Uruguay's ex-president arrested

[bemildred]

Former Uruguayan President Juan Maria Bordaberry has been arrested in connection with four political killings during military rule in the 1970s.

The former foreign minister, Juan Carlos Blanco, has also been detained.

The two men are accused of involvement in the killing of two congressmen and two left-wing militants in 1976.

Elected in 1971, Mr Bordaberry went on to govern with military leaders, closing congress and banning parties, before being ousted himself in 1976.

BBC

[phoebe]

1. wonder if they'll squeal about US involvement...

another article - http://www.ipsnews.net/sendnews.asp?idnews=35009

snip

RIGHTS-URUGUAY: Uncovering the Truth, Three Decades On

Analysis by Diana Cariboni

MONTEVIDEO, Oct 5 (IPS) - Juan María Bordaberry attained a
certain notoriety outside of Uruguay's borders when he
transformed himself from democratically elected president to
dictator in June 1973, dissolving Congress, outlawing political
parties and civil society organisations, and suspending civil
liberties in a coup d'etat in which he joined forces with the
military.

snip

In fact Uruguay had the largest number of political prisoners
and torture victims in proportion to its population, in a region
that was basically ruled at the time by de facto military regimes.

On Thursday night, one of the former dictator's sons, lawyer
Pedro Bordaberry, who served as tourism minister in the
conservative Colorado Party administration of Jorge Batlle
(2000-2005), was interviewed on a local investigative journalism
programme, and said he would present "proof" that his father was
innocent of the murders of exiled legislators Michelini and
Gutiérrez Ruiz.

Furthermore, he argued, by agreeing to remain in his post when
the armed forces staged the coup, his father saved the country
from even worse woes, like a dictatorship along the lines of that
of leftist General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968-1975), who carried
out broad land reform and nationalisations in Peru.

But while Bordaberry insisted that he personally had a strong
faith in democracy, he refused to repudiate his dictator father,
although he did say he "did not agree" with the coup.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Plenty of stuff here on the subject of Uruguay

and USA interference.

From 2002 :
Newly declassified documents detail the Nixon administration's broad-gauged efforts to prevent a victory by the leftist “Frente Amplio” in the Uruguayan presidential elections of 1971. The documents show that Nixon was aware of – and may in fact have been complicit in – Brazilian efforts to influence the election results. Six weeks ago, an Associated Press report by Ron Kampeas, citing a newly declassified document from the Nixon collection at the National Archives, first revealed that during a meeting with then British Prime Minister Edward Heath President Nixon admitted, “Brazil helped rig the Uruguayan elections.”

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB71/

1975 was the aftermath.

[Divine Discontent]

3. Uruguayan Ex-President Arrested (For "Dirty War" Killings)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/17/world/main2198252.shtm

<snip>
AP) Police arrested former president-turned-dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry on Friday and held the 78-year-old former leader along with his foreign minister in connection with four “Dirty War” killings in 1976.

The arrest of Bordaberry and former foreign minister Juan Blanco opened a new chapter in efforts by this small South American country to grapple with the 1973-1985 dictatorship and its legacy of disappearances, tortures and the exile of thousands of political dissidents.

“It's the first serious step taken in Uruguay in many, many years since they recovered democracy and civilian control,” Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas division at Human Rights Watch, told The Associated Press by telephone from Washington.


---------

maybe this could happen when Shrub gets outta office?


www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<-- antibush prodem stickers/shirts

[shanti]

4. oh man, it's still going on

my maternal gg grandparents (who had originally emigrated to uruguay from alpine france to uruguay) left that country in the late 1800's. they only lived there for about 20 years, but fled uruguay for the u.s. because the uruguayan government back then was conscripting all the young men. seems like they're still at it...

[Divine Discontent]

6. ICK!

sounds like the African tribal wars where they force the young men to join... or die.

:(

[Judi Lynn]

5. At the same time Bordaberry was running the country, a U.S. torturer, Dan Mitrione

was teaching torture techniques to Uruguayan forces to train them in the ways the U.S. wanted used on a rebel group, the Tupemaros.

He had equipment smuggled in to him in diplomatic pouches, and required the local police to round up beggars in the streets to use as models for his lessons in torture, and killed some of them in the process, which they dumped out in the country.

Eventually the Tupemaros became angry to the point they kidnapped him and killed him. President Richard M. Nixon hailed him as a national hero, and sent his son-in-law David Eisenhower and his press secretary, Ron Ziegler, and his Secretary of State, William Rogers to the funeral.

Here's a post with some good snips on this torturer, a former cop from Gary, Indiana:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2282190#2283481

A movie was made about Mitrione's life:

The 1973 movie State of Siege by Costa-Gavras is based on this story, with Mitrione being played by Yves Montand, though with a different name. He was also the subject of the book "Hidden Terrors" by Langguth, A.J. published on 1978.
(snip/...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Mitrione


Here's part of a review which should show you there was a LOT of tension, politically, about this movie when it was introduced:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0015-1386%28197323%2927%3A1%3C51%3ASOS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2&size=LARGE

You might find these reviews posted at Amazon to be of interest:
http://www.amazon.com/State-Siege-Yves-Montand/dp/6302796695