RELIGION-URUGUAY: Jewish Community Joins Debate on ‘Disappeared’

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Raul Ronzoni

MONTEVIDEO, Dec 7 1997 (IPS) - Uruguay’s influential Jewish community broke its long silence and demanded to know the truth about the fate of those who were ‘disappeared’ during the 1973-85 dictatorship.

The remarks by Pedro Sclofsky, the president of the Israelite Central Committee (CCI), a Jewish community umbrella organisation, added an unexpected ingredient to the fruitless struggle of a number of political and social organisations.

But once again, the government and military immediately ruled out any possibility of a probe.

At a year-end reception Thursday, Sclofsky, without mincing words, turned to the bible to back the demands for information on the final destiny of the disappeared victims.

Sclofsky recalled “the efforts and concern of our patriarch Abraham for a place to keep the remains of his wife Sarah. A place where he could cry for her, remember her and honour her.

“The acts of the patriarchs are signals for their children,” and “as we understood the message,” the CCI adds its voice to “the concern that affects a number of families in our society who have suffered and are suffering due to the disappearance of their loed ones.

“We reaffirm our identification with the ethical principles of the Jewish tradition that consecrate respect for the rights inherent to human beings. Knowing the burial place of loved ones is one of those unalterable rights,” he stressed.

During the dictatorship, 33 people were ‘disappeared’ in Uruguay, and 132 Uruguayans suffered the same fate while in exile in Argentina, during that country’s 1976-83 military regime.

A law enacted a year after the restoration of democracy in 1985 and sanctioned by a 1989 plebiscite closed all cases against members of the police and military accused of human rights violations.

Although that law empowers the executive branch to investigate the final destiny of the ‘disappeared’ victims without identifying those responsible for their deaths, it has not chosen to do so.

The Catholic Church backs the demands by the families of the victims that their remains be located, even under the condition that those responsible for their murders would not be identified.

Sclofsky’s statements took those attending the reception by surprise, among whom figured former president Luis Lacalle, secretary-general to the president Elias Bluth, senators, deputies, other prominent political leaders and supreme court magistrates.

Throughout history, Uruguay’s political parties have worked hard to attrct the support of the Jewish community, not only for their votes but also for the significant campaign contributions provided by its members.

Sclofsky’s remarks brought varied reactions. Lacalle remained silent, although those close to him expressed displeasure. Bluth questioned the political viability of the demand.

“I greet you, but I don’t congratulate you,” Hugo Fernandez, a key senator of the ruling Colorado Party and possible presidential candidate for the 1999 elections, told Sclofsky.

Army commander Raul Mermot said “there are no possibilities” of investigating the fate of the disappeared. “There are no records, no evidence, no documentation,” he asserted.

Uruguay experienced “a very compartmentalised war” with “response actions which went beyond what was strictly established by regulations, unforeseen actions in an irregular war, and implicit in that irregularity were a host of personal postures,” he admitted.

The warmest reaction to Sclofsky’s remarks came from Senator Rafael Michelini, of the centre-left New Space party, who since March has been pushing unsuccessfully for a probe into the fate of the ‘disappeared’ victims, one of whom was his father.

Michelini, who claims to have reliable information on clandestine graves in two military barracks, has run into opposition not only from the government but from the judiciary as well, which invoking an amnesty law applying to the security forces dismissed charges brought by the senator.

The organisation of Relations of Detained-Disappeared victims described Sclofsky’s statements as “extremely important,” and urged the Jewish community to join the Catholic Church in demanding a probe into the fate of the ‘disappeared’.