Stella’s early childhood memories are of a big house, noisy, full of music. Windows and doors always open, neighbors often popping in. This was early 1960s Uruguay, in a working class neighborhood of the capital, Montevideo.
Stella recalls that over the next few years “the sunshine started getting darker.” She became aware of her parents’ struggle to find food. At the shops, she would join long queues for a loaf of bread. Her brother would queue two people behind her, her mother further down, stocking up on as much as possible.
Over the 1960s, a stagnating economy, the formation of a radical guerilla group known as the Tupamaros, and increasing state repression produced a heightened sense of revolutionary possibility: a bloody dictatorship was the military’s only solution to contain popular energy for change.
Following the dictatorship’s disintegration in 1985, Uruguayans have reckoned with the legacy of a regime that disappeared hundreds, fighting to hold authorities responsible and preserve the country’s fragile collective memory. This battle is ongoing: a recent push to unearth human rights violations by the ruling center-left coalition, Frente Amplio, took place just days before the state’s secretariat for investigating dictatorship crimes was dissolved into a broader structure, potentially hindering investigations.
A Revolutionary Time
The Tupamaros’ militancy escalated throughout the 1960s as the authorities combated them with increasingly brutal measures. The National Security Doctrine, an ideology that justified military interventions into government rule by warning of an “internal enemy” to the population, was introduced to the armed forces. Widespread civilian protests also erupted in response to the economic crisis: at Stella’s school, older students would stop juniors entering the gates and encourage them to strike. The government soon invoked emergency powers, known as “Prompt Security Measures.” Strikers found their wages frozen and “discretionary” arrests were allowed.
In this hothouse of rising pressures, Stella threw herself into underground work. The house that had always been lively with family visitors now instead received a steady flow of activists for covert meetings. Citizens accused of subversion, both tried and untried, began to disappear; through either imprisonment, exile, or murder, but all likely preceded by torture.
On June 27, 1973, President Juan María Bordaberry ended Uruguay’s constitutional rule due to “‘criminal actions of conspiracy against the country,” despite the military having crushed the Tupamaros in 1972.
On June 27, 1973, President Juan María Bordaberry ended Uruguay’s constitutional rule due to “‘criminal actions of conspiracy against the country,” despite the military having crushed the Tupamaros in 1972. The National Security Doctrine was legally codified to define state policy around the “enemy within.” Even so, Stella continued her activities—puncturing military tires and handing out seditious leaflets—until one day, someone told her: “They know you and they know your house.”
A fellow activist with information about Stella had been caught. So, in 1974, at only 17, Stella fled Uruguay with her then-partner, Marcos*, for Buenos Aires. Occasionally she met with two Uruguayan activists in exile—a couple, the woman pregnant—who seemed high up in resistance leadership. After a month, they told her it would be safe to return home—whoever got captured obviously had not talked.
Stella and Marcos hurried back to surprise their families, planning to first visit Marcos’s father at the newspaper kiosk that he ran. But Stella felt ill, so instead they went straight to her parents—narrowly avoiding the armed forces, who had been waiting for Marcos at the kiosk. Somehow, they had known Stella and Marcos were back. The couple were sitting with Stella’s family when an employee of Marcos’s father arrived with this news. About to enter the kiosk, he had noticed the army van outside. Not a militant, but rather a friend of Marcos’s, he had rushed to warn him.
Marcos had been printing a seditious newspaper in the kiosk. While he and Stella managed to escape back to Argentina, many others were disappeared, including the pregnant couple that Stella met in Buenos Aires. Today, 205 Uruguayans are classed as desaparecidos (disappeared). The whereabouts of only 43 have been resolved by the the National Human Rights Institution and Ombudsman’s Office (INDDHH).
Memory Battles and Archival Work
Stella escaped persecution, and emigrated to the United Kingdom. She now campaigns passionately for the desaparecidos, helping Diáspora Uruguaya por la Memoria to organise an annual London March of Silence in their memory. The march was first established in Uruguay by Mothers and Families of the Detained-Disappeared (Familiares), the most prominent group advocating for Uruguay’s desaparecidos.
Very few of the dictatorship’s leaders have faced prosecution. In 1986, under duress from the military, the new democratically-elected government introduced the Expiration Law, providing immunity to the armed forces for dictatorship-era crimes. The government advised that reversing the law could provoke a military coup: consequently, referendums upheld it in 1989 and 2009. However, in 2011 the law was repealed by the Uruguayan government following an Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruling that found the law violated human rights.
Very few of the dictatorship’s leaders have faced prosecution.
In May 2026, I spoke with Patricia López Melo and Graciela Montes de Oca at the Familiares headquarters in Uruguay. They explained that military officers summoned by criminal or civil courts “always say they know nothing,” adding that “we know that among themselves, they hide the information.” When such information is requested by military courts, military officers comply, they said. Now, after a December 2025 order from Sandra Lazo, Uruguay’s Minister of Defense, the INDDHH is able to search the military’s archives. By May 2026, eight desaparecidos had been located.
The military’s vast records are designed to conceal illicit actions. Mariana Mota, head of the INDDHH, notes that it’s as if the military simply “open a door and you find a massive archive stretching for kilometers.” However, on June 22, the INDDHH gained approval to synthesize the military’s disparate archival data using the University of the Republic’s technology, which should accelerate investigations.
Yet Familiares are still pushing for Uruguay’s President Orsí to demand the military share all information they possess about the desaparecidos, emphasizing that this is “very different” from providing archival access. For example, non-archival information includes witness testimony. The archives may also be unreliable. Mota hopes that following Lazo’s December order there will be “assurance that [the archives] have not been modified”. The state must pressure the military to aid, not obstruct, the search for the disappeared.
State Reparations
The search could also compel the state to redress its own role in the dictatorship and subsequent obstruction of justice. López emphasizes that state policies have been designed to appease groups such as Familiares while enabling the state to evade full recognition of their crimes. In 2021, the IACHR ordered Uruguay’s government to perform a ceremony recognizing their role in the military’s 1974 “April Girls” murders of three young activists in Montevideo. The president did not attend the ceremony, and it was not broadcast either, even though, as López noted, “a reparatory act has to be known by the entire population for it to be reparatory.”
As with the ceremony, the state sometimes actively contributes to the culture of impunity. The INDDHH’s Mota used to be a judge for Uruguay’s Supreme Court of Justice, but in 2013, she was transferred to a civil tribunal without any explanation. Mota had been investigating 55 cases of dictatorship abuse, and she was transferred just months after the Expiration Law was overturned.
The state and the military have also weaponized policy and law to evade justice, creating an atmosphere where denialist narratives are able to take hold.
The state and the military have also weaponized policy and law to evade justice, creating an atmosphere where denialist narratives are able to take hold.
Systemic impunity in Uruguay hinders Familiares from building “historical memory” to prevent state terrorism recurring. This memory is resisted by the military because they “continue to be trained […] under the Doctrine of National Security,” and therefore believe military authority superior to civilian authority, despite the Doctrine being officially abolished alongside the dictatorship.
There is no public evidence that the Doctrine is in use by the military. However, it’s “what’s taught outside the books” that concerns Familiares. Some recently-retired military have built an alternative historical memory of the dictatorship in line with the Doctrine, through the far-right party Open Town Council (CA). CA denies that institutionalized state repression took place in Uruguay, and has argued for active military members to be allowed to hold public office, suggesting some active military share their beliefs. Some Uruguayans also believe a double standard works against the military, as the post-dictatorship state have not investigated Tupamaros crimes.
New Policies Affect the Campaign for Justice
On July 7, Frente Amplio proposed establishing judicial “truth trials”’ to “clarify human rights violations” during the dictatorship. Senator Eduardo Brenta, their primary advocate, explained that since truth trials would not involve prosecution, they could take place when regular trials are not possible—such as when the accused has fled the country or is deceased. According to the head of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes Against Humanity, Ricardo Perciballe, state actors “most responsible [for the dictatorship] have passed away unprosecuted”. However, although evidence uncovered during truth trials could be used in regular criminal trials, there are concerns that focusing on these might delay regular trials that could prosecute military members who are still alive. Nevertheless, Perciballe has indicated the scope of “truth trials” is “slim.” Familiares are not opposed to the idea, though they want the government to focus on “ending enforced disappearances.”
Familiares are more worried by Frente Amplio’s July 9 announcement that Uruguay’s Secretariat of the Human Rights of the Recent Past (SHRRP), tasked with investigating dictatorship crimes since 2003, is being subsumed into the Secretariat of Human Rights. The government declared this “does not imply any changes to responsibilities”; they have argued that since delegating the search for the desaparecidos to the INDDHH in 2019, the SHRRP has had a reduced, supporting role. However, Familiares and the Association of Former Political Prisoners of Uruguay (Crysol) declared that “we do not believe these decisions are accidental, neutral,” especially since the desaparecidos, their families, and associated organizations were not consulted beforehand. They “will not tolerate a thematic purge that fragments, reduces or dilutes” the state’s acknowledged responsibilities. Familiares met with the Secretariat of Human Rights and the Deputy Secretary of the Presidency on August 5 to discuss their concern “about the political signal sent by this reorganization”. Subsequently, the authorities asked for some more time to reorganize.
Frente Amplio have historically declared their alignment with Familiares’ campaigns, and on July 8 proposed a law suspending pensions for military fugitives from justice. However, impunity has manifested under their rule before, such as through Mota’s transfer from a criminal judge position and the March 2026 proposed reform of Uruguay’s criminal code, which suggested individuals convicted of human rights violations could petition for early release.
In May, López explained that the state is still not fully complying with IACHR orders that Uruguay prosecute dictatorship crimes. As Familiares pointed out on August 5, the IACHR ordered “more work with the people” to provide reparations. This perhaps has been avoided because, as López argues, Uruguay’s government feels pressure from the public more acutely than orders from international bodies. For this reason, Stella feels she has to “be the force of representation” for those victimized by the dictatorship. As López pointed out, armies worldwide continue to violate human rights with only lukewarm pushback from international establishments. Precisely because of this, it is key that the Uruguayan junta eventually see justice. Through the collective drive to defeat impunity, people like Stella, Mota and López move this needle forward.
Eva Newton is an aspiring investigative journalist interested in movements challenging capitalist and neo-colonial exploitation, particularly in Latin America. She is currently based in London, and has previously volunteered with the United Voices of the World Union, the Socialist Party and the Latin American Bureau. Her substack is @evanewtonwrites.