On June 27, at 11:00 am, in the city of Nueva Helvecia, a street person will be nominated as “Rear Admiral Oscar Lebel”, a son of that town and a key bulwark in the democratic construction of our country.
This is how the deputy of the Broad Front for Colonia Nicolás Viera began his presentation in the Media Hora Previa.
These were his words.
Captain Lebel had an outstanding career in the National Navy and resisted the dictatorship from day one when he went out to the balcony of his house in uniform and placed the National Pavilion and the Artigas flag accompanied by a sign that read: “I am Captain Oscar Lebel. Down with the dictatorship”.
In June 2001 he was retroactively promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral, in recognition of his loyalty to the Republic.
Next June 27 marks the 49th anniversary of the fascist coup d’état in Uruguay. The beginning of a civil and military dictatorship that lasted 12 long years.
June 27 has allowed national history to mark a milestone in the long corollary of events that preceded that date and others that occurred after it, but that in no way can be summed up exclusively in the image of the coup plotters entering the hall of Lost Steps, symbol of our freedom and our Democracy.
And this society, in which we live today, is the fruit of that past… plagued by constraints, stepping on the ground watered by the blood of our compatriots murdered by repression and tyranny…
Because we are also children of the Uruguay that we do not want, of which we must not forget, of the country that continues to cry out for MEMORY, TRUTH, JUSTICE and NEVER AGAIN.
A good part of our people, in one way or another, experienced first-hand the weight of despotism. Many others suffered its consequences. But we all profess, from the political and cultural level, the same conviction that arises from reality: in Uruguay the State kidnapped, tortured and murdered men, women, adolescents, children… without hesitation: whether they were workers, businessmen, professionals, students …
That is called STATE TERRORISM.
No other idea that removes this concept from the center can have a place in democratic Uruguay, in the Uruguay of the great agreements, in the Uruguay that defends Human Rights.
I say this, Mr. President, because sometimes the usual sleepers appear out there, those who with their attitudes and symbolism continue to vindicate the “Death Squad”, continue to call what was the cruelest of Dictatorships a “process”. they continue with the unfounded theory of the two demons, calling the true traitors of the Fatherland as republicans and honest.
And there is no possibility of turning any page because they are commitments that cross generations and have a laudable goal: to achieve justice, emotional and spiritual peace, and fully comply with international commitments on Human Rights.
Until justice arrives where it has to arrive, until clandestine burials are uncovered and until the last of our compatriots appears, there will be no possible peace that is filled with beautiful slogans.
The men and women of our Latin American land who confronted the most diverse forms of terrorism, the Condor Plan and the oppressive empire are also part of our demands and of the undying cry of “Present”.
The landmark of next June 27 marks the moment where we give it visibility, as a society, at a time that no Uruguayan or Uruguayan wants to live again.
For this reason, the fact that on June 27, somewhere in our land, compatriots gather to remember what happened, is the first attitude of looking to the future with one’s feet in the present.
We will be there, in Nueva Helvecia, symbolically but significantly remembering a citizen: Oscar Lebel, who, like thousands of Easterners, raised their voices to demand Democracy.
We are a country of peace, free, democratic and profoundly humane. These are the flag that we intend to continue raising.
