Defense Minister, javier garciasaid that when he proposed releasing the dictatorship archives he thought he was going to be “supported by the entire political system,” but that the ruling party was met with “fear” and “nervousness” from leaders of the Broad Front “and from its own president (Fernando Pereira).” “They started saying buts,” he declared.
“For so many years we all demanded truth and justice, and when the whole truth is offered they tell us: “Not so much”“He declared in an interview with the weekly Búsqueda.
“I think that history can be more complex than many stories that have been built. It seems that it can complicate some. Now we are going to know the truth,” said the minister, who asked: “Could it be that some want to hide behind those things that are already saved so as not to know the rest of the truth?”
Garcia, in any case, acknowledged that he cannot “assert it” because he did not read “all the files.” “I can’t prove it because I have no way of proving it, but it seems to me that that kind of pact between the combatants that existed in the tragic moments of Uruguay continued over time. And the pact involved people who were in the Ministry of National Defense, because this pact of the combatants originated between the MLN and the coup military at the time,” he said in an interview published this Thursday.
“But, I do not understand that in previous governments, information that was here in the ministry has not been delivered, such sensitive information.”, he indicated. “When I arrived at the ministry in March 2020 We found requests for information made by relatives of victims that had not been expressly answered, linked to courts of honor, and the relatives had to reiterate those requests. We found answers pending from a year ago and I sent for the information and the information was given, including a military honor trial in 2006 on retired colonel Gilberto Vázquez.”
The bill sent by the Executive Branch to Parliament to make public the “archives of the dictatorship” reaches 153 sets of documents declared “reserved” for a period of 15 years by the General Archive of the Nationaccording to a 2011 resolution signed by its director Alicia Casas de Barrán.
Among the documents there lists of political prisoners, members of guerrilla groups, political prisoners lawyers, imprisoned, released, applicants to join the intelligence services and also collaborators of the regime.
Criticism of the project
The president of the Broad Front, Fernando Pereira, had said in the March of Silence on May 20 that With the publication of the files “without any doubt” the privacy of the families of the victims would be violatedreported Telemundo. “Victims of state terrorism must be cared for, not exposed. They can be revictimized again“, argument.
However, after García clarified that it can be reserved when there is sensitive information, Pereira valued it positively.
“You have to try to reconstruct the files as much as possible and make them publicly accessible without any problemas long as it doesn’t place someone who was a victim in a circumstance where they don’t want to be placed,” he said in Informal Breakfasts (Channel 12).
In the interview with Búsqueda, the minister pointed out that “the project establishes that when there is sensitive information, it can be reserved in accordance with the provisions of the law on access to public informationwhich, for example, states that Information that puts the life, human dignity, safety or health of any person at risk may be classified as reserved information.
On the other hand, crysolthe association of former political prisoners of Uruguay, manifested In a letter addressed to Garcia, his “discomfort” by the project. In addition, he pointed out that was not consulted to prepare the project and that the organizations of victims of State terrorism “are not even mentioned” in the text.
Compromise the ruling party?
At the end of the interview, García was asked if the files could also compromise ruling party leaders and he replied:
“Everyone has to take responsibility. We, who are white, from a generation that lived through the dictatorship, and yes, surely our names are there saying that we went to demonstrations, that we printed clandestine pamphlets, that we organized acts. Far from harming me, that honors me, having opposed the dictatorship honors me, it is my proudest past as a militant, having fought for freedom.”
