URUGUAY: Entire Country Mourns Loss of Leftist General Liber Seregni

By Dario Montero Reprint | | Print |

Darío Montero

MONTEVIDEO, Aug 2 2004 (IPS) - The historic leader of the left in Uruguay, retired General Líber Seregni – who spent most of the 1973-1985 dictatorship behind bars for his pro-democracy activities – died at the age of 87 in the capital of this South American country just as renewed controversy over his acceptability in military circles hit the headlines.

Seregni, cofounder of the left-wing Frente Amplio (FA – Broad Front) coalition in 1971, lay in state in the Legislative Palace with ministerial honours after his death Saturday.

Government officials, legislators and political leaders of all stripes as well as personalities from abroad were amongst the thousands who filed past to pay their respects. The funeral was held Sunday.

Presidents Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela sent floral tributes – only two of many, even though the General had told his family “I don’t want flowers.”

Seregni died after a long battle with cancer, 19 years after the return to democracy. But events surrounding a symbolic move designed to vindicate his military reputation showed that tension remains alive within the armed forces.

A decision by the current chief of the army’s second division to hang a photograph of Seregni in the gallery of honour, as he had been the commander of that division during his military career, did not go down well higher up the chain of command.

An urgent meeting of generals was convened, the division chief was arrested and there was a flurry of angry communiqués from officers’ clubs.

But the move was no more than the beginning of similar acts of reparations for “democratic” members of the military who, like Seregni, chose to distance themselves from active service in the armed forces in the late 1960s, when the military went beyond the bounds of their constitutional role, fighting left-wing guerrillas and repressing dissidents, in a dynamic that culminated in the 1973 military coup.

However, a communiqué from the Centro Militar officers club last Friday rejected “any measure which seeks to vindicate former members of the armed forces who with their attitudes contributed directly or indirectly in the past to producing regrettable fractures in the military family.”

Military opposition to the portrait led Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle – in his constitutional role as ultimate chief of the armed forces – to issue an explicit order Friday to leave Seregni’s picture in place.

In doing so, the president contradicted army chief Santiago Pomoli, who had argued that the photo must be removed because it was “bad timing”, since the country is in the middle of the campaign for the October elections, which the left is slated to win for the first time in history.

The conservative Batlle also attended Seregni’s wake accompanied by his entire cabinet and the commanders of the three branches of the armed forces.

There was a spontaneous outpouring of grief from ordinary Uruguayans of all political bents, expressed in calls to radio stations and spontaneous comments in the streets and other public places.

There was also unanimous rejection of the military brass’ resistance to the vindication of Seregni’s military reputation, 20 years after his release as a political prisoner.

For Uruguayans, the General was an eternal defender of democracy and tolerance, even in times when these social values were not greatly appreciated.

It was not easy to be a democrat and leftist in the 1960s and 1970s, a time when armed revolutionary movements were active throughout Latin America and military or authoritarian governments were common currency – in many cases funded and backed by the United States in the context of the Cold War.

Seregni retired from the army at the rank of general in 1969, when he was commander of the first division, because he refused to follow orders from the right-wing government of Jorge Pacheco Areco (1967-1972) to crack down harshly on street protests when the country was in the grips of a profound political, social and economic crisis.

Uruguay at the time was a strange case of a democracy squashed between the authoritarian regimes of Argentina and Brazil, but the system was sliding irretrievably toward a coup d’etat, with a flourishing guerrilla movement, continual labour and student activism and a repressive state response leading increasingly toward the suspension of civil liberties.

Meanwhile, Seregni became the first president of the FA, following its creation in 1971. “We are a pacifist and pacifying force,” was his favourite FA slogan when political violence was at its height.

The FA coalition brought together Marxist, social democratic and Christian democrat currents, along with splinter groups from the traditional Colorado and Nacional parties. Leftist movements in several other countries in the region also tried, often unsuccessfully, to create political alliances based on a few shared policy aims, hoping to thus become a viable political force that could come to power through the polls.

“The Frente Amplio is not a simple sum of parties and groups. It is the new awareness that will build a new Uruguay. Here are the people who have not lost faith, neither in themselves nor in the destiny of the country,” Seregni said in his first speech to a massive rally on Mar. 26, 1971, during the election campaign which brought Colorado party candidate Juan María Bordaberry to the presidency.

The new political force, which aimed to bring the longing for justice and social change into the political arena, took around 18 percent of the vote with Seregni running for the presidency.

From then on, despite fierce repression, the FA became more and more popular among voters.

This year, under the name of the Alianza Progresista – Frente Amplio (Progressive Alliance – Broad Front), the party is the poll favourite for the October elections.

But in 1971, the appearance of a united non-violent left-wing electoral option was simply not enough to transform the tense climate in the country. The elections were followed by the complete defeat of the Tupamaros or National Liberation Movement guerrilla movement, and the Jun. 27, 1973 coup d’etat.

Seregni was imprisoned by his former brothers in arms from July 1973 to November 1974. After a period of provisional liberty, he was imprisoned again in 1976, sentenced to 14 years in prison, and stripped of his rank. He was finally freed in 1984 during the dying days of the dictatorship.

Parliament reinstated him as a retired military officer following the restoration of democracy in 1985.

“Not one negative word, nor one negative slogan. We were, are and will be a constructive force, builders of this nation of the future. I only want to tell you again now how tremendously moved I am at this moment,” Seregni stated shortly after he was freed on Mar. 19, 1984.

“I would be lying if I didn’t tell you how many times in these long years I dreamt of the moment when the freedom that had been taken from me was restored. It is one thing to dream about it, and another to live it,” he said at the time, speaking from the balcony of his apartment to a large crowd, mainly made up of young people who had grown up under the dictatorship.

A long time had passed from his first arrest in 1973 for leading a large spontaneous demonstration against the dictatorship headed in those early years by constitutional president Bordaberry.

During that period, Uruguay held the world record for the number of political prisoners in relation to its three million-strong population. The death and exile of thousands of citizens and the forced disappearance both internally and abroad of nearly 200 brought this nation a tragedy similar to that of its South American neighbours.

From prison, Seregni fought to maintain the unity of the left in the face of attempts by some sectors – like the Communist Party – to form an alliance with the Nacional Party in the so-called Democratic Convergence.

He also led the movement for the blank vote, along with other sectors of the FA, when the coalition’s candidates were barred from the internal elections set up by the dictatorship, in which only the traditional parties were represented.

Seregni believed the left should not disappear nor allow a continuation of the two-party system after the return to democracy. He saw that system as counterproductive to democracy.

As the FA was banned from the first elections that put an end to the de facto regime in 1984, Seregni had to wait to stand in 1989. Although he ran for the presidency twice, he never sought legislative posts like other FA leaders.

He led the Frente Amplio until 1996, when internal discrepancies and the coalition’s decision to ignore agreements he had made led him to stand down as leader of the FA.

But Seregni remained active, expressing opinions, engaging in debates and prompting reflection both within the left and beyond, until he finally retired from public life last year.