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General Concedes Some Uruguayans "Missing" After 1970s Repression
A 76-year-old retired army general admitted to a newspaper that there are "clearly" people who went missing from the period of military dictatorship in Uruguay from 1973 to 1985.
And in a separate press interview, a former US diplomat said the military government had kept the US embassy informed, through unofficial channels, that those 'missing' individuals had been killed.
As the country's official Peace Commission continues its investigation into killings of political prisoners in that period, former senior army officer General Julio Rapela told El Pais newspaper, in an interview published Thursday, that he had not been able to clarify the manner of these 'disappearances', "because I do not have scope to do so."
"Whether we like it or not, that (repression of leftist guerrillas, trade unionists and members of leftist parties) was a war. And in that confrontation we all lost," he added.
Attempts by the government's Peace Commission to clarify what happened would merely keep Uruguayans fixated on the past, Rapela said. "That's why I think now is the moment to bring the curtain down and look to the future."
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