All events · Empires Unmade
Uruguay's Civic-Military Dictatorship: Mass Political Imprisonment and Exile
1973–1985 · Americas
Confinement
Abduction (Children)
Confined
300,000
At the peak of the repression around one in every 500 Uruguayans was imprisoned for political reasons, and roughly one in fifty passed through a period of detention, which for many included interrogation and torture; by 1976 Uruguay was reckoned to hold the highest number of political prisoners per head of population in the world. Emigration during the dictatorship is usually put at up to about 300,000-380,000 people, close to a tenth of the population, though this mixes political exile with economic emigration and rests on census differencing rather than a register. State violence is better documented: 197 enforced disappearances and 202 extrajudicial killings between 1968 and 1985.
Share of the population affected
11%
of the population of Uruguay at the 1973 coup, 1973
Killed
200–400
direct killing
Open on the interactive map →
What happened
The atlas records the Chilean and Argentine dictatorships; Uruguay's, which ran from the coup of 27 June 1973 to March 1985, worked differently and is usually distinguished from them. Civilian presidents remained in office while the armed forces exercised power, political parties and unions were suspended, and repression took the form less of mass killing than of mass imprisonment: tens of thousands were detained, held for years under military justice in prisons such as Libertad and Punta de Rieles, and subjected to torture and prolonged isolation, while a large share of the population emigrated. Uruguayans made up the largest national group among the victims of Operation Condor abroad, most of them seized in Argentina, and children of disappeared Uruguayans were among those appropriated. In December 1986 parliament passed the Ley de Caducidad, which barred prosecution of military and police personnel; it survived referendums in 1989 and 2009 before being effectively undone from 2011, and in 2011 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held in Gelman v. Uruguay that the law was incompatible with the American Convention and could not bar investigation. Searches for the remains of the disappeared continue.
Parties
Uruguay's armed forces and police imprisoned, tortured and drove into exile political opponents under a civilian-fronted military regime
Disputed
Emigration figures are estimates that do not separate political exile from economic departure; the scope and legitimacy of the amnesty law, twice upheld in referendums and later set aside by the courts, remains politically divisive in Uruguay, and the fate of most of the disappeared is still unresolved.
The denominator
World Bank and UN Population Division series put Uruguay at about 2.83 million in 1973. The dictatorship acted on the whole national population, and Uruguay held one of the world's highest per-capita rates of political imprisonment.
The affected figure aggregates two different things - roughly 60,000 people detained at some point and several hundred thousand who went into exile - so it is not a count of prisoners.
Where the baseline comes from
On the death toll
Documented state killings are comparatively few: 197 enforced disappearances and 202 extrajudicial executions between 1968 and 1985 on the counts used by Uruguayan researchers and human rights bodies, many of the disappearances occurring in Argentina under Operation Condor. Deaths in custody from torture are included in these totals where established; the range reflects differing cut-off dates and whether Uruguayans killed abroad are counted.
Documented forms of violence
Arbitrary DetentionTortureEnforced DisappearanceAbduction of Children
Prolonged arbitrary detention, systematic torture, enforced disappearance and the appropriation of children of disappeared parents are documented in the Inter-American Court's judgment in Gelman v. Uruguay and in the Uruguayan state's own investigations into the period.
Formal findings
- Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Gelman v. Uruguay) (2011) — Held Uruguay responsible for the enforced disappearance of Maria Claudia Garcia Iruretagoyena de Gelman and the suppression of her daughter's identity, and ruled that the Ley de Caducidad could not bar investigation and punishment of such crimes — source
Movements mapped
- Uruguayan exiles to Argentina, where many were later pursued under Operation Condor
- Political exiles to Sweden and western Europe
- Exiles to Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America
Countries touched, on present-day borders
Uruguay, Argentina, Åland, Mexico
Related entries
Sources
This entry rests only on reference, press or open-edited sources. Treat its figures as indicative and follow the links before relying on them.