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Transitional Justice and Protracted Accountability in Re-democratised Uruguay, 1985–2011

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

LUIS RONIGER
LUIS RONIGER
Affiliation:
Luis Roniger is Reynolds Professor of Latin American Studies at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC. Email: ronigerl@wfu.edu.
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Abstract

This article analyses the protracted process by which democratised Uruguay has come to terms with its legacy of human rights violations. Central to this process has been the nature of Uruguayan transitional policies and their more recent partial unravelling. Due to the negotiated transition to electoral democracy, civilian political elites approached the transitional dilemma of balancing normative expectations and political contingency by promulgating legal immunity, for years avoiding initiatives to pursue trials or launch an official truth commission, unlike neighbouring Argentina. A constellation of national and transnational factors (including recurrent initiatives by social and political forces) eventually opened up new institutional ground for belated truth-telling and accountability for some historical wrongs – and yet, attempts to challenge the blanket legal impunity failed twice through popular consultation and in a recent parliamentary vote. Each time, the government officially projected a narrative that sacralised national consensus and reconciliation, now enshrined in two sovereign popular votes, and the adoption of a forward-looking democratic perspective.

Spanish abstract

Este artículo analiza el largo proceso por medio del cual el Uruguay democratizado ha enfrentado su legado de violaciones a los derechos humanos. Central a tal proceso ha sido la naturaleza de las políticas transicionales uruguayas y su más reciente transformación parcial. Debido a la transición negociada hacia la democracia, las élites políticas civiles enfocaron el dilema de la transición de equilibrar normatividad y contingencia política por medio de un marco de inmunidad legal. Por años, ello impidió la adopción de iniciativas judiciales en casos de violaciones a los derechos humanos o lanzar una comisión oficial de la verdad, al contrario de su vecina Argentina. Una serie de factores nacionales e internacionales (producto de los esfuerzos de diferentes fuerzas políticas y sociales) finalmente abrieron nuevos terrenos institucionales para avanzar en una tardía rendición de cuentas y confrontación con el legado de la represión autoritaria. A pesar de avances destacados, incluso en el terreno judicial, los intentos por desafiar a la impunidad legal fracasaron tres veces, ya fuera a través de consultas populares o, más recientemente, en un voto parlamentario. En cada caso, el gobierno proyectó oficialmente una narrativa que sacralizaba el consenso y la reconciliación nacional sustentados por el voto popular y la adopción de una perspectiva que pregona dejar el pasado atrás.

Portuguese abstract

Analisa-se o processo pelo qual o Uruguai democratizado lidou com seu legado de violações dos direitos humanos. A natureza das políticas de transição uruguaias e sua resolução parcial mais recente são centrais a este processo. Devido à transição para a democracia eleitoral negociada, diferente do que sucedeu na vizinha Argentina, as elites políticas civis abordaram o dilema da transição (de equilibrar as expectativas normativas e as contingências políticas) promulgando a imunidade legal, por anos evitando iniciativas de iniciar julgamentos ou abrir uma comissão da verdade oficial. Uma constelação de fatores nacionais e transnacionais, que incluiram recorrentes iniciativas partindo de forças sociais e políticas, por fim possibilitaram novas bases institucionais para relatos de verdades tardios que levaram à responsabilização por algumas injustiças históricas. Contudo, tentativas de desafiar a impunidade legal total através da consulta popular fracassaram duas vezes e, mais recentemente, foram derrotadas por voto parlamentar. Em cada ocasião o governo oficialmente projetou um discurso que sacralizou o consenso e a reconciliação nacional, hoje consagrados por dois votos populares soberanos e a adoção de uma perspectiva democrática que não está presa no passado.

Keywords

transitional justicehuman rights violationsimpunityaccountabilityhistorical memoryjusticia transicionalviolaciones a los derechos humanosimpunidadrendición de cuentasmemoria históricajustiça de transiçãoviolações dos direitos humanosimpunidadetransparência e responsabilidade pessoal e institucionalmemória histórica
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , November 2011 , pp. 693 - 724
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

1 See Crocker, David A., ‘Reckoning with Past Wrongs: A Normative Framework’, Ethics and International Affairs, 13: 1 (1999), pp. 43–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roniger, Luis and Sznajder, Mario, The Legacy of Human Rights Violations in the Southern Cone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and de Brito, Alexandra Barahona, Enríquez, Carmen González and Aguilar, Paloma (eds.), The Politics of Memory: Transitional Justice in Democratising Societies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)Google Scholar, especially the chapters by Rachel Sieder (‘War, Peace and Memory Politics in Central America’, pp. 161–89), Richard Wilson (‘Justice and Legitimacy in the South African Transition’, pp. 190–217) and Nanci Adler (‘In Search of Identity: The Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Recreation of Russia’, pp. 248–302).

2 International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), ‘What is Transitional Justice?’, 2009, available at http://ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ-Global-Transitional-Justice-2009-English.pdf; Alexandra Barahona de Brito, ‘Transitional Justice and Memory: Exploring Different Perspectives’, paper presented at the IPSA congress in Santiago, July 2009.

3 See Skaar, Elin, ‘Truth Commissions, Trials – or Nothing? Policy Options in Democratic Transitions’, Third World Quarterly, 20: 6 (1999), pp. 1109–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Falk, Richard, Human Rights Horizons (New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 199–216Google Scholar; Hayner, Priscilla B., Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity (New York: Routledge, 2001)Google Scholar; Louis Bickford, ‘Transitional Justice’, in Dinah Shelton (ed.), Macmillan Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity (Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference, 2004), pp. 1045–7; and Blank, Theodore, Measuring Transitional Justice in Latin America (Ottawa: Carleton University, Centre for Security and Defence Studies, WP 06, 2007)Google Scholar.

4 There are also differences: while the Supreme Court in Uruguay ruled the Law of Expiry unconstitutional when addressing cases in 2009, the Brazilian Supreme Court upheld the amnesty law in 2010 after a challenge by the Brazilian Bar Association on the basis that the law did not cover the crime of torture, which was declared exempt from amnesty in the 1988 Constitution. The federal prosecution service also failed in its attempt to bring test cases against alleged torturers through the civil, rather than criminal, courts. Brazilian society has never seen a mass campaign to overturn the law.

5 Like Uruguay, Brazil has had only an unofficial report prepared by the Archdiocese of São Paulo, covering abuses from 1964 to 1979 and published as Brasil: nunca mais in 1986.

6 Agenda-setting is defined as ‘the politics of selecting issues for active consideration’. Cobb, R. W. and Ross, M. H., Cultural Strategies of Agenda Denial (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1997), pp. 3–6Google Scholar; Dery, David, ‘Agenda Setting and Problem Definition’, Policy Studies, 21: 1 (2000), pp. 37–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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9 On the Left, see Markarian, Vania, Left in Transformation: Uruguayan Exiles and the Latin American Human Rights Networks, 1967–1984 (New York: Routledge, 2005)Google Scholar; and on the armed forces, see Achúgar, Mariana, What We Remember: The Construction of Memory in Military Discourse (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 The Uruguayan Constitution allows citizens to call a one-off referendum to challenge laws approved by Parliament or to propose changes to the Constitution by means of a plebiscite held at the same time as a general election.

11 Achúgar, Mariana, ‘Between Remembering and Forgetting: Uruguayan Military Discourse about Human Rights (1974–2004)’, Discourse and Society, 18: 5 (2007), pp. 521–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 For detailed institutional analyses, see de Brito, Alexandra Barahona, Human Rights and Democratisation in Latin America: Uruguay and Chile (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; andRoniger, andSznajder, , The Legacy of Human Rights ViolationsGoogle Scholar.

13 Caetano, Gerardo and Rilla, José, De la tradición a la crisis: pasado y presente de nuestro sistema de partidos (Montevideo: CLAEH-Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1985)Google Scholar; Edy Kaufman, ‘El rol de los partidos políticos en la redemocratización del Uruguay’, in Saúl Sosnowski (ed.), Represión, exilio y democracia: la cultura uruguaya (Montevideo: EBO, 1987), pp. 25–62; González, Luis E., Estructuras políticas y democracia en Uruguay (Montevideo: Fundación de la Cultura Universitaria, 1993)Google Scholar.

14 The 1967 Constitution is still in force, although amended especially extensively in 1996.

15 ‘El llamamiento’, Brecha, 66, 30 Jan. 1987, p. 2; Burt, Jo-Marie, El Pueblo Decide: A Brief History of the Referendum against the Impunity Law in Uruguay (Montevideo: SERPAJ, 1989)Google Scholar; Americas Watch, Challenging Impunity: The Ley de Caducidad and the Referendum Campaign in Uruguay (New York: Americas Watch Committee, 1989)Google Scholar.

16 Roger Rodríguez, ‘Las brigadas verdes, puerta a puerta: el referéndum llama dos veces’, Brecha, 24 Feb. 1989, p. 5; and Document No. E05/59 002.111/ 1987.04.04, at SERPAJ's Documentation Centre, Montevideo.

17 Madres y Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos del Uruguay (MFDDU), El referéndum desde familiares (Montevideo: MFDDU, 1990).

18 See the results in Búsqueda, 20 April 1989, pp. 4–5.

19 In Montevideo, 56.6 per cent voted to overturn the law. Opponents of the law got majority support in smaller towns and rural areas among the unemployed, office workers and professionals, but not among housewives, pensioners and unskilled workers (Roniger, and Sznajder, , Legacy of Human Rights Violations, pp. 88–9Google Scholar). On the implications of the shift that started then, see Daniel Chávez, ‘Decentralisation and Participatory Urban Management in Montevideo’, available at www.ucm.es/info/femp/red/articulos/montevideo.doc.

20 Búsqueda, 20 April 1989, p. 8.

21 This claim was reflected throughout the press: in La República; in La Hora, the journal of the Uruguayan Communist Party; and in Mate Amargo, the journal of the MLN-Tupamaros, 17–20 April 1989.

22 La República (Montevideo), 17 April 1989, p. 5.

23 El País (Madrid), 19 April 1989, p. 6.

24 The unofficial nature of the investigation, the small sample size and the minimal equipment and support staff available for finding sources and writing resulted in an extensive time delay in the work.

25 Marchesi, Aldo, El Uruguay inventado: la política audiovisual de la dictadura (Montevideo: Trilce, 2001), p. 7Google Scholar; Montaño, Eugenia Allier, Batallas por la memoria: los usos políticos del pasado reciente en Uruguay (Montevideo and Mexico: Trilce–UNAM, 2010), pp. 93–143Google Scholar.

26 Illustrative are Turiansky, Wladimir, Apuntes contra la desmemoria: recuerdos de la resistencia (Montevideo: ARCA, 1988)Google Scholar; and Lessa, Alfonso, Estado de guerra: de la gestación del golpe del '73 a la caída de Bordaberry (Montevideo: Fin de Siglo, 1996)Google Scholar.

27 Rosencof, Mauricio and Huidobro, Eleuterio Fernández, Memorias del calabozo (Navarra: Txalaparta–Argitaletxea, 1993)Google Scholar. Among earlier testimonies was Bermejo, Ernesto González, Las manos en el fuego (Montevideo: EBO, 1985)Google Scholar; this recounts the experiences of David Cámpora, who was detained in different prisons between April 1972 and December 1980.

28 A group of female former prisoners organised workshops known as Memoria para armar in 2001–4 and published a book of testimonies. As a part of public construction of memory, the testimonies were deposited at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Uruguayan Studies of the University of the Republic, as heritage for the entire society. Fried, Gabriela, ‘Piecing Memory Together after State Terror and Policies of Oblivion in Uruguay: The Female Political Prisoners’ Testimonial Project (1997–2004)’, Social Identities, 12: 5 (2006), pp. 543–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 de Mattos, Tomás, ¡Bernabé, Bernabé! (Montevideo: EBO, 1988)Google Scholar.

30 Achúgar, Hugo, ‘Como el Uruguay no hay. ¡Bernabé, Bernabé! y el referéndum’, Cuadernos de Marcha, 41 (Feb. 1989), pp. 61–4Google Scholar; Achúgar, ‘El Parnaso’, in Achúgar, La biblioteca en ruinas (Montevideo: Trilce, 1994), p. 99.

31 ‘Descendientes de charrúas al rescate de la memoria histórica’, La República (Montevideo), 15 Aug. 2008, available at www.larepublica.com.uy/comunidad/326280-descendientes-de-charruas-al-rescate-de-la-memoria-historica.

32 Perelli, Carina and Rial, Juan, De mitos y memorias políticas (Montevideo: EBO, 1986)Google Scholar; Achúgar, Hugo and Caetano, Gerardo (eds.), Identidad uruguaya: mito, crisis o afirmación (Montevideo: Trilce, 1992)Google Scholar; Rico, Álvaro (ed.), Uruguay: cuentas pendientes. Dictadura, memorias y desmemorias (Montevideo: Trilce, 1995)Google Scholar. See also Demasi, Carlos, ‘La dictadura militar: un tema pendiente’, in Rico, Uruguay: cuentas pendientes, pp. 29–49Google Scholar; and Prego, Omar, Reportaje a un golpe de estado (Montevideo: Ediciones La República, 1988), p. 30Google Scholar.

33 Lessa, Estado de guerra; Cosse, Isabela and Markarian, Vania, 1975: año de la orientalidad – identidad, memoria e historia en una dictadura (Montevideo: Trilce, 1996)Google Scholar; Pascale, Graziano, Los años sin alma (Montevideo: Trilce, 1996)Google Scholar; Udaquiola, Luis, Valodia: vida de Vladimir Roslik (Montevideo: EBO, 1996)Google Scholar;Marchesi, , El Uruguay inventado (Montevideo: Trilce, 2001)Google Scholar. Years later, other works started to give equal attention to victims of repression neglected earlier – that is, the exiles and their contribution to the promotion of human rights. Markarian, Left in Transformation; Dutrénit-Bielous, Silvia (ed.), El Uruguay del exilio: gente, circunstancias, escenarios (Montevideo: Trilce, 2006)Google Scholar; Dutrénit-Bielous, Silvia, Montaño, Eugenia Allier and de los Santos, Enrique Coraza, Tiempos de exilios: memoria e historia de españoles y uruguayos (Colonia Suiza: CeARCI, Fundación Carolina and Instituto Mora, 2008)Google Scholar.

34 See Sanguinetti's criticism of later human rights policies in ‘Julio María Sanguinetti lamenta el desmoronamiento de los modelos de impunidad en Uruguay, Chile, Argentina y España’, La Nación (Buenos Aires), 22 Dec. 2006, available at www.derechos.org/nizkor/uruguay/doc/sanguinetti.html.

35 Mendoza et al. vs. Uruguay, Cases 10.029, 10.036, 10.145, 10.305, 10.372, 10.373, 10.374 and 10.375, Report No. 29/92, Inter-Am.C.H. R., OEA/Ser.L/V/II.83 Doc. 14 at 154 (1993), October 2, 1992, IACHR, 2 Oct. 1992, available at www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b6d8c.html.

36 Allier Montaño, Batallas por la memoria, pp. 106–8.

37 Uruguay participated in the network together with Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Paraguay. Early indications emerged when the Archives of Terror were found in Asunción, Paraguay, in 1992. On Operation Condor, see among others Dinges, John, The Condor Years (New York: New Press, 2005)Google Scholar; and McSherry, J. Patrice, Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005)Google Scholar.

38 Tróccoli, Jorge Néstor, La ira del Leviatán (Montevideo: Caelum, 1996)Google Scholar; Blixen, Samuel, ‘Quién es Jorge Tróccoli? Mentiras verdaderas’, Brecha, 10 May 1996Google Scholar; Gil, Daniel, El capitán por su boca muere, o, la piedad de Eros (Montevideo: Trilce, 1999)Google Scholar.

39 Roniger, and Sznajder, , The Legacy of Human Rights Violations, pp. 109–35Google Scholar; McSherry, Predatory States.

40 See www.pvp.org.uy/sara-justicia.htm.

41 In the Letelier/Moffit case, former DINA chief General Manuel Contreras and Brigadier Pedro Espinoza were tried for assassinating with a car bomb a former minister of foreign affairs under Salvador Allende and his secretary, a US citizen, in Washington in September 1976. The murder was specifically excluded from the 1978 Amnesty Law in Chile and led to trial in 1993, following democratisation. On the Berríos case, see Sznajder, Mario and Roniger, Luis, ‘The Crises beyond Past Crisis’, Human Rights Review, 1: 1 (1999), pp. 45–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Allier Montaño, Batallas por la memoria, pp. 119–26.

42 Caetano, Gerardo, El testamento ciudadano y los riesgos necesarios de la verdad: cuentas pendientes en el Uruguay contemporáneo (Montevideo: Universidad de la República, 2002), pp. 18–19Google Scholar.

43 I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for highlighting debates on why President Batlle changed the course of policy. On the institutional factors shaping factionalised parties in Uruguay, see Mario Bergara et al., ‘Political Institutions, Policymaking Processes and Policy Outcome: The Case of Uruguay’, IDB Research Paper 5, Washington, DC, 2006, available at http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=844416.

44 Batlle ordered a DNA test to be conducted on a 23-year-old woman who turned out to be the missing daughter of Juan Gelman's son Marcelo and María Claudia García, who were kidnapped in Buenos Aires by the security forces and are still missing. Likewise, the president persuaded a young man suspected of being Simón Riquelo, the missing son of Sara Méndez, to undergo a similar test, although in this case the result was negative. It was not until March 2002 that a federal judge in Argentina ordered a DNA test and confirmed that another young man, now an Argentine citizen, was in fact Sara Méndez's son.

45 ‘Batlle relevó al general Fernández’, La República (Montevideo), 7 April 2000, available at www.larepublica.com.uy/politica/7616-batlle-relevo-al-general-fernandez.

46 Caetano, El testamento ciudadano, pp. 22–3.

47 A writ of amparo is a legal instrument for protecting an individual's constitutional rights.

48 Skaar, Elin, ‘Legal Developments and Human Rights in Uruguay, 1985–2002’, Human Rights Review, 8 (2007), pp. 58–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Resolución de la Presidencia de la República no. 858/2000, 9 Aug. 2000.

50 Informe final de la Comisión para la Paz, 10 April 2003, available at http://archivo.presidencia.gub.uy/noticias/archivo/2003/abril/2003041001.htm.

51 Presidencia de la República, Comisión para la Paz, informe final, Montevideo, 10 April 2003Google Scholar; Mallinder, Louise, Uruguay's Evolving Experience of Amnesty and Civil Society's Response (Belfast: Queen's University, 2009), pp. 60–4Google Scholar.

52 Allier, Eugenia, ‘The Peace Commission: A Consensus on the Recent Past in Uruguay?’, European Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 81 (2006), p. 92Google Scholar.

53 ‘Vázquez Tabaré 2005: toma de posesión Uruguay,’ available at www.leyes-y-constituciones.org/himnos-nacionales/163-posesion-uruguay.html.

54 ‘Un día histórico para Uruguay: primer hallazgo de un asesinado en dictadura con datos de las Fuerzas Armadas’, 30 Nov. 2005, available at http://antonio-ladra.lacoctelera.net/post/2005/11/30/un-dia-historico-uruguay-primer-hallazgo-un-asesinado.

55 A day after his inauguration, Tabaré Vázquez signed agreements with President Néstor Kirchner of Argentina for active cooperation between the two countries to find new information about the crimes committed under the authoritarian governments, including the whereabouts and remains of those forcibly detained and disappeared.

56 Mallinder, Uruguay's Evolving Experience of Amnesty, pp. 52–3.

57 Mauricio Pérez, ‘Fiscal pidió la condena del dictador Bordaberry a 45 años de reclusión’, La República (Montevideo), 10 Aug. 2009, available at www.larepublica.com.uy/politica/376007-fiscal-pidio-la-condena-del-dictador-bordaberry-a-45-anos-de-reclusion; ‘Condenan a 30 años de cárcel a Bordaberry’, El País (Montevideo), 11 Feb. 2011, available at www.elpais.com.uy/100211/ultmo-470723/ultimomomento/condenan-a-30-anos-de-carcel-a-bordaberry/.

58 ‘Condenan a 25 años a un ex dictador’, Globedia.com, 23 Nov. 2009, available at http://globedia.com/condenan-anos-dictador.

59 ‘Memoria desde los barrios’, available at http://uruguay.indymedia.org/news/2004/07/26846.php.

60 .

61 ‘Museo de la memoria en Uruguay’, 26 Nov. 2007, available at blog.yaaqui.com/el-museo-de-la-memoria-se-inaugura-en-montevideo_articulo_12_12585.html.

62 ‘SERPAJ rechaza traslado de presos al ex penal de Punta de Rieles,’ 3 April 2009, available at www.sociedaduruguaya.org/2009/04/serpaj-rechaza-traslado-de-presos-al-ex-penal-de-punta-de-rieles.html; ‘Uruguay protesta por cárcel en Punta Rieles,’ 4 April 2009, available from ; ‘Memoria en Punta de Rieles: un camino por recorrer’, available at http://callejerarevista.blogspot.com/2011/06/memoria-en-punta-de-rieles-un-camino.html; Gelsi Ausserbauer, ‘El barrio Punta de Rieles será un museo vivo de la memoria: vecinos y ex presas siguen pidiendo la cesión del viejo penal’, La República (Montevideo), 30 June 2009, available at www.larepublica.com.uy/comunidad/370786-el-barrio-punta-de-rieles-sera-un-museo-vivo-de-la-memoria.

63 Barrán, José Pedro, Caetano, Gerardo and Rico, Alvaro (eds.), Investigación histórica sobre detenidos desaparecidos (Montevideo: IMPO, 2007)Google Scholar. See also ‘Entrevista a Álvaro Rico’, available at http://memoriaviva5.blogspot.com/2008/06/entrevista-alvaro-rico.html.

64 The project led later on to the publication of Demasi, Carlos, Marchesi, Aldo, Markarian, Vania, Rico, Álvaro and Yaffé, Jaime, El régimen cívico-militar en Uruguay, 1973–1985 (Montevideo: EBO and Centro de Estudios Interdisciplinarios Uruguayos, 2009)Google Scholar.

65 Allier Montaño, Batallas por la memoria, pp. 266–71. For an analytical assessment of access to, and use of, archives for historical reconstruction, see Isabel Wschebor Pellegrino, ‘Los documentos de archivo sobre la última dictadura uruguaya: quién accede y cómo’, Seminario sobre el derecho de habeas data en Uruguay, 24 April 2008, available at www.claeh.org.uy/html/images/stories/docs/Ponencia_isabel_wschebor.pdf.

66 Due to the civil law character of Uruguay's legal system, such a decision has no binding effect on future adjudication and did not nullify the general applicability of the Law of Expiry.

67 See the testimony of Juan Gelman on his years of struggle and the attitudes of the various Uruguayan administrations, in Página/12, 25 Nov. 2010, available at http://notas.desaparecidos.org/2010/11/el_poeta_juan_gelman_habla_de.html.

68 Raúl Olivera Alfaro, ‘Sobre el futuro de la impunidad en Uruguay, también miremos hacia Brasil’, available at http://www.pvp.org.uy/?p=1749. For the court ruling, see Caso Gomes Lund y otros (‘Guerrilha do Araguaia’) vs. Brasil, available at www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_219_esp.pdf.

69 See, among others, ‘Impunidades y cuestiones legales’, Página/12, 6 March 2011, available at www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmundo/4-163557-2011-03-06.html.

70 ‘La Caducidad sigue en pie’, El Observador (Montevideo), 20 May 2011, available at www.elobservador.com.uy/noticia/202081/la-caducidad-sigue-en-pie/.

71 ‘La votación en el Senado sobre la Ley de Caducidad’, dialogue between Oscar A. Bottinelli and Fernando Vilar, Monte Carlo TV, 14 April 2011, available at www.factum.edu.uy/node/35.

72 ‘Texto del pacto inconcluso entre Tupamaros y militares en 1998’, El Observador (Montevideo), 25 April 2011, pp. 3–4Google Scholar.

73 According to a poll conducted by Factum (www.factum.edu.ny), supporters versus opponents of those two measures in May 2011 were 73 versus 20 per cent and 62 versus 29 per cent respectively. The review of cases by the executive is possible until November 2012 according to the nature of the crimes against humanity as interpreted by the Supreme Court of Uruguay.