Meeting with General Licandro

Licandro is an avuncular man who spoke passionately with us about his time in prison (1973-1983), and his denouncement of the former dictatorship and the US-based military school: the School of the Americas (Licandro is photographed above with Fr. Roy Bourgeois - founder of SOA Watch). His apartment has an amazing ocean view and is a far cry from the housing projects that we visited where other civilian survivors reside.

Licandro attended the Inter-American College for Defense in 1964, founded by the OAS. And although he did not attend the SOA, many of his comrades did, who provided him with many details about the SOA. In the 1960 he states that the SOA did not offer courses in torture, but that changed as the dictatorships were put into place throughout Latin America. The courses on, for example, "information gathering," were basically courses to teach torture in order to obtain information. "We know there was torture, even to the point of death," stated Licandro, who adamantly support the closure of the SOA/WHINSEC.

"Your campaign to close the SOA and to petition governments not to send more students is very important." He goes on to state: "The doctrine of 'anti-communism' was developed by the US State Department and the Pentagon. Any discontent of the people was seen as a threat. This was the attitude promoted by the SOA and the Inter-American College for Defense. They promoted a massive increase in troops, doubling the numbers serving in the military from 16,000 in 1968 to over 32,000 by 1985.

Additionally, they supported and devised an "ideology of repression." "They imparted a doctrine of anti-subversion. Subversion was never "communism," but rather, it was the expressed needs of the people. The use of military schools against the population has nothing to do with defense. The issue was poverty and it continues to be the issue."

As our meeting was coming to an end, Licandro showed us a photos of himself while he was serving in the military. His final remark was that we should also focus some attention on the Center for the Hemispheric Strategic Studies, based in Washington DC. Its stated purpose is to provide "technical skills" for the military, civilian private sectors, as well as the government. But Licandro insists that the US is creating a web of relations that fosters dependence on the US and gives it the ability to manipulate and interfere with other countries.

Belela Herrera (Deputy Secretary of State) We asked the Deputy Secretary of State for a solidarity statement from Uruguay in support of survivors of torture to say that they will not send soldiers to SOA. Her reply was strong and stated without hesitation: "It's a good campaign and I support it"

Mothers & Families of the "Disappeared"

As previously stated, there were 200 people "disappeared" by the dictatorship and to date only 2 bodies have been recovered. The organization "Mothers & Families of the Disappeared" work with other human rights groups to gather data about military personnel who were involved in atrocities and to seek an end to impunity.

I posed the question to the mothers why they thought that the tactics used in Uruguay were so different from Argentina. Why there were so few disappearances and so many lengthy imprisonments? Their response was similar to the one I heard in Argentina - that the US was "experimenting" on each of the countries; honing in their "expressions of repression" based on geography, how popular the resistance was, etc. The discussion flowed into Guatemala and I brought up the similar "experiment" the US was conducting while they piggy-backed their tactic with the ones being employed in Vietnam.

The irony with Uruguay is that there wasn't a popular uprising, and the small bands of opposition forces primarily chose humiliating pranks to relay their message, rather than build an armed resistance. In 1971 Daniel Mitrione - who was sent to Uruguay via US AID was kidnapped and killed by the Tupamara - the primary, yet small armed faction. The Tupamara and many others contended that Mitrione was teaching torture to the police. The military attacked and destroyed the Tupamara resistance almost instantly, but the solemn act of violence against Mitrione was used as a justification for the police to collaborate with the armed forces to engage in years of state-sponsored violence that ultimately affected tens of thousands of people and changed the soci-economic face of Uruguay forever.

"We were guilty of having a utopian vision of new communities, a new idea of living together in a new way… we're no longer in the 1960's or 70"s, but in a new moment. We're hopeful, but the same hopes are not here as in our youth..."

The women photographed above are holding a newspaper highlighting an article about Jorge Silveira. According to Amnesty International, Silveira was indicted in 2001, along with 2 other military personel and a police officer, for their involvement in the ''disappearance'' of more than 20 Uruguayan nationals in Argentina. The judge requested that they be preventively detained in Uruguay pending a request by Argentina to the Uruguayan authorities for their extradition.

In July of 2001 the same judge requested the preventive detention in Uruguay, pending a request for extradition from Argentina, of former army commander Julio Vadora. He was allegedly involved in a conspiracy by military governments in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay (as part of "Project Condor") to return exiles to the countries they had fled and where many were subsequently tortured, had ''disappeared'' and were murdered.

The Uruguayan authorities not only refused to detain any of the officers, but a few months later the army awarded an honorary decoration to Jorge Silveira.

Just last month (April 2006), Silveira appeared before the courts again. The below photos were taken outside the courthouse where family members of the disappeared and survivors of torture held a protest.

This time the results were much different:

URUGUAY:
First Arrests of Human Rights Violators, After 20 Years
Diana Cariboni
(Inter Press Service News Agency)

MONTEVIDEO, May 8 (IPS) - For the first time since the restoration of democracy in Uruguay, agents of the 1973-1985 dictatorship have been arrested for human rights abuses.

The six former military and police officers were taken into custody Friday and Saturday after the Argentine courts requested their preventive detention last week. Argentina is seeking their extradition.

While a number of retired military officers have been prosecuted in Argentina for past human rights violations, and several senior officers have served time in prison in Chile for abuses committed during the 1973-1990 de facto regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, all legal action was brought to a halt in Uruguay by an amnesty law passed in 1986 and approved by voters in a 1989 referendum.

But on Friday, Uruguayan Judge Aída Vera Barreto ordered the arrest of six of the seven former officers accused of the 1976 forced disappearance of Argentine citizen María Claudia García, the daughter-in-law of renowned Argentine poet Juan Gelman.

Uruguayan Deputy Minister of the Interior Juan Faroppa told IPS that former military officer Ricardo Arab has been held in a police lock-up since Friday, while retired officers José Gavazzo, Jorge Silveira and Ernesto Rama were arrested on Saturday and held in military installations. [Read More...]