Uruguayan Ex-President Arrested

Police arrested former president-turned-dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry on Friday and held the 78-year-old former leader along with his foreign minister in connection with four "Dirty War" killings in 1976.

The arrest of Bordaberry and former foreign minister Juan Blanco opened a new chapter in efforts by this small South American country to grapple with the 1973-1985 dictatorship and its legacy of disappearances, tortures and the exile of thousands of political dissidents.

"It's the first serious step taken in Uruguay in many, many years since they recovered democracy and civilian control," Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas division at Human Rights Watch, told The Associated Press by telephone from Washington.

The arrests were ordered by Judge Roberto Timbal, who is probing the abductions and killings of two former lawmakers and two leftist rebels in May 1976 that shocked this small South American nation in the early throes of its long military dictatorship.

Leftist Sen. Zelmar Michelini and House leader Hector Gutierrez, two prominent lawmakers who tried to flee Uruguay's dictatorship, were seized from their homes in exile in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and their bullet-riddled bodies were found days later, along with those of the suspected guerrillas William Whitelaw and Rosario Barredo.

Human rights groups have long contended that the 1976 killings were the result of cooperation by South America's military dictatorships that was secretly supported by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Bordaberry's detention is the highest-profile arrest yet since Uruguay's first leftist president, Tabare Vazquez, took office last year promising to make human rights a priority. Asked about the case, Vazquez said "the justice system has spoken" but otherwise did not comment.

Before Vazquez came to power, Uruguay lagged behind its neighbors in prosecuting human rights cases. Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet is being prosecuted for various human rights abuses and Argentina's Supreme Court repealed its 1980s amnesty laws last year.

Now some judges, emboldened by the new government's human rights push, have determined that crimes committed outside Uruguay during the junta years did not fall under a blanket 1980s amnesty law that remains in effect, Vivanco said.

"The wall has fallen," said Hebe Martinez Burle, a lawyer representing the family of one of the victims. He predicted Bordaberry's detention would embolden still more judges to pursue more arrests.

In May, eight former military and police officials were detained in a probe of the slayings of two leftist militants in 1976. That came after months of excavation work and sleuthing by forensic anthropologists who — urged on by the government — uncovered the skeletal remains of two of 24 people still missing from the dictatorship.

Bordaberry's arrest came at the insistence of prosecutor Mirtha Guianze, who has been pressing to hold the former dictator accountable for the four deaths. Bordaberry also is being investigated for allegedly violating the constitution and otherwise abusing human rights during his rule.

Lawyers for Bordaberry and Blanco rejected accusations of any link to the killings, and will press in the days ahead for their release, Bordaberry's lawyer, Diego Viana, told The Associated Press on Friday.

Timbal's office did not comment on the announcement, as is customary with Uruguayan judges on criminal proceedings.

Elected democratically in 1971, Bordaberry dissolved Congress and banned political parties the following year at the behest of military leaders who seized power outright in 1973. The military eventually ousted him in 1976, and Uruguay remained under the control of a right-wing dictatorship until 1985.

Under the so-called Operation Condor, authoritarian governments worked together to crack down on rebels and political dissidents, resulting in the death and disappearance of unknown thousands.

Valentina Chavez, whose father Ubagesner was a communist militant killed in the 70s, rejoiced at the latest arrests.

"This signifies a start to ending the impunity" said Chavez, whose father's remains were among those recently recovered.