This article explains how Uruguay’s dictatorship didn’t start overnight with the 1973 coup — the state had already been using “security measures” since 1968 to suspend rights, arrest activists, and unleash death squads. Once the military took full power, the regime built a system based on torture, mass imprisonment, censorship, and political purges, pushing thousands into exile and disappearing nearly 200 people across the Southern Cone.
It also tracks how the dictatorship’s legacy still shapes Uruguay: decades of denialism, the fight over truth and justice, the rise of far-right groups like Cabildo Abierto, and the ongoing struggle to end impunity. Fifty years later, the demand for memory, accountability, and “Nunca Más” remains unresolved.
MATIAS JOFRE 