The National Institute of Colonization (INC) began to relieve dozens of documents that allow it to determine the legal situation of the property that is registered with the number 511, located in the department of Artigas. The organization seeks to determine, as quickly as possible, if the senator and leader of the Cabildo Abierto, Guido Manini Ríos, and his wife, the Minister of Housing Irene Moreira —owners of that land— have the status of settlers. The key: determine if they break the law, by not residing on the property or exploiting it directly.
It is a task that appears complex and has been marking the political debate in recent days. The survey goes from 1970, when the INC acquired that field, to 1997, when Manini Ríos became the owner of a fraction through a corporation.
In the middle, there is a “huge number of situations” that will have to be analyzed to define whether or not that property continues to be affected by the Colonization Law. Among them there are about 15 files, some of which -especially some from the early years of the 1970s-“You can barely read them.” So he told The Observer the president of Colonization, Julio Cardozo.
So far the only thing there is is a document put on the table by the senator involving, which indicates that the property “it is not suitable for colonization, nor does the buyer have a colonist profile”. It is a document that was delivered to his father-in-law, Roque Moreira, when he acquired the property in 1971 through a tender opened by the institution.
The interpretation made by Manini Ríos is that this paper shows that the field in question was no longer affected by Colonization since its sale. However, legally, it is not conclusive. Among other things because, as Cardozo explained, it lacks the signature of the directors of the institute, an essential condition according to the regulations to determine that a property was disaffected from the agency.
Therefore, the documentation that “really demonstrates” that Colonization disaffected the aforementioned property is still lacking. From the writing alluded to by Manini Ríos, the director specified, no transaction linked to the field went through the institute.
Cardozo raised some aspects that “draw attention” to the process. The main one: what the INC in 1970 decided to buy a 2,500-hectare field to sell it a few months later, considering that it did not have the conditions to be colonized. “When we buy a field, we check it thoroughly to see if it has the aptitude to be colonized,” said the current director.
On the other hand, he pointed out that in 2014 the INC updated all its financial statements. For that, a survey of all the properties of the institute was carried out. By this mechanism, he added, the registry of all the owner settlers was adjusted. Based on these results, he pointed out, There was never any warning about the legal situation of Manini Ríos. Before any suspicion of irregularity, he remarked, “The board of the time should have acted, noting that this property was subject to Colonization.”
Added to that, he considered, is the fact that the current senator was Commander-in-Chief of the Army for four years, between 2015 and 2019. “No one noticed that he was a settler,” Held.
trust was lost
Taking as good what Manini Ríos affirms, in the INC they are “on the middle path, looking for this to be clarified as quickly as possible,” said Cardozo, who regretted “the moment” in which this discussion arose. “It is interpreted with other intentions”, he pointed out, in reference to the fact that the issue falls in the final stretch of the campaign for the referendum on the Law of Urgent Consideration (LUC).
Through his lawyers, Manini Ríos requested full access to all files related to the case in order to eventually make his defenses. She will have to wait for the INC’s legal counsel to finish analyzing the results of the inspection carried out in the field. The work began this Monday and has a 20-day deadline.
The board, meanwhile, will meet this Wednesday to discuss the “leakage” of the contents of that inspection which, according to Search, determined that Manini Ríos and Moreira are settlers and therefore broke the law. The ruling party hastened to clarify that this result was not endorsed by the body and that it is far from constituting a final opinion.
In the session, Cardozo will declare that he “lost confidence” in the official in charge of that inspection, carried out by order of the director representing the Broad Front, Andrés Berterreche. Far from attributing responsibility to his colleague, the president remarked that the inspector “was the one who had custody” of the report.
