Uruguay ‘must drop dirty war amnesty’

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Uruguay ‘must drop dirty war amnesty’
March 26, 2011

SAN JOSE (Costa Rica): Uruguay must remove obstacles to prosecuting human rights offenses committed during its “dirty war” in the 1970s, including an amnesty that had protected many people accused of killings or kidnappings, the Inter-American Human Rights Court ruled.

The ruling came in the case of Maria Claudia Garcia, the daughter-in-law of Argentine poet Juan Gelman, who was reportedly abducted in 1976 in Argentina and sent to Uruguay, where she disappeared in the custody of dictatorship-era security forces.

The Organization of American States (OAS) human rights court said in a ruling published late Wednesday that Uruguay was responsible for Garcia’s disappearance and the existence of the amnesty laws had blocked attempts to find out the truth about the crime.

“The government (of Uruguay) should guarantee that the amnesty law never again becomes an obstacle for investigations,” the ruling said.


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