South America's War Criminals Face a Growing Clamor for Justice
As Uruguayans commemorate the disappeared in their annual March of Silence, political pressure mounts to account for the atrocities of Operation Condor.
By Jeff Abbott
May 27, 2023 Z Article
7 Mins Read
Source: The Progressive Magazine
Chile's President Gabriel Boric is among South American leaders taking action on longstanding impunity for war criminals. (Photo: Vocería de Gobierno)
Thousands of people took to the streets across Uruguay on May 20 to participate in the March of Silence, a yearly event that commemorates those who were disappeared during the military dictatorship between 1973 and 1985. Under the banner of “Where Are They?” marchers demanded justice for those who were subjected to human rights abuses.
The families and loved ones of those who are missing have been marching since 1996, but the clamor for justice has grown louder throughout South America in recent years, nearly a half-century after a coup d’etat brought Uruguay’s military dictatorship to power and the U.S.-backed terror campaign of “Operation Condor” to the entire region.
“It has been growing year by year,” Martín Fernández, a lawyer with the Instituto de Estudios Legales y Sociales del Uruguay, which has represented victims of the dictatorship, tells The Progressive. “More and more, a lot of people are coinciding in [this] moment of silence, demanding that the situation of those detainees [who were] disappeared be clarified.”
The annual march is held on May 20 to commemorate the assassinations on that date in 1976 of several notable Uruguayan dissidents: politicians Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz; as well as militants Rosario Barredo and William Whitelaw. All were killed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they were residing in exile.
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