Latinnews Archive
Latin American Weekly Report - 23 November 1973
Uruguay: snakes and ladders
Although the pro-Brazilian right-wing of the armed forces still seems to be ascendant, there are various signs of continuing internal problems which prevent any positive action being taken, and could herald a new institutional crisis.
Colonel Ramon Trabal, the chief of Uruguay's army intelligence, who played a key role in last year's very successful operations against the Tupamaros, and has since been in the forefront of efforts to expose and prosecute dishonest businessmen, is very likely to find himself appointed military attache in Paris. If this happens it will be a signal victory for President Juan Maria Bordaberry and the commander-in-chief of the army, General Hugo Chiappe Posse; both are anxious to put the brakes on Trabal's investigations into businessmen who were so deeply involved in both ex-President Jorge Pacheco Areco's government and multi-million dollar frauds.
The relevance of these investigations to Bordaberry, who was Pacheco's minister of agriculture, became clear at the beginning of this month when Jorge Echeverria Leunda, a former director of the central bank and a leading private financier, was arrested for interrogation by the military prosecutors who are handling the case of former foreign minister Jorge Peirano Facio. Echeverria was at the time considering Bordaberry's invitation to join the still phantasmagoric council of state. Bordaberry was furious at his arrest and managed to secure his release. The President then nominated Echeverria as a delegate on the Argentine-Uruguayan commission which is considering the project to build a hydroelectric dam complex at Salto Grande on the Uruguayan river. The episode undoubtedly sharpened antagonisms within the government apparatus, and political observes said at the time that either Bordaberry or Trabal would have to go. Once Trabal is out of the way, if indeed his removal is secured, then the road would be open for an attack on General Gregorio Alvarez, the chief of the combined general staff and secretary of the national security council.
According to nationalist military sources, United States ambassador Ernest Siracusa is playing an important role in behind the scenes manoeuvres. He is said to be strongly urging the need to maintain the civil-military front, and implies that the United States feels more able to help Bordaberry-Chiappe Posse than any other combination.The nationalists, of course, resent this bitterly. And even such right-wing nationalists as Generals Esteban Cristi and Eduardo Zubia are cooperating in efforts to trim Chiappe Posse's sails. There is an important distinction to be made between Chiappe Posse's Colorado antecedents and the Blanco origins of most of the other leading generals. Furthermore, all the generals commanding army divisions, Cristi, Zubia and his brother Rodolfo, and Cesar Vadora, all belong to the herrerista sector of the Blanco Party. The founder of this splinter group, Luis Alberto de Herrera, was bitterly anti-Anglo Saxon, and a close friend of President Peron. He was hostile to the allied cause in the second world war, opposed the signing of defence agreements with the United States after the war, and also opposed (until the last moment) the United States resolution in the Organization of American States to impose a blockade on Cuba.
These herrerista generals have succeeded in institutionalizing weekly meetings of senior officers to discuss national problems. This collegial procedure was unsuccessfully resisted by Chiappe posse, who saw a threat to the vertical structure of the armed forces, and hence to his own authority. Among the themes which are most vigorously discussed is the stark fact that the government is still virtually inoperative, despite the summit meetings of San Miguel which were meant to lay down concrete guidelines for future policy. The nature of the confrontation is fully appreciated in Buenos Aires, and Peron's surprise visit to Montevideo on Monday was undoubtedly intended to strengthen the hand of the divisional commanders.
In fact this visit succeeded almost too well. According to some observers, no less than 300,000 people packed the streets of the capital and the square under the Estevez palace in what nobody could doubt was a massive popular repudiation of the Bordaberry government. Indeed the crowd took up the chant of 'Peron, Peron, saviour of America' with such persistence and volume that the noise interfered with the talks between the two Presidents going on inside. Peron twice appeared on the balcony with his arms outstretched, to deafening cheers, while Bordaberry stood glum and silent beside him. 'Never have the Uruguayans been so peronist', declared one observer. Clearly Peron's visit seriously weakened Bordaberry's position, but it remains to be seen who will benefit.
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