Final Paper 169

PAPER Uruguay is a unique example to use when explaining why some military regimes allow for parties and legislature and others do not. According to both Geddes, Wright, and Frantz (GWF), and Gandhi (CGV) from the years of 1974-1984 it is listed as a military regime. Uruguay is unique because even though they are considered a military regime, and use lots of repression and torture in the beginning, it seems as if they always had the intention of returning Uruguay back to a democracy. In the 1970‘s the military began to use repression and torture against a very left wing urban guerrilla movement known as the Tupamaro. They started as nonviolent but once they began to take part in political kidnappings and assassinations the military stepped in and there were mass arrests of members of the group as well as disappearances and torture. The repression tactics used against this group then lead to repression of the population and political parties because of the military not being satisfied with civilian rule. The military regime completed its takeover in a bloodless coup in 1974 in which power was given to them after President Juan María Bordaberry, of the Colorado party, agreed to the Boisso Lanza Pact. This pact guaranteed the current governments advisory role and participation in political decisions. The creation of the National Security Council, the executives advisory board, was made up of mainly military officers. The military began to be investigated because of their use of torture by the General Assembly at the same time they received their final approval of State Security Law. Bordaberry, backed by armed forces, dissolved the General Assembly and replaced it with the Council of the State.1 This was when we saw a major change in policy and the new, largely military government began to lose the support it originally had from some political parties. They began to replace institutions with their own in order to remain the same if you only looked at government structure and not actual policies and how policy making went about. The military regime began to use “preventive” repression tactics, many people went missing, were jailed, or found dead during this time who were accused of politically motivated crimes. In the executive position we saw the military replace leaders whose views did not fall in line with the militaries replaced. The military had no intention of making themselves a permanent dictatorship like some executives such as Bordaberry wanted. The military revealed its political plans in 1977 stating that they were going to purge the National and Colorado parties and create a new constitution. There would still be national elections but there would only be a single candidate that was agreed on by both parties, and the military was going to have veto power over all government policy. The Broad Front as well as other groups rejected this proposal when it went to a national vote. In the beginning we saw cooperation between the government, military, and institutions in order to gain a sense of political stability. This eventually led to complete military control, when we saw political parties rise against them and be taken down by the military. During this time we saw lots of repression and torture used on the population, and especially opposition parties. This ties in with Gandhi’s theory on the repression of political parties based on their strength and size. We see in Uruguay’s case that since they took down the only strong opposition, the left wing Tupamaro, they had no reasons to make concession in policy with other outside groups. According to Gandhi there is a clear relationship between acceptance of political institutions and strength of opposition. Once there were no strong opponents left to fight the military they began to focus their energy on changing current institutions and political parties to mold in to the plan they had. The military regime never completely banned political parties but they did have

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