428
Ibid.
429
, Government seeks to Redefine Military Amnesty Brazil Report (22 November 2005).
430
Skaar (n 49) 62.
431
Ibid 62.
432
Raul Garces, Police Arrest Former Uruguayan President and Foreign Minister in Dirty War Slayings
Associated Press (Montevideo 18 November 2006).
433
Jos Nino Gavazzo case
434
Bordaberry case.
435
Dario Montero, Rights-Uruguay: Excavations may bring Justice for the Disappearance Inter Press Service
(Montevideo 10 August 2005).
67

they were conscious that the government might seek to circumvent the amnesty if they
proved too inflexible.436 These measures may not have been popular with all sectors of the
military as in September 2005, General Juan Crdoba, head of the Montevideo regiment,
was forced into retirement after he declared that no active or retired member of the
military should testify in human rights investigations.437 In addition, the Uruguayan
government, prosecutors and NGOs have been cooperating with their counterparts across
the MERCOSUR region in order to exchange information relating to Plan Cndor crimes, a
process known as Condor in reverse. More recently, in June 2007 President Vzquez
published files from the states investigations on the government website. These files
confirm the existence of Plan Cndor. In addition, in November 2007, former president Juan
Mara Bordaberry and former Foreign Minister, Juan Carlos Blanco Estrad, were arrested in
connection with the assassinations of Zelmar Michelini and Hctor Gutirrez Ruiz. Then, on
17 December 2007, Uruguays last military dictator, Gregorio Conrado lvarez Armelino, was
charged with the forced disappearance of political prisoners. At the time of writing, these
trials plus prosecutions of eight retired lower level military and police officers were still
ongoing.438
Uruguay, however, still seems to lag a little behind Argentina and Chile, due to the lack of
sustained legal challenges to amnesty in earlier years. It should also be noted that the
majority of investigations focus on disappearances although these were a minority of crimes
under the Uruguayan military regime. Frustration with this progress and the Vzquez
governments unwillingness to repeal the amnesty law has caused a coalition of civil society
groups to come together to organise a second referendum campaign to annul the amnesty.
15. SECOND REFERENDUM ANTI-IMPUNIDAD CAMPAIGN
In 2006, human rights advocates, legislators and magistrates founded the Coordinadora
Nacional por la Nulidad de la Ley de Caducidad (National Coordinator for the Annulment of
the Expiry Law) to annul Articles 1 to 4 of the Expiry Law. This body launched a high profile
campaign and on 4 September 2007, at the Teatro el Galpn in Montevideo, they began to
collect signatures to try to trigger a second referendum on the amnesty. The campaign
needs to obtain 251,847 signatures corresponding to 10 per cent of eligible to voters and
present them to the Electoral Court before 24 April 2009. The referendum would be
436
, Uruguay: Military agrees to assist Government Latinnews Daily (21 July 2005).
Santiago ODonnell, President Vzquezs Pledge International Justice Tribune (12 September 2005).
438
These officers were indicted in September 2006 by Uruguayan Judge Luis Charles for the disappearance of
Adalberto Sosa in Buenos Aires in 1976.
437
68

scheduled to coincide with the elections of October 2009. As of 21 March 2009, the
referendum campaign had 231,681 signatures.439
Despite this considerable success in gathering signatures to date, the campaign initially
struggled to attract the same level of enthusiastic support and volunteers as the 1989
campaign. This can be explained firstly by the policies of the Vzquez government which
have already resulted in greater truth recovery and the imprisonment of perpetrators,
making the annulment appear less urgent. Furthermore, as President Vzquez himself has
been opposed to annulling the amnesty law, many factions of Frente Amplio coalition have
yet to participate actively in the collection of signatures.440 Frens-String argues that, [i]n a
country where the human rights movement has traditionally lacked independence from the
political parties, and particularly from Frente Amplio, the lack of participation of organised
political factions has hindered mobilisation around the issue.441 However, in early December
2008, delegates to the Frente Amplio convention voted to include the overturning of the Ley
de Caducidad as part of their party platform for the 2009 elections and their presidential
candidate for these elections has signed the petition.442 Furthermore, on 17 February 2009,
the Vice President Rodolfo Nin Novoa said that the amnesty law is in flagrant violation of
Article 8 of the Constitution stating that all citizens are equal before the law, and [the
government agrees+ with every argument deeming it unconstitutional. It appears that this
greater level of political engagement with the referendum campaign has impacted positively
on the efforts to gather signatures and increased the possibility that the referendum will
occur in October.
However, some human rights activists are wary of repeating the referendum experience for
practical, ethical and political reasons. Firstly, there are concerns that it is a risky strategy, as
a repeat of the 1989 result would further entrench the amnesty. Secondly, as civil society
called the people to vote once on the issue in 1989, it can be argued to be unethical to
ignore the will of the people and force a second referendum, simply because campaigners
are unhappy with the original result. Finally, by pursuing a legalistic approach to annulling
the law, the campaign has been criticised for reducing the impunity problem to law, which
overlooks its wider political and social dynamics. Those in favour of the referendum
campaign respond by arguing that second referendum is necessary now as the first
referendum was conducted in a climate of fear and military intimidation, and that in the
439
For more information see http://nulidadleycaducidad.democraciadirecta.org.uy/ (accessed 25 March 2009).

Joshua Frens-String, Between Law and Politics: The Continuing Struggle Against Impunity in Uruguay
Upside Down World (7 January 2009).
441
Ibid.
442
Ibid.
440
69

intervening period international law has developed and new information has come to light.
At the time of writing, it was too early to predict the outcome of the referendum if it was to
take place, but the increased involvement of Frente Amplio in the anti-impunity campaign
raises that the possibility that the amnesty could also be annulled through legislation rather
than by a vote.
16. CONCLUSION
This analysis of the Uruguayan amnesty processes has explored two different, but interrelated forms of amnesty. It has argued that the political contestations over the forms and
scope of leniency to be granted to different categories of political prisoners, and later to the
military and their supporters, illustrate the differing understandings of the criminality of the
militarys actions during the dirty war and extent of the threat of subversion. In this way,
the narratives posited by the proponents of the amnesty laws represent, not an effort to
obliterate the memory of the past, but rather to shape an understanding of it in which the
military seeks to use the amnesty to reinforce its propaganda that it was fighting a just and
heroic war against a dangerous subversive threat, and that any crimes that were
committed were merely excesses. As detailed in the paper, this interpretation was strongly
resisted by a wide spectrum of Uruguayan society, including victims groups, civil society and
political representatives. However, these opponents of the amnesty for military crimes were
frequently proponents of amnesty for former political prisoners, including guerrillas
responsible for blood crimes. By proposing such an asymmetrical approach to past crimes,
this group also sought to shape history by reinforcing understandings of the highly
disproportionate nature of the military abuses and to acknowledge the horrors suffered by
all political prisoners, regardless of their alleged crimes. Such contestations highlight how
amnesty laws can be a key component in the construction of collective memory.
The debates surrounding the enactment of the Ley de Caducidad also illustrate differing
interpretations of the fragility of the democratic institutions following the transition, with
proponents of the amnesty for military perpetrators arguing that it was necessary for
national reconciliation and to protect democracy, whereas the amnestys opponents argued
that attempting to build democratic institutions on impunity would undermine and weaken
them. In practice, it appears that the unprecedented extent of the public conversation on
amnesty that occurred in Uruguay as a result of the civil society referendum campaign itself
created a process that enhanced democracy by broadening the political dialogue from the
elite voices of politicians to also include grassroots views. Furthermore, this public
conversation raised awareness of human rights throughout Uruguayan society, and finally,
70

through the referendum campaign, a potentially highly divisive political issue was resolved
peacefully and democratically.
Although the actions of the government and the Electoral Court during the referendum
campaign have been highly criticised and anti-impunity campaigners point to the fear among
some sectors of the Uruguayan populace that the military would seize power if the
referendum overturned the amnesty to explain the majority vote in favour of upholding the
law, the fairness of the vote itself has not been questioned. Indeed, as explored in this
paper, the democratic nature of the referendum rather than removing the amnesty
appeared to enhance its legitimacy and enabled the military to evade addressing its
institutional responsibility for longer than in other countries in the region. However, the
timing of the efforts to reinterpret the amnesty and the new referendum campaign seem to
coincide with events across the Mercosur region, where generational advances have
resulted in the election of left-wing rulers and the creation of a political climate in which the
impunity for the horrors of the past can be eroded without fear of military coups.
71

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Argentina (1998) 104 Amer. J. Soc. 477
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Rights in David J. Harris and Stephen Livingstone (eds), The Inter-American System of Human
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Markarian, Vania, Uruguayan Exiles and Human Rights: From Transnational Activism to Transnational
Politics, 1980-1984 (2007) 64 Anuario de Estudios Americanos 111
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Contributions of the Inter-American Organs of Protection (1999) 26 Crime & Soc. Just. Associates
84
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Redemocratized Argentina and Uruguay (1997) 10 J. Historical Soc. 270
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74

Starita, Massimo, Amnesty for Crimes Against Humanity: Coordinating the State and Individual
Responsibility for Gross Violations of Human Rights (1999) 9 Italian Y.B. Intl L. 86
Varela, Carlos, The Referendum Campaign in Uruguay: An Unprecedented Challenge to Impunity
(1989) 13 Hum. Rts Intl Reporter
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(University of California Press, 1992)
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c) Reports and Conference Papers

Americas Watch, Challenging Impunity: The Ley de Caducidad and the Referendum in Uruguay (1
March 1989)
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justice (July 2001) AMR 52/001/2001
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the Southern Cone of Latin America - A Comparative Study of Argentina and Uruguay (Paper
submitted to the UCLA Comparative Analysis Workshop, May 8-9, 1999)
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October 1992) Volume 4, Issue 11
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(31 January 1978) OEA/Ser.L/V/II.43
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1997)
Woodruff, Christopher A., Political Culture and Revolution: An Analysis of the Tupamaros Failed
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Studies, University of Texas at Austin 4 January 2008)
d) Statutes, Regulations and Agreements

Ley N 15.737 - Se aprueba la Ley de amnista 1985
Ley de Caducidad de la Pretensin Punitiva del Estado, No. 15.848 1986
Resolution 858/2000, 9 August 2000
e) Case Law
Criminal Court of Montevideo, 15/04/97, Zanahoria case
75

First Instance Civil Court in Montevideo, 10/05/00, Almeida de Quinteros, Mara del Carmen c/Poder
Ejecutivo (Ministerio de Defensa Nacional), Amparo (Sentencia No. 28) Ficha 216/99
Appellate Court of Montevideo, 31/05/00, Almeida de Quinteros, Mara del Carmen c/Poder
Ejecutivo (Ministerio de Defensa Nacional) (No. 98)
Tribunal en lo Penal de 6 Turno, 02/03/02, Jos Nino Gavazzo
Hugo Leonardo de los Santos Mendoza et al v Uruguay, Cases 10.029, 10.036, 10.145, 10.305,
10.372, 10.373, 10.374 and 10.375, Report No. 29/92, OEA/Ser./L/V/II.83 (1992)
Gustavo Carranza v Uruguay, Case 10.087, Report No. 30/97, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.95 (1997)
f) Useful Websites
Coordinadora Nacional
por la Nulidad de la Ley
de Caducidad
Instituto de Estudios
Legales y Sociales del
Uruguay
Madres y Familiaries de
Detenidos / Desaparcidos
Nulidad de la Ley de
Caducidad blog
Partido Socialiste del
Uruguay Frente Amplio
SERPAJ
Memoria para amar
Semana 83
Derechos Humanos en
Uruguay
Proyecto Memoria de la
Resistencia
No Impunidad en
Uruguay
http://nulidadleycaducidad.democraciadirecta.org.uy
www.ielsur.org
www.serpaj.org.uy/familiares
http://nulidadleycaducidad.blogspot.com
www3.ps.org.uy/noticias/noticias513.htm
Webpage of resources on the Comision para la Paz
www.serpaj.org.uy
www.laneta.apc.org/mpa/mpa/index.shtml
www.semana83.org.uy
www.derechos.org/nizkor/uruguay
www.memoria.org.uy
www.premiumwanadoo.com/nolaimpunidaduruguay/index.htm
76

Uruguay'S Evolving Experience of Amnesty and Civil Society'S Response

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URUGUAYS EVOLVING EXPERIENCE OF

AMNESTY AND CIVIL SOCIETYS

7. GROWING PRESSURE TO HOLD THE MILITARY ACCOUNTABLE ................................................................... 38

8. SLIDING TOWARDS ENACTING MILITARY IMPUNITY .................................................................................. 41

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Pacheco handpicked a successor as reactionary as himself, Juan Mara Bordaberry, who

Weschler (n 12) 106.

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Loveman (n 29) 505-6.

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Barahona de Brito (n 18) 42.

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Markarian (n 30) 122 and Barahona de Brito (n 18) 85.

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Gillespie (n 23) 103.

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

2. Army promotions to the rank of commander in chief would be made by the

Gillespie (n 79) 177-8.

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Weinstein (n 54) 84-5.

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Markarian (n 30) 128.

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

5. ELECTIONS AND LIMITED TRUTH RECOVERY

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

military dictatorship,181 he viewed amnesty as a political not moral decision.182

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Barahona de Brito (n 139) 127-8.

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

exacerbated underlying tensions and prepared the ground for future

Barahona de Brito (n 139) 127-8.

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Interview with Carlos Demassi, Montevideo, 18 November 2008.

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Roniger and Sznajder (n 76) 62.

Uruguays Evolving Experience of Amnesty 2009

Weschler (n 12) 188.