This Friday the 20th, it will be 46 years since the death of legislators Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz and exiled citizens William Whitelaw and Rosario Barredo.
For this reason, the director of the Human Rights Secretariat for the Recent Past, Matilde Rodríguez Larreta, reiterated the Government’s commitment to the fulfillment of human rights. “It is a day of reflection for our society,” she said.
The hierarch and widow of legislator Gutiérrez Ruiz maintained that the office under her charge receives complaints and consequently collaborates with the Judiciary and, specifically, with the Specialized Prosecutor for Crimes Against Humanity.
The dependency archive works on the reception, analysis, classification, systematization and digitization of documents. Likewise, it indicated that the search for the origins of people born in the de facto period who doubt their identity continues.
“From the secretariat we especially value any type of information that helps to clarify the facts. This is a humanitarian cause, and, above all things, we have the obligation to bring peace and answers to all the families of our country”, he stated.
In addition, it maintained that it interacts with the international system for the protection of human rights, such as the International Court of The Hague, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, UNESCO, and that the Uruguayan State is part of the Meeting of High Authorities on Human Rights. of Mercosur.
Remembrance of disappeared detainees
In her last conference, in 2020, Matilde Rodríguez Larreta valued that May 20, the date on which the disappeared detainees are remembered by the last civic-military dictatorship (1973-1985), is not just any day. “It ceased to be (exclusively) a very important day in our lives and families to be so in society” and became the date to honor the victims of state terrorism, she said.
On the occasion, he also expressed that, to the extent that work is done and it is borne in mind that these circumstances cannot be repeated, the work for human rights is permanent. “Human rights can be violated in a democracy and we must be very attentive to these circumstances,” he warned.
