Copyright by Emma Elizabeth Whittington 2018

The Thesis Committee for Emma Elizabeth Whittington Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis:

“READ THIS AND PASS IT ON”: A History of Mimeographed Resistance to the Uruguayan Dictatorship

APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:

Ann Twinam, Supervisor

Ciaran Trace

“READ THIS AND PASS IT ON”: A History of Mimeographed Resistance to the Uruguayan Dictatorship

by

Emma Elizabeth Whittington

Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degrees of

Master of Science in Information Studies and Master of Arts

The University of Texas at Austin May 2018 Dedication

This project is dedicated to Uruguay’s closely intertwined movimientos syndical and estudiantil, both of which have profoundly shaped the contours of political action and discourse within the country.

Acknowledgements

This master’s thesis would not have been possible without the support of a number of individuals and organizations. The Tinker Foundation and the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies provided me with the financial support necessary to conduct fieldwork in Montevideo in July and August 2017. While there, a number of scholars, historians, and political activists welcomed me into their workplaces and homes, generously providing their recollections of mimeograph production in the 1960s and 1970s. In particular, I thank Francisco Sanguiñedo, Carlos Zubillaga, Jorge Voituret, Vicente Cremanti, and multiple afiliados of the PIT-CNT who allowed me to interview them. Thanks also to the tremendous team of archivists who helped me conduct my research, going out of their way to ensure I had access to the documents I needed: Mónica Pagola, Vania Markarian, and Sandra Pintos all come to mind, though many others have worked to ensure the long-term preservation of these documents. Finally, I thank my host in Montevideo, Gonzalo, for opening his home to me and for sharing wine, food, and a tranquil space to think.

v Abstract

“READ THIS AND PASS IT ON”: A History of Mimeographed Resistance to the Uruguayan Dictatorship

Emma Elizabeth Whittington, M.A./M.S.I.S. The University of Texas at Austin, 2018

Supervisor: Ann Twinam

Scholars have paid scant attention to the mimeograph’s role in influencing social change, despite the fact that such media have long allowed counter-narratives a space for expression. This dual degree Master’s thesis explicitly addresses this gap in historical literature by using a case study to explore how mass duplication technologies have enabled flyers and leaflets to make serious interventions into dominant political narratives. Specifically, the case study examines how, during the 1960s and 1970s, Uruguayan leftist protestors used mimeograph machines to produce a large corpus of political propaganda that harshly criticized the country’s authoritarian rule. Not only did these missives sharply critique the country’s leadership, but they also diffused otherwise-censored news, organized increasing-illegal demonstrations, and promoted solidarity efforts that consolidated the Left into a cohesive political project.

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vi Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction to Topic and Aims ...... 1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1 POSITION IN THE FIELD ...... 3 WHY URUGUAY? ...... 4 LIMITATIONS ...... 9

Chapter 2 Methodology ...... 10 ARCHIVAL RESEARCH ...... 10 IN-PERSON INTERVIEWS ...... 12

Chapter 3 A Climate of Contestation ...... 16 AN ECONOMY IN RUIN ...... 16 THE SYNDICATES ALIGN THEMSELVES ...... 17 THE STUDENT MOVEMENT GAINS SPEED ...... 20 PROTEST IN THE STREETS ...... 25 US AND URUGUAYAN LEADERSHIP WATCH CLOSELY ...... 29

Chapter 4 A Frenzy of Flyers ...... 31 FLYERS TAKE FLIGHT ...... 32 THE POWER OF THE VOLANTE: A GENRE STUDY ...... 35 VOLANTE PRODUCTION METHODS: OFFSET PRINTING ...... 38 VOLANTE PRODUCTION METHODS: MIMEOGRAPH MACHINES ...... 39

Chapter 5 The Decline of Democracy ...... 45 GESTIDO BECOMES PRESIDENT ...... 45 PACHECO TAKES OVER ...... 48

THE RAID ON THE UNIVERSITY AND THE ASSASSINATION OF LIBER ARCE51 THINGS GO FROM BAD TO WORSE ...... 55 A RIGGED ELECTION USHERS IN A DICTATOR ...... 58

vii Chapter 6 The Mimeograph in the Midst ...... 64 THE GOLPE DE ESTADO ...... 64 RESISTING AFTER THE GOLPE ...... 65 WHAT’S NEXT? FUTURE AVENUES OF INVESTIGATION ...... 68

Bibliography ...... 70

viii Chapter 1: Introduction to Topic and Aims

INTRODUCTION

This dual degree masters thesis focuses on the material dimensions of popular resistance and the technological processes that facilitate them. Specifically, this project examines how, in late 60s and early 70s Uruguay, student activists and labor unions leveraged their access to mass duplication technologies to resist the country’s turn towards authoritarianism and its eventual dictatorship, which officially began June 27, 1973. In the years leading up to and including the dictatorship, flyers, posters, and other ephemeral documentation produced using mass duplication technologies such as mimeograph machines played a key role in denouncing state sponsored violence, diffusing news, and organizing protests against the brutal regimes of Jorge Pacheco Areco and, later, Juan Manuel Bordaberry. As armed forces installed increasingly repressive measures — including shuttering major news outlets — such amateur documentation took on critically important dimensions. This project argues that duplication technologies played a key role in facilitating Uruguayan resistance to authoritarianism, offering this case study as a means of drawing larger conclusions about the ways in which print modalities can inform a society’s ability to intervene in dominant political narratives. Key is the socio-technological component of this history — the role that mimeograph machines played during the 60s and 70s.1 To that end, primary research questions include: How do print modalities inform a movement’s ability to intervene in a dominant political narrative? How, in times of great political censorship and repression, can action be mobilized, and discourse framed, through access to technology? In posing

1 The mimeograph machine, developed in the 19th century, operated as a precursor to the Xerox-style photocopiers that today dominate print reproduction markets. 1 these questions, this research hopes to expand scholarly understanding of how Latin American print culture has operated during periods of intense repression and political turmoil. The story of mimeograph production opens with Chapter 3, “A Climate of Contestation.” This chapter sets the scene by providing background information on the structural factors that lead to the gradual deterioration of political and economic stability within Uruguay. It then establishes a strong precedent for active political protest within the country, focusing on key examples of how successful protest efforts engendered real change in the country. Chapter 4, “A Frenzy of Flyers,” introduces flyers as a critical mode of political protest used widely by protestors on all sides of the political spectrum. It then considers flyer production from a technological standpoint, showing how access to specific print techniques like offset and mimeograph facilitated a particularly potent form of political intervention. Chapter 5, “The Fall of Democracy,” characterizes the use of political protest flyers during the nation’s slow descent towards dictatorship. In the years leading up to the official 1973 “Golpe de Estado,” a series of events transformed Uruguay from a nation where protest could be performed visible in the street to a nation where expressing dissent could have deadly consequences. In this hostile atmosphere in which official news sources were increasingly shuttered, access to discrete, do-it-yourself forms of protest proved critical. “The Mimeograph in the Midst,” the sixth and final chapter, discusses underground mimeograph production after the 1973 Golpe by examining the aims of post-Golpe flyers produced in clandestine locations. The chapter concludes with an analysis of how technology influenced and impacted protestors’ ability to make their voices heard, considering the enduring legacy of the mimeograph and identifying future avenues of research this project hopes to take up.

2 POSITION IN THE FIELD

This master’s thesis is firmly situated at the intersection of Latin American Studies, History, and Information Science. It draws from relevant currents within each field to interrogate how print technologies impact historical actors and outcomes. Specifically, it stresses the importance of studying material culture and technology, a concept gaining increasing traction in both in history and information fields. While historians have always relied on documents to show evidence of historical activity, the field has tended to prioritize the content of documents rather than their material dimensions. But in recent years, historians have paid increasing attention to the role that material culture and technology have played in influencing societal change.2 Professional organizations such as the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) host annual conferences bringing together scholars from across the world to share research about the intersection of history and technology, and a number of publications related to the relationship between history and technology have also emerged. For instance, Technology and Culture, the preeminent journal of the history of technology, specifically prioritizes the “historical study of technology and its relations with politics, economics, labor, business, the environment, public policy, science, and the arts.”3 Today, specialized tracks of study such as the “History of Science and Technology” (HST) occupy visible roles within history departments at such prestigious institutions as Brown, UC-Berkeley, Harvard, Rutgers, MIT, and Johns Hopkins, to name a few.4 This uptick in formalized,

2 Dan Hicks, “The Material-Cultural Turn,” in The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010): 25-98. 3 “About Us.” Society for the History of Technology. Accessed April 20, 2018. https://www.historyoftechnology.org/about-us/. 4 “Departments and Programs of Study.” Society for the History of Technology. Accessed April 20, 2018. https://www.historyoftechnology.org/doing-history-of-technology/departments-and-programs-of-study/ 3 technology-focused history programs offers new possibilities for researching how technological capabilities impact historical moments. Histories of science and technology also intertwine with the field of Information, and numerous iSchool departments now offer interdisciplinary courses analyzing the relationship between society’s access to technology and its outcomes.5 Here at the University of Texas, the iSchool’s own quarterly publication, Information and Culture: A Journal of History explores “the interactions of people, organizations, and societies with information and technologies.”6 These closely related currents of scholarship give a voice to the importance of an object’s physicality, offering researchers the opportunity to think critically about how interactions with technology and its byproducts affect daily lives. Within this discourse, the format of a mimeograph, its shape and size, and the way in which it can be distributed all become important avenues for investigation.

WHY URUGUAY?

Simply put, Uruguay figures as a site for research because of this researcher’s proximity to a collection of Uruguayan documents that had yet to be written about in any great detail. The Nettie Lee Benson’s “Collection of Uruguayan Political Propaganda” comprises around one thousand documents created by and about a “broad range of organizations and interest groups” within 1960s and 1970s Uruguay. The documents include flyers, pamphlets, newsletters, official documents, communications and correspondence “created primarily during the presidencies of Jorge Pacheco Areco and

5 “Course Descriptions.” University of Texas School of Information. Accessed April 14, 2018. https://www.ischool.utexas.edu/courses/course_descriptions. 6 “Information & Culture: A Journal of History.” University of Texas School of Information. Accessed April 12, 2018. https://www.ischool.utexas.edu/research/information-and-culture-journal.

4 Juan Maria Bordaberry.”7 Over 130 Uruguayan political unions and grassroots organizations are represented, amounting to 995 documents in total. This includes well known organizations and political parties such as the Convención Nacional de Trabajadores, the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional-Tupamaros, and the Frente Amplio, all of whom have been studied extensively for their actions during the country’s period of political instability. Perhaps more surprising is how many circulars and flyers, often called volantes, were produced by student-affiliated groups. These groups operated out of the Universidad de la República, the country’s oldest and most important public university. Some, like the Federación de Estudiantes Universitarios Uruguay (FEUU), produced extensively throughout the years leading up to the dictatorship. Others, whose acronyms are unknown even to archivists, only produced five or 10 flyers. The collection is ripe for analysis for several reasons. First, it is rich in ephemeral material illustrating the priorities and actions of multiple socialist-oriented groups operating within a specific historical moment. This is rare, not only because of the number of distinct perspectives and currents of thought it preserves, but also because the kinds of documents it contains are not the type typically preserved. Protesters designed circulars and flyers to meet a specific purpose — one that was both contextually and temporally located. These are documents produced for mass distribution in the streets or for passing hand-to-hand through clandestine channels. They were not authored with longevity in mind, they were made in a specific moment to fulfill a specific need. As such, they bare footprints, markings, and other clear, physical signs they circulated en masse, providing a unique opportunity to examine physically both the materiality and the content of these missives.

7 Michelle Bogart, “Collection of Uruguayan Political Propaganda, 1963-1984,” accessed October 19, 2016. https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utlac/00274/lac-00274.html 5 Beyond relative ease of access to these materials, historical research about Uruguay’s recent past is both necessary and logical for several reasons. While the aftermath of the Cold War and ensuing Dirty War have produced a rich historiography centered around Southern Cone histories, Uruguay is often either a) neglected entirely in the discussion or b) assumed to have followed the same historical trajectory as Argentina. By focusing specifically on Uruguay, this research project is able to look with greater specificity at the country’s unique historical legacy, while recognizing overarching shared themes of the 20th century narrative. Why now? Within Uruguay, conversations about the legacy of the ‘recent past’ are increasingly taking shape, influenced by the proliferation of national reconciliation efforts, transitional justice initiatives, and truth commissions over the past several decades.8 The past 50 years have also witnessed a flourish of formalized archival studies programs within Uruguay, highlighting an awareness of the need to preserve systematically artifacts from the past. This archival turn is best reflected in the creation of new archives and scholarly centers whose formation is facilitating forms of research previously impossible. One such example is the Centro de Estudios Interdisciplinarios Uruguayos (CEIU), housed within the Universidad de la República’s Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación. The university founded the CEIU in 1985 with the specific intention of creating an interdisciplinary center of investigation related to the recent past and the dictatorship. In addition to providing annual courses about topics such as “critical and radical thought,” “memory studies,” and “political and social history,” the CEIU publishes a digital journal, Encuentros Uruguayos, and manages an archive of documents related to

8 From 2000-2002, the Uruguayan government created a truth commission — widely recognized as a symbol of transition justice — to “investigate and report on human rights abuses,” helping to “seek recognition for victims and promote possibilities for peace, reconciliation, and democracy.” And, in 2011, the Uruguayan parliament overturned the country’s controversial “expiry law” (ley de caducidad) that had granted impunity to those who participated in perpetuating state sponsored violence. 6 the “recent past,” including materials on political parties, human rights organizations, unions, exile, international solidarity movements.9 In October 2017, the CEIU celebrated the opening of arm of archival documentation efforts: the Archivo DNII, the historical archive of the Dirección Nacional de Información e Inteligencia (National Directorate of Information and Intelligence). The DNII, first established in 1967, operated as the nation’s central intelligence agency in the years leading up to and including the dictatorship, recording the day-to-day movements and activities of individual citizens and political organizations through the surveillance of churches, private meetings, theaters and cinemas.10 The coordinating efforts of the DNII facilitated some of the most flagrant human rights violations in the nation’s history. The CEIU’s opening of the DNII archive — made possible by an agreement between the Ministry of the Interior, the Secretariat of Human Rights for the Recent Past of the Presidency of Uruguay and the University of the Republic — represents one of the most significant moments in the country’s effort to reconstruct the history of its repressive era. The successful completion of this project will not only allow unprecedented possibilities for researching the recent past, but, more importantly, will aid the nation’s continuing effort towards reconciliation and justice. At the same time that governmental policies and new archives increase our ability to study this period of history, influential scholars are formalizing new programs of inquiry. In 2010, the Universidad de la República’s Sectoral Commission for Scientific Research initiated the creation of GEIPAR, the Group of Interdisciplinary Studies on the Recent Past.

9 “Encuentros Uruguayos Revista Digital,” Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación, accessed May 1, 2018, http://www.encuru.fhuce.edu.uy/ 10 “Dirección Nacional de Información e Inteligencia (DNII),” Guía de Archivos y Fondos Documentales, MERCOSUR Derechos Humanos, accessed April 15, 2018, http://atom.ippdh.mercosur.int/index.php/direccion-nacional-de-informacion-e-inteligencia-dnii

7 The organization brings together interdisciplinary researchers from across the University, consolidating a field of studies on the recent history of Uruguay and countries of the Southern Cone of Latin America. In particular, the group has focused its concerns on the comparative study of the crisis of democracies, political violence, dictatorships and processes of transition to democracy. Some key researchers in this field include Universidad de la República faculty members Carlos Demasi, Alvaro Rico, Aldo Marchesi, and Vania Markarian, among others. There is another reason to study this aspect of Uruguayan history now, in 2018. The documents that drive this thesis still retain a living connection to their creators. In fact, many of the individuals whose materials survive in archival repositories continue to be involved in the reconstruction of collective memory and many maintain active roles within the university and local governance. The benefit of working in this moment is that it is still possible to hear from these originators, allowing investigators to produce a stronger type of historical research — one that does not only use documents but also excavates the history of documentary production through interviews with the individuals who create it. Finally, working with a collection of authorless, anonymous texts offers an opportunity to reconstruct history from a ground-up or “desde abajo” perspective, rather than focusing on how politicians and the state constructed and influenced history. Scholars have paid substantial attention to how those at the top framed their pursuit of evermore repressive measures against the Uruguayan populace, analyzing the language of official decrees, and combing through declassified correspondence between members of the armed forces. This thesis is more concerned with how the common man understood and absorbed the impact of Uruguay’s growing political and economic crisis. How did the people on the ground — those most brutally affected by the country’s period of authoritarianism and state-sponsored violence — think, feel, activate and respond? 8 LIMITATIONS: WHAT THIS THESIS IS NOT

From a practical perspective it has been necessary to narrow the scope of this topic significantly. This thesis is not an examination of why the dictatorship happened. Nor does this project relate these historical events to the history of other countries, though it does recognize that, in the context of the global Cold War, Uruguay’s authoritarian period closely intertwined with the dictatorial regimes that emerged elsewhere in Latin America — particularly in Argentina and Chile. Instead, the goal has been to concentrate on the retelling of key events and to provide just enough context to help readers understand the real focus of this project: the impact of mimeographed political flyers.

9 Chapter 2: Methodology

The research conducted for this project divides into two stages: Archival Research and In-Person Interviews. All research took place in Austin, TX and in Montevideo, Uruguay between 2016 and 2017.

ARCHIVAL RESEARCH

I conducted archival research at repositories both in the United States and in Uruguay. The first collection of documents I analyzed is housed at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection. The archive, the “Collection of Uruguayan Political Propaganda,” consists of 3 standard size archival boxes of paper-based materials as well as one box of oversize materials. I photographed the contents of these boxes during the Fall 2016 semester. After reviewing and analyzing the Benson’s mimeographed protest flyers, which were created by a wide range of actors and illustrate multiple perspectives, I realized I needed to conduct further archival research in order to triangulate my data and verify that the conclusions I was reaching were supported by the documents. To that end, in February of 2017 I applied for and received grant funding from both the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies and the Tinker Foundation to conduct additional archival fieldwork in Montevideo, Uruguay. I spent a total of three weeks in Montevideo, from late July to early August, accessing various archival sources at repositories throughout the city, primarily those held at various departments within the Universidad de la República, the country’s oldest and most influential public university. The Universidad de la República (UDELAR) is home to numerous fonds/”fondos” of archival materials residing at a number of smaller repositories embedded within the university’s various departments. At the Archivo Central Universitario, I viewed

10 documents related to the Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de Educación. These documents pertain to the administrative and academic functions of the Facultad de Ciencias y Humanidades and included documents produced by the Federación de Estudiantes Universitarios Uruguayos (FEUU), who were some of the most prolific producers of resistance documentation in the years leading up to and during the dictatorship. At the Archivo General de la Universidad (AGU), too, I consulted documents pertaining the history of the FEUU. The scope of AGU’s collecting proved a bit outside my own research interests; their records focus on administration functions within the university including programs of study and did not contain the kinds of mimeographed propaganda relevant to this research project. I then visited the Centro de Estudios Interdisciplinarios Uruguayos (CEIU), which also maintains an archive. The center was founded in 1985 as an area of research and teaching focused on the study of the recent past and the dictatorship in Uruguay from an interdisciplinary approach. Their research areas focus on studies about the country’s dictatorship, social history, and the “recent past”, critical and radical thought, and memory studies. Their archive keeps documentary material of the recent history of Uruguay about political parties and organizations, human rights organizations, trade unions, and the dictatorship. At their archive, I looked at documents from the fonds donated by Aldo Marchesi, which included documentation from the early to mid 80s during Uruguay’s transitional return to democracy. The last UDELAR repository I visited was the Departamento de historiología’s “Archivo de propaganda política,” embedded within their Instituto de Historia. This collection, in particular the fonds of professor and historian Enrique Mena Segarra, proved instrumental in providing a counternarrative to the leftist student/syndicate propaganda I 11 had seen this far. The collection includes right-wing and conservative responses to the political and world events which occurred in the 60s and 70s, and revealed that actors on all sides of the political spectrum turned to mass duplication technologies as a means of transmitting their ideologies. Finally, I visited the Archivo General de la Nación, where I was able to view a collection of mimeographed flyers and leaflets produced by a number of organizations (the Frente Amplio, FEUU, Communist Party, CNT) during the 1970s, after the official start of the dictatorship. This collection of documents aided construction of a more thorough timeline of mimeograph production because these documents were produced later on in the dictatorship than most that I had initially seen at the Benson. Back in the United States, I visited the LBJ Presidential Library to view State Department documents produced during the Johnson Administration. The “Uruguay” file from the “Country Files” sub-series — located in the National Security Files series of the Presidential Papers — revealed extensive collaboration between the US and Uruguayan governments during Uruguay’s turn towards authoritarianism.

IN-PERSON INTERVIEWS

In addition to my archival research, I spent time in Montevideo actively seeking and interviewing a range of actors related to this period in Uruguayan history. Due to the nature of my topic of research, I was exempted from requiring IRB oversight by the University of Texas’s Office of Research Support and Compliance.11 The first person I spoke with was Francisco Sanguiñedo. Sanguiñedo is a historian and former professor at the Universidad de la República (UDELAR). He is also the author

11 Urme N. Ali, “Study Number 2018-01-0069; Determination - Not Human Subjects Research,” email message to author, February 21, 2018.

12 of La FEUU Ayer y Hoy: Setenta años de documentos del Movimiento Estudiantil Uruguayo, a compilation of transcribed documents produced by the FEUU over a 70 year period. From 1996 to 2006, Sanguiñedo directed a project within the Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación titled “Unidad Polifuncional sobre Problemas Universitarios (UPPU). The UPPU project began in 1996 and spent 10 years creating a space for the study of the university’s own history by building a collection of primary source archival materials now held at the Archivo Central Universitario — flyers, documents, newspapers related to the history of the university. This “rescate y reconstrucción” of more than 40,000 folios facilitated Sanguiñedo’s decision to publish Ayer y Hoy, providing the public with printed access to the original founding documents of the FEUU throughout its activity — 70 years (1929-1999).12 Most importantly to this project, Sanguiñedo was an active member of the FEUU during his own time as a student. He entered UDELAR in 1957 and served as the FEUU’s Secretary General in 1960. Later, during the country’s escalatory period of repression, he actively participated in the production of printed protests documents such as mimeographed flyers and circulars. The interview proved instrumental in helping me reconstruct the methods through which both student groups and syndicates leveraged their access to mass duplication technologies in the service of resisting authoritarianism. Through Sanguiñedo, I made contact with several other sources, including Vincente Cremanti and Carlos Zubillaga, both of whom had played active roles in the governance of the Universidad de la República during the period I examine. I first met with Cremanti to

12 Francisco Sanguiñedo, La FEUU Ayer y Hoy: Setenta años de documentos del movimiento estudiantil Uruguayo (Montevideo: Universidad de la República Uruguay, 2014). 13 ask about his time as a student and his recollection of mimeograph machines and related technologies. I then interviewed prominent professor and historian Carlos Zubillaga. Zubillaga has played an important role within UDELAR, having graduated from the Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Universidad in 1973 and twice served as dean of the college, from 1989-1997. He has taught numerous history courses, and contributed heavily to the contemporary Uruguayan historiography and the New Historicist current of scholarship. He also founded the Departamento de historiología’s “Archivo de propaganda política, which he ran for many years. Next, I spoke with scholar Aldo Marchesi, current director of the CEIU, who has written extensively about political violence and the Latin American Left during the 60s and 70s. We spoke informally about his donation of materials to the CEIU archive and his own memory of how flyers and other printed documents figured into legacy of the post- dictatorship Uruguay. My final interview was with Jorge Voituret. Voituret is an active member of the CNT and was able to describe in great detail the methods by which the CNT collaborated with other subsidiary unions and UDELAR students to resist the dictatorship in a variety of ways. He has been greatly involved in national efforts to preserve and remember the dictatorship. A political prisoner during the dictatorship, he serves as a chairman of the Asociación de Amigas y Amigos del Museo de la Memoria. Voituret has a background in graphic design and has taught courses on the use of propaganda within unions; he is incredibly knowledgeable about various production methods resistors occupied, from woodblock prints to screen printed posters to homemade crayons used to write on walls. He is part of the CNT’s present-day efforts to build an archive of relevant documentation, and helped to curate Afiches callejeros: La memoria en los muros, a 2011 exhibit at the 14 Biblioteca Nacional displaying posters that were hung in the streets of Montevideo to resist the dictatorship during the 1970s.

15 Chapter 3: A Climate of Contestation

The 1960s ushered in a wave of upheaval within Uruguay, with its citizenry using this transformative period to call for great change. Throughout the course of the decade, public protest and heated debates took center stage, incited by both global and local factors. It is against this backdrop that political participation — in all its varied forms — rose to prominence. This section establishes the motivations for and modes of protest that predated Uruguay’s gradual turn towards authoritarianism, introducing key characters along the way.

AN ECONOMY IN RUIN

Throughout the 1960s, a swirling cast of discontented characters levied widespread critique against their country’s leadership. Uruguayans, like so many others influenced by the global revolutionary movements following World War II and in the context of the Cold War, felt intense dissatisfaction with their country for a number of reasons. One of the biggest was economic. Since the mid-1950s, the once prosperous welfare state had struggled with an economic crisis characterized by income stagnation, a large fiscal deficit, widespread inflation, unemployment, a “steady loss” of gold reserves and growing external debt.13 The crisis dramatically reduced the quality of life of working-class Uruguayans and created a growing mass of economically disadvantaged citizens, generating heated public and private debates about how the economic crisis should be handled. For the traditional Blanco and Colorado parties, resolving economic issues would require strict adherence to “battlismo,” a Uruguayan political ideology first espoused by politician José Battle y Ordóñez in the early 1900s. Battlismo contended that in order for a

13 Christian Anglade and Carlos Fortin, eds. The state and capital accumulation in Latin America. Vol. 1. (London: Macmillan, 1985), 158. 16 country to develop, the state must control basic aspects of the economy through state-run monopolies and broad social laws. It was no surprise that Blanco and Colorado leaders advocated for battlismo-esque policies. The early successes of Uruguay’s welfare state had generated large government surpluses and an “expansion of the state apparatus,” allowing both the Blancos and the Colorados to use the gains to “redistribute resources to their constituencies.”14 This system of kickbacks bolstered their belief that the state should maintain a strong role in the economy; the beneficiaries of the welfare state had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. But global forces had other plans for the small country, whose traditional export industries of wool and meat and over-extended socioeconomic programs proved “unprepared to handle the strain of renewed economic competition brought on by the reopening of global markets in the wake of World War II.”15 By 1961, the Blanco-led government felt impelled to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help, entering into an austerity program that proved wildly unpopular among Uruguayans and quickly mobilized widespread opposition among a number of left-wing parties who rejected the government’s turn to austerity measures and foreign intervention from the IMF.

THE SYNDICATES ALIGN THEMSELVES

Members of the nation’s growing movimiento sindical (syndicalist movement) proved some of the most vocal opponents of the Blancos’ approach to economic reform.

Syndicalism suggestied that industries should be owned and managed by the workers

14 James Raymond Vreeland, The IMF and Economic Development. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 43. 15 Christopher A. Woodruff, “Political Culture and Revolution: an analysis of the Tupamaros’ failed attempt to ignite social revolution in Uruguay.” Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, January 4, 2008. http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/etext/llilas/ilassa/2008/woodruff.pdf 17 themselves, proposing extensive labor unions as a means of replacing aristocracy through workers strikes. The movement, rooted in anarcho-communist ideology exported from Spain and tailored to fit Uruguayan conditions, believed strongly that establishment participation in austerity measures would only further cleave the divide between the government — who they criticized as an oligarchical group of “latifundistas” — and the country’s middle class laborers. So, in 1964, several of the nation’s syndicates (including trade union members from numerous industries) banded together to create their own coordinating body of subsidiary members, calling themselves the Convención Nacional de Trabajadores (CNT). The founding of the CNT represented an attempt to create cohesion among groups that had previously operated as distinct political currents, uniting delegates from the Communist and Socialist Parties as well as autonomous syndicates and anarchist organizations. The formation of the CNT demonstrated a clear commitment to transform the movimiento from a splintering of perspectives into a cohesive project that would advocate for real change, collapsing the division across ideological lines that previously siloed various groups on the Left. To that end, in 1965, the newly-formed CNT held a conference devoted to discussing possible solutions to the nation’s economic crisis: the “Congreso del Pueblo,” or People’s Congress. Included in the Congreso were various small businesses, educational and religious groups, and producers, “basically all of the social sections that you think of as on the side of the People — all those who were not the grandes dueños del gran capital.”16 A total of 707 organizations attended, including student leaders, agricultural co- ops, local churches and industry-specific unions. The People’s Congress proposed a program to reverse the crisis in the country; their immediate demands for the Blanco

16 Francisco Sanguiñedo in discussion with the author, August 2017. 18 government included improved housing, salary, and health conditions for workers, as well as proposals for structural changes like agrarian reform and the nationalization of refrigeration and banking industries. The formation of the CNT showed the government — as well as the watchful eye of countries like the United States — that alternative approaches to reconciling that nation’s political and economic system could gain traction. More importantly, though, constituent members of the CNT emphasized the importance of huelgas (strikes), manifestaciones (protests), and widespread propaganda distribution to diffuse their beliefs and critique those in power. These practices, already well- established within the country, had picked up considerable steam in the late 50s when economic issues first galvanized the populace and inspired unions to coordinate with greater efficiency. By the early 1960s, unions increasingly made demands on the government, marching in the streets to insist on wage increases, better labor conditions, and other resources the economic situation had forestalled

17 Figure 1: Sanitation workers on strike in Montevideo, (Figure 1). 1965. Protests also found great sympathy among members of the country’s burgeoning movimiento estudiantil (student movement), which operated out of the Universidad de la República (UDELAR) — the country’s oldest,

17 Aurelio González, 186. 19 most important, and only public university.18 Together, these groups would work in solidarity to reimagine political protest and engender an increasingly turbulent, politicized atmosphere within Montevideo.

THE STUDENT MOVEMENT GAINS SPEED

The main organizing body of the movimiento estudiantil was the Federación de Estudiantes Universitario (FEUU), founded at the Universidad de la República in 1929. The FEUU operated as a coordinator between various facultades within the university,

deeply committed to the promotion and health of university autonomy and self-governance. And, just like members of various unions the CNT coordinated, the FEUU felt anger towards Uruguayan leadership. This anger stemmed from a number of causes — some historical, some contemporary, some local, some global. Part of the FEUU’s anger was brought on by disputes over funding that, in a healthier economic climate, would have been earmarked for university use; the nation’s overextended economic situation had significantly cut the university’s pre-

Figure 2 UDELAR manifestation for increased budget, 1957- supuesto, or budget and drawn 1973. students into the street to protest

18 In the 1960s, UDELAR boasted an enrollment of somewhere between 15,000 to 18,000 students (source: “Datos Básicos del VII Censo de Estudiantes Universiatrios de Grado, Año 2012). In 1963, Montevideo’s population was estimated at 1,202,757 inhabitants. These statistics highlight the extent to which UDELAR impacted higher education within Uruguay, serving to form the intellectual class of both the Left and the Right (source: “Variables estadísticas relevantes durante el Siglo XX”). 20 (Figure 2).19 The government’s lack of support felt like a violation of the FEUU’s most fundamental principle: the right to exercise autonomy over their budget, curriculum, and governance. In fact, University autonomy represented a flashpoint issue for the FEUU and indeed for the movimiento estudiantil writ large — the entire movement had been born out of the 1918 Reforma de Córdoba in which students at a conservative, Catholic-controlled Argentine university demanded autonomy over the administration of their university. Before the “reforma” movement, which spread like wildfire across the Southern Cone, the clergy and the upper class, lettered elites had controlled educational curriculum, funding, and admittance. But successful organization in the form of strikes and had proved prosperous, inspiring outspoken students to believe that their activism and demands could yield real change. For instance, in 1958 the FEUU had successfully used protest to create the “Ley orgánica,” ushering in the ability to elect their own teachers, grant free education for all, and establish autonomy in all aspects of university life. One of the most significant achievements of the Ley Orgánica had been the creation of el “cogobierno,” a system by which students and faculty were granted equal status and opportunity to elect university leaders, hire professors, and set curriculum — without interference from the “bourgeois” state. The FEUU’s commitment to autonomy and its desire to wrest power from the hands of the country’s conservative, traditional ruling class made them natural allies of movimiento obrero, also known as the syndicalist movement. In the years leading up to the country’s turn towards authoritarianism, students aligned themselves strongly with working class causes. But their sympathy and solidarity towards the workers movement

19 Magdalena Figueredo et al. “Breve historia del movimiento estudiantil universitario del Uruguay.” Facultad de Hunanidades y Ciencias de la Educación. (Universidad de la República de Uruguay: 2008) 13, http://www.isef.edu.uy/files/2012/12/Historia-de-la-feuu.pdf. Figure 2 image from Gonzalez 119. 21 was also owed to another factor: the outset influence of the 1959 Cuban Revolution. The Revolution’s fiery, anti-imperialist rhetoric reverberated throughout Montevideo and indeed all of Latin America, playing a key role in igniting activism by providing a ‘successful’ model for ousting oligarchical power and foreign influences. Students in particular saw themselves reflected in Cuba’s revolutionary fight for independence. After all, it was Cuban students who had lead the 1957 attack on the Presidential Palace in Havana, with student leader José Antonio Echevarría — president of the Federación de Estudiantes — attempting the assassination of Batista. Sanguiñedo recalled:

The Cuban Revolution provoked a huge change within Uruguayan youth. There was an alignment [between Cuban and Uruguayan student groups] that today seems absurd. The FEUU even went so far as to have their own secretary of ‘asuntos cubanos’ in the 60s, and many persecuted Cuban students came to Uruguay.

By the early 1960s, widespread support for the Cuban

Revolution reached a crescendo among students and union

members — though, crucially, not among the Uruguayan

government. Instead, Blanco leadership increasingly

aligned itself with United States. During the January 21,

1962 Organization of American States (OAS) meeting in

Punte del Este, Uruguayan leadership outraged the Left by

Figure 3 Protestors hold picket signs at a voting to exclude Cuba from the group.20 Though the pro-Cuba rally, September 1964. decision had certainly satisfied US Secretary of State Dean Rusk — favorably positioning

20 “Eighth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs” meeting minutes, Organization of American States, Punte del Este, Uruguay, January 22, 1962. Accessed May 3, 2017 http://www.oas.org/columbus/docs/OEAsercii.8eng.pdf 22 Uruguay for future aid from the mighty United States — students and union members angrily protested, holding up large picket signs baring messages such as “NO ROMPER

CON CUBA” — “do not break ties with Cuba” (Figure 3).21

According to Sanguiñedo, a final factor may have influenced the growing dissent and dissatisfaction among Uruguay’s students and workers: Marcha. Since the 1930s, the

Uruguayan leftist newspaper had cultivated a strong current of intellectual debate with explicitly “nationalist and Latin American dimensions.”22 Student groups read the publication widely, particularly because its founder, Carlos Quijano, had initially cut his teeth leading the Federación de Estudiantes that had later became the FEUU. In fact, in the

1960s — when the FEUU’s weekly newspaper La Jornada switched formats — it was

Marcha’s rotary press they rented to print their weekly run of 50,000 copies.23 Marcha signified a break from the traditional norm that Uruguayan print media adopt either a

Blanco or Colorado political stance and Quijano published pieces that harshly criticized both spectra of the country’s landed elite.

In addition to giving students a newfound, post WWII political awareness, key strands of thought espoused by both Quijano and leaders of the Cuban Revolution started sewing a deep distrust of US leadership. A 1959 visit by Fidel Castro further solidified the

Left’s growing desire for revolutionary revolt, and condemnation of the “imperialist’

United States increasingly played out in protests and manifestations — so much so that the

21 Gonzalez 143. 22 Sanguiñedo. 23 Ibid. 23 FEUU met US President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1960 visit to Montevideo with widespread hostility and even organized attacks. When the president’s caravan passed the Facultad de

Arquitectura, situated along the city’s main thoroughfare (Avenida 18 de Julio), a group of students lowered a poster bearing saying, “Get out Yankee imperialist! Viva la Revolución

Cubana,” before riot control blasted them with geysers from their water cannons.24 Student also accompanied their attacks on Eisenhower with written condemnations, and a March

1960 edition of the FEUU’s weekly publication Jornada included the following statement:

[…] We, the students and the people, refuse to welcome the American President. We will repudiate him and the policies of the State Department, the great American [money] trusts […] and we will shout our message over the imperialism Mr. Ike so well represents: ‘WE DON’T LIKE IKE’ […]25 Not surprisingly, the Uruguayan Left had also criticized heavily the country’s participation in United States foreign policy endeavors such as the Alliance for Progress. The project, a large and multi-national attempt to support capitalistic growth and development throughout Latin America, had been initiated by the administration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. Punta del Este had hosted the conference.26 And of course, students and unions condemned United States intervention in Vietnam, viewing the war as a symbol of how imperialistic nations dominated the self- determination of smaller, less influential countries. They were also disgusted by the lengths their leaders were willing to go to remain in the US’s good graces. For example, in August of 1965 the Blanco leadership approved a symbolic payment of $8,000 in aid to the people of South Vietnam after having been strong-armed into supporting the war efforts. US

24 British Pathé, "Eisenhower in Uruguay (1960)," YouTube Video, 1:58, April 13, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdLBwOh76JI 25 Magdalena Figueredo et al. 15 26 John F. Kennedy, “Inaugural Address to Inter-American Economic and Social Council” (speech, Punta del Este, August 1961), https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Alliance-for-Progress.aspx. 24 officials had used their ability to provide financial aid as a bargaining chip to garner support for the fight in Vietnam, deliberately shaping aid packages to meet their own diplomatic goals. An August 8, 1965 telegram from the US embassy in Montevideo to the Secretary of State in Washington noted the “coincidence of Vietnam crisis […] may provide opportunity for some effective action which might help bring Uruguay into line both politically and economically.” Observing that “broke” Uruguay needed “immediate financial relief,” US ambassador Henry A. Hoyt made an explicit proposal to Executive Council that Uruguay “agree and authorize assistance to Vietnam.” If the Executive Council met his demands, the US government would agree to provide extensive financial assistance: “In return for such actions USG would agree to extensive financial assistance (I have in mind a total package of $200-250 million).”27 This capitulation to the demands of US foreign policy would not stand. Protesters

Figure 4 Manifestation in picketed widely using homemade signs to denounce “Yanki” solidarity with Vietnam, Montevideo, March 1965. presence in Vietnam (Figure 4).28

PROTEST IN THE STREETS

The FEUU’s alliance with the goals of the CNT led the two groups to collaborate extensively in the production of propaganda. Artistically-inclined students lent their time and talents to the needs of union causes, often becoming members in the process. In an interview with the author, Jorge Voituret, a life-long member of the CNT who witnessed

27 Ambassador to Montevideo Henry Hoyt to US Secretary of State Dean Rusk and US President Lyndon B. Johnson, August 8, 1965. Incoming Telegram. National Security Files, LBJ Presidential Library, Austin, TX, Country Files, Box 74. 28 González 149. 25 and participated in these collaborations first-hand, recalled the great extent to which students at the Universidad’s “Instituto Escuela de Bellas Artes” (Fine Arts Department) assisted the movimiento sindical:

Bellas Artes did a lot for the movimiento. From a propaganda point of view, they made a big impact, because they had a group called “los plásticos” — people who were specifically trained to make attractive propaganda. [They] had campaigns they called ‘Campañas de sensibilización visual’ in which they picked a topic and then went to a neighborhood or a factory and painted all the walls. And they painted with really attractive colors that grabbed attention, with designs that were well made and looked good.29

Other forms of propaganda also gained traction in the 1960s. Installation-based protests brought visibility to union demands, inviting participants to bring theater and prop- based activism into the streets. Voituret gave examples of the various manifestation tactics protesters employed:

In 1962, there was a really big strike by the frigoríficos (Figure 5).30 Student participants from the facultad de agronomía and the facultad de veterinaria came to the protests to denounce the situation. One time, they brought a truck full of livestock and let them all go. They threw a whole truck of cattle on the [Avenida] 18 de Julio. There were many of these kinds of things that today are called ‘installations,’ putting costumes on Figure 5 Police rake straw and hay brought in by monuments and things like that.31 students protesting the treatment of meat packing plant workers, 1962. At individual unions, too, propaganda production flourished, and every union had their own aparato de propaganda — their own method for producing propaganda. These aparatos coordinated all kinds of political

29 PIT-CNT member Jorge Voituret in discussion with author, August 2018. 30 González 135. 31 Ibid. 26 interventions, from organizing massive protests to screen printing large posters they plastered onto facades throughout Uruguay. Such efforts relied heavily on an ecosystem of sympathetic activists uniting in solidarity, collaborating to help their fellow union members gain the supplies needed to diffuse their messages:

You know those big rolls of newspaper paper? When a press, a newspaper press, had a roll with only a little left on the spool, they would bring [the CNT] the leftovers. These leftist papers would give it to their compañeros who worked there, who would then bring it to the unions. So that was one way of getting paper for very cheap or even free, and with that paper they made big banners that they painted and glued to walls. They also used that paper to make posters for hanging — posters, flyers, banners with text in big fonts that were super visual (Figure 6).32 33

Figure 6 Students during a school At the same time that members of the CNT and the occupation demand budget increases, 1957-1973. FEUU ramped up their coordination of propaganda production, yet another organization was working to bring students and unionists into the fold. The Movimiento de Liberación-Tupamaros (MLN-T), whose members referred to themselves as the Tupamaros, had been making major strides in the quest to derail Uruguay’s traditional two-party power structure. The Tupamaros were an urban guerilla organization founded in the early 1960s by

Raul Sendic, a Marxist trade unionist who’d gained notoriety organizing exploited workers from the sugarcane industry — nicknamed “cañeros” — to march from the country’s rural departments to Montevideo to demand better treatment and improved working conditions. During Sendic’s 1961 to 1963 marchas cañeras, members of the FEUU showed their

32 Voituret. 33 Image from Gonzalez 132. 27 support by holding solidarity strikes and even publishing official declarations of solidarity.34 The Tupamaros held contempt for the Uruguayan government, viewing it as an oligarchical group of ineffectual cronies. Heavily influenced by the legacy of the Cuban Revolution, they combined strands of anarchism, Maoism, socialism and Marxism to harshly condemn their country’s “latifundista” leadership. For the Tupamaros, political participation required direct action, and the group increasingly resorted to wild tactics and attention-grabbing schemes to condemn the current political economic situation. By the mid-1960s, the Tupamaros had grown in notoriety for looting stores and attacking foreign- owned businesses with homemade bombs before redistributing their caches of stolen food and arms in a Robin Hood style. As economic instability brought further frustration to Uruguayan citizens, the Tupamaros’ popularity soared; many members of the movimientos estudiantil and obrero affiliated themselves with the MLN-T. 35 The overlapping priorities of these organizations and the coalescing of their members through coordinated protest efforts increasingly alarmed both Uruguayan and US leadership, who witnessed the Left’s consolidation of power firsthand. For instance, a January 1967 CIA intelligence report submitted in preparation for a “Summit of the Americas” meeting in Punta del Este warned Washington that the Partido Comunista de Uruguay (PCU) intended multiple “acts of sabotage” to disrupt the summit. Earlier that week, a telegram from the US embassy in Montevideo had reported: “At approximately 1240 hours local today an explosive device detonated in the street level entrance to the

34 Figueredo et. al. 215. 35 Sanguiñedo. 28 building housing the embassy offices.”36 In addition to acts of violence, the CIA also reported a widespread propaganda campaign against Johnson’s presence in Uruguay.

US AND URUGUAYAN LEADERSHIP WATCH CLOSELY

By the latter half of the 1960s, intelligence agencies predicted that terrorist acts of sabotage might provide a “dangerous spark” to student and labor demonstrations, creating a threatening situation for the government. They also noticed an alarming correlation between economic deterioration and leftist gains. A January 26, 1967 research memorandum addressed to US Secretary of State Dean Rusk posited that, in recent years, “Uruguayan communists have been making increasing significant inroads into the Uruguayan trade union movement.”37 By capitalizing on recent labor issues plaguing the economic situation, the communists had so successfully expanded their base they now exerted “substantial influence” on unions and represented a “large majority of organized labor.” Hughes concluded, ominously: “Uruguay’s basic problems can be and are exacerbated by the continuing efforts of the [Communist Party] in pursuit of its basic strategy of political agitation and subversion aimed at causing […] an ‘opening of the left’ that could lead to a United Front government with communist participation.”38 By 1967, up to 80% of organized labor had affiliated with the communist-controlled Convención Nacional de Trabajadores (CNT), influencing student groups, intellectuals, and even some members of the executive cabinet.39

36 Henry Hoyt to Dean Rusk, January 25, 1966, National Security Files, LBJ Presidential Library, Austin, TX, Country Files, Box 74. 37 Assistant Secretary of Intelligence and Research (INR), Thomas L. Hughes, to Secretary Rusk, January 26, 1967, Department of State Research Memorandum, National Security Files, LBJ Presidential Library, Austin, TX, Country Files, Box 74. 38 “Situation in Uruguay” Department of State Telegram, August 8, 1968. National Security Files, LBJ Presidential Library, Austin, TX, Country Files, Box 74. 39 “Situation in Uruguay” Intelligence Memo, October 13, 1965, National Security Files, LBJ Presidential Library, Austin, TX, Country Files, Box 74. 29 The early 1960s were a period of great change for Uruguay. The once prosperous nation found itself embroiled in an economic crisis that cleaved deep divisions between traditional Blanco and Colorado leaders and their increasingly radical and leftist counterparts. Influenced by global events like the Cuban War and its accompanying ideology, student members of the FEUU rallied alongside anarchist and communist labor unions, as well as the burgeoning Tupamaro guerilla movement, taking to the streets to oppose the nation’s dependency on IMF-imposed austerity measures, as well as to criticize their ‘oligarchical’ leadership. These disputes played out through a slew of participatory protests, strikes, and marches. They relied on dramaturgy in the form of immersive street plays, spitting on “yankee” presidents and using leftist outlets like Marcha to call for reform and flesh out alternative ideas of how the country could relieve its woes, which were increasingly felt by its workers yet rarely felt by its elite. Such conversations reshaped the contours of political discourse throughout the region and threatened Uruguay’s historically friendly ties to the United States, a nation well-poised to provide much needed financial aid to struggling Uruguay. At the heart of all of these modes of participation was a technology the FEUU, MLN-T and CNT already had handy and had been using in the service of their daily living: the mimeograph machine. The technology offered a fast, cheap means of duplicating and distributing volantes and circulars — one of the key ways in which protesters made their voices heard. The next chapter tells the story of the mimeograph machine through its use by the FEUU and the labor unions, setting the stage for the chapter of repression that would soon sweep the nation into a bitter civic-military dictatorship.

30 Chapter 4: A Frenzy of Flyers

Chapter 3 portrayed a rich landscape of political activism in which dissatisfied activists practiced dissention in all of its forms — from publishing leftist newspapers like Marcha to publicly unleashing livestock and condemning US Presidents. Throughout the 1960s, local and worldwide events spurred on Uruguay’s most discontent and encouraged them to take an active role in the governance of their small and democratic country. But a strong written form of propaganda also accompanied these demonstrations: flyers —known as “volantes” — distributed en masse for striking visual impact. In photos of the decade’s protests, such flyers, usually printed on small sheets of paper, littered the streets long after their creators had finished their marches and returned home for the day — or been driven out by riot control (Figure 7).40 In fact, surviving volantes bare footprints, stains, and other ephemeral markings illustrating the active lives they led throughout the decade’s widespread, in-person protests. Figure 7 Undated image of riot control using water cannons to drive protestors out of Montevideo. Flyers litter the ground. This chapter introduces volantes as an instrumental component of the country’s political activist history. First, it considers volantes as a propaganda genre uniquely suited to the needs of political protestors. It then considers the technology behind

40 Aurelio González, “Images from Fui Testigo,” Centro de Fotografía Montevideo, ISSU, accessed May 1, 2018, https://issuu.com/cmdf/docs/fui-testigo. 31 volante production, focusing on how specific technological innovations — primarily, offset and mimeograph printing techniques — proved instrumental in allowing protestors to create and distribute this form of propaganda. Although both techniques facilitated volante production, it was the mimeograph in particular that allowed protesters to create customizable, do-it-yourself messages cheaply and without the assistance of professional print services. This affordance would later prove critical as the government’s increasingly authoritarian attempts to quell dissention during the last few years of the 1960s drastically curtailed protestors’ ability to organize freely — a topic discussed in greater detail in the following chapter.

FLYERS TAKE FLIGHT

Flyers occupied a visible role in the nation’s protests, supporting the in-person efforts described in Chapter 3 and further helping to consolidate union among the Left. They were a ubiquitous aspect of political participation, as evidenced by the sheer number of organizations who incorporated flyer production into the propaganda techniques. For instance, during the visit of President Eisenhower described in Chapter 3, flyers can be seen lining the streets as he passed by, further reinforcing the protester’s messages of distaste for the “Yanki” visitor.41 Volantes were not only produced to support high profile, international protests like the one against Eisenhower. Just as often, flyers accompanied smaller scale demonstrations in which activists addressed local concerns. For instance, the undated flyer in Figure 8, created by the Asociación Estudiantes de Medicina, speaks about a topic on the hearts and minds of many Leftists in the 1960s: government regulation of one of the nation’s

41 British Pathé, Youtube video of Eisenhowe visit, 1:40. 32 important industries, the frigoríficos, or meat-packing plants.42 The flyer likely accompanied the protest Sanguiñedo recalled in Chapter 1 (pictured in Figure 5), in which a group of UDELAR students released live cattle onto the streets of Montevideo in solidarity with the Figure 8 Flyer produced to support meat-packing plant workers, undated. frigoríficos’ demands for better working conditions. In it, students condemn the “oligarchical” government and accuse Uruguayan leadership of trying to sabotage the meat industry in order to better facilitate speculation by big-name capitalists. Flyers also brought attention to internal issues plaguing organizations. The undated flyer pictured in Figure 9 publicizes the Universidad de la República’s increasingly worrisome financial situation, pointing out that the University will be forced to close if the government cannot pay the 950 million pesos of funding owed to the institution.43 The flyer’s authors accuse the government of willfully giving this money to “grandes latifundistas” (large landowners) instead of fulfilling their

Figure 9 Flyer condemning university spending, undated. duties.

42 Collection of Uruguayan Political Propaganda. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, The University of Texas at Austin. Box 1. 43 Collection of Uruguayan Political Propaganda Box 1. 33 Students and union members were not the only ones using flyers to bolster in- person strikes and demonstrations. Extremist organizations like the Tupamaros also relied heavily on printed flyers to disseminate their beliefs, and by the mid 1960s the MLN-Ts radical terrorist acts were increasingly accompanied by mass distributions of pamphlets that explained their movement’s aims. Consider, for example, the first documented appearance of an MLN-T pamphlet on August, 9, 1965. A mass of volantes was distributed at the Bayer’s Montevideo headquarters, where the MLN-T detonated a bomb that broke glass and damaged the building. The pamphlet’s message was aggressive:

Death to the Yankee assassins who participate in the murderous interventions in Vietnam […] The Nazi company Bayer is helping the gringo interventions by supplying toxic gasses. Get out, gringos. Long live Vietcong. Long live the revolution: TUPAMAROS.44

Not only did the volante serve to inform readers about the Tupamaros’ beliefs, but it also operated as the Tupamaros’ signature, ensuring the group received proper attribution for their efforts. By 1967 the Tupamaros were printing material advocating for a socialist revolution that would use armed forces and oppose the peaceful transfer of power.45 They disseminated these messages by putting flyers in small, wooden boxes designed to detonate in public places like street corners. Once detonated the flyers transformed into a dizzying swirl of missives that captured the attention of all who passed them by.46

44 “Violenta Explosión.” El Día, Montevideo, August 10, 1965. http://www.pasadoreciente.com/1965.html (accessed December 12, 2016). 45 Claudio Diaz. “La guerrilla en Uruguay: Cronología de la violencia.” (Decime facho: August 30, 2007), http://blogs.montevideo.com.uy/blogsubcategoria_10961_1_1.html 46 Sanguiñedo. 34 To be sure, it was not only leftist protesters who used political flyers. Flyers were

such an integral aspect of political participation that even ultra-conservative and neo-

fascists factions created volantes to make their opinions heard. Sanguiñedo recalled how,

following World War II, neo-fascist organizations used volantes to support anti-semitic

rhetoric: “There was also the Movimiento Estudiantil Democrático (MED) and the

Juventud Uruguaya de Pie (JUP), and some of their volantes used swastikas. And there

were others that directly attacked, [saying] (JEWS) GO BACK.”47

THE POWER OF THE VOLANTE: A GENRE STUDY

The main reason volantes accompanied in-person protest efforts was because, as a genre, they performed functions other modes of protest could not. True, volantes bore similarities to signs and poster in many ways. Like signs and posters, they helped protestors publicize their aims and opinions and signified a physical manifestation of both the individual and collective beliefs of Uruguay’s most discontented — their consciousness made material. They also tended to bare simplistic, straightforward messages

Figure 10 Flyer produced by consturction representing their creator’s perspective. “Enough workers’ syndicate denouncing wage freezes and security measures. hunger! We demand raises!”48 (Figure 10). Yet unlike other forms of writing or message making — signs, posters, banners, graffiti — flyers represented a unique genre of political messaging in several regards. For one, political volantes were distinctly mobile. Signs required people to physically carry them; their arms lifting messages high to ensure they remained visible to

47 Ibid. 48 Collection of Uruguayan Political Propaganda, Box 1. 35 audiences. But as soon as a protestor decided to take a break, to rest those weary arms, his or her sign’s ability to make an impact evaporated. Posters and graffiti also required a medium through which to operate. They had to be affixed to flat surfaces in order to be seen, depending on access to walls in well trafficked areas in order to be effective. Of course, graffiti’s reach depended on yet another contingency: the owner of a tagged building had to leave the message up long enough for passerby to see it. Volantes, on the other hand, were small and practically weightless, occupying only a few inches of space (Figure 11).49 This made them extraordinarily well-suited to mass distribution, extending their physical footprint of influence to the literal nooks and crannies that large, impressive banners and handheld Figure 11 Port workers demand a 50% salary increase, undated. signs could not dream of reaching. Volantes could also be mass produced, giving each person who came across one his or her own physical memento to transport wherever he or she saw fit. The fact that flyers could be produced in large quantities differentiated them in other ways; even a relatively small amount of a few hundred flyers had the capacity not only to diffuse information, but also to create spectacle. A stack of volantes, packaged together as a single unit and carried by a protester, only needed to

Figure 12 Flyers thrown in support of the Frente Amplio, November 1971.

49 Ibid. 36 be thrown into the wind or tossed over a university balcony to multiply into a swirling, dazzling cloud of paper missives (Figure 12).50 Once thrown, anyone could pick up a volante and engage with it on his or her own terms. And throw them they did. Be it at outdoor manifestations along Montevideo’s main artery, the Avenida de Julio (Figure 12), or amidst indoor meetings inside UDELAR’s Figure 13 A mass of flyers take flight in the main amphitheater of the Teatro Solis, 1973. amphitheater (Figure 13), flyers occupied a highly visible role in the decade’s protest scene.51 They also offered the kind of democratic reach few others modes of protest could rival. One distributed publicly, a wide swath of Montevideo’s population might interact with these documents, from a small child who found one on his way home from school to a grandmother heading out to buy more yerba for her daily mate preparation. Of course, these potential readers decided on their own terms whether they wanted to toss a volante aside, deliberately throw it away, or take it home for further consideration. Still, the genre’s potential to reach huge segments of Uruguayan society distinguished it from other types of documentation, creating a shared community of readers in the process.52 The genre served one final purpose: record keeping. Though created as ephemeral documents accompanying specific, geo-temporal activities, the fact that flyers required so

50 González 231. 51 González 66. 52 Benedict Arnold’s 1983 book, Imagined Communities, examines how collective readership practices serve to foster shared identities among readers. 37 little space and were produced in such large quantity meant they had an exponentially higher chance of being saved than did large, cumbersome signs and banners. This allowed them to serve as physical mementos of the decade’s most ephemeral activities. Volantes that fell to the ground during a march bore the literal weight of the bodies that passed over them, an active recognition of the lives with whom they intersected. They are sometimes the only surviving evidence that a protest actually occurred. Yet the widespread reach of volantes and, in fact, the significance of their genre, was owed just as much to the technologies that facilitated their small shape and mass production. A consideration of how key technologies enabled flyer production is now in order.

VOLANTE PRODUCTION METHODS: OFFSET PRINTING

For the majority of the 1960s, protestors produced volantes using two main technologies: the offset lithography printing press and the mimeograph machine. Yet despite the fact that both production methods feature equally in surviving documentation of the era, the two technologies were actually quite different — both in terms of how protestors accessed the technologies and the affordances they offered. Offset printing proved best when producing vast quantities of flyers — somewhere in the range of 1,000 to 30,000. Creating the initial offset printing plate was quite expensive, but the paper it printed on was cheap. So protestors needed to ‘scale up’ when opting to go the offset route, maximizing the return on their investment. This ‘economy of scale’ made offset printing a particularly appealing option when protestors needed to ensure their efforts had maximum reach. Francisco Sanguiñedo, a former member of the FEUU who helped to produce many political messages during the course of the 1960s, recalled:

There’s an economic question. If we were making more than 1,000 flyers, it made sense to go to a printer. The printer had an initial cost associated with the printing 38 plate (matriz), and after that the rest of the cost was just for paper. So when you spent a lot on a plate, you wanted to print a lot to make it cheaper.53 Offset printing techniques were common throughout the country, but few individual students groups or unions owned their own printing press. So, to produce an offset volante, protestors took their desired message to a print shop where they instructed the printer about the layout, size, quantity needed, color of ink, and paper they desired. Access to these offset printing services could come from a few different places. At the University, a number of small student run publishers did happen to use offset lithography presses to create educational materials for various classes on campus. They could quickly repurpose these machines to serve the needs of gremiales, or unions. Outside of the University, too, additional services — like today’s Kinkos — offered spaces for unions and businesses who did not possess their own machines to outsource the labor.54 Finally, a few of the larger syndicates like the CNT and smaller political parties like the Partido Comunista Uruguayo would have owned their own offset printing presses.

VOLANTE PRODUCTION METHODS: MIMEOGRAPH MACHINES

Sometimes, though, using offset printing services did not make sense. Not every protest required 30,000 flyers. Not every activist wanted to wait for his order to make it to the top of the printer’s queue, hoping the job would be finished in time for his volantes to get distributed at a protest. Moreover, not every union or student organization had the resources to pay for the initial, expensive offset plate, particularly during an economic crisis. In these moments, protestors relied heavily on mimeograph machines — portable, ubiquitous duplicators that offered a fast, cheap means of creating an on-the-go message.

53 Sanuiñedo. 54 Ibid. 39 The reason protestors used on mimeograph machines was simple. By the mid 20th century, they had become a ubiquitous tool in offices, classrooms, factories, labor unions, and anywhere else a small run of cheap copies was needed. The technology grew in popularity Figure 14 Image of young man operating because of its cost savings. Unlike offset printing mimeograph machine, 1942. techniques, which required bulky, expensive printing presses and people who knew how to operate them, making a mimeograph required no typesetting or skilled labor. What’s more, the mimeograph machine took up only a few feet of space, making it highly portable when compared with other print production techniques. Rather than relying on a professional printer to do the job, authors of mimeographs had complete creative control, end-to-end. By removing the intermediary, anyone with a stencil duplicator could become his own printing factory. The machine had been invented at the end of the 19th century, one of a number of mass duplication technologies introduced to international markets as a means of making copies. The technology’s invention is often attributed to David Gestetner, a London-based but Hungarian-born inventor who achieved great commercial success for his development of the Gestetner stencil duplicator, commonly referred to as the mimeograph machine.55 Whereas before the invention of the mimeograph, printed texts had to be copied by hand (and verified for fidelity against the original), the mimeograph — which relied on stencils — easily facilitated the production of multiple, mechanically identical copies of a given

55 E. Haven Hawley, “Revaluing Mimeographs as Historical Sources,” RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage 15 no.1 (2014): 41. 40 printed text. It quickly became a common way to print small runs of copies needed for the “conduct of business,” from contracts to letters to educational handouts. The technology itself was simple. To make a mimeograph, the composer prepared a stencil. This could be done either by typing or writing directly onto the form; the stencil sheet had a thin wax coating that, when marked upon, left enough of an impression that ink could pass through it. After the composer prepared the stencil with his message, he mounted it on a duplicator cylinder. As he fed paper through the machine, passing it across the duplicator cylinder, ink permeated the punctured stencil and flowed onto the page, producing a copy (Figure 14).56 The technology facilitated a fairly robust set of design possibilities; creators had freedom to combine printed text with hand drawn lettering or pictures. To mix both written and type letter forms onto one document, the composer simply needed to leave some white space on the page while typing, then return to it with a stylus to add hand-drawn annotations. “If you had a small slogan, sometimes you’d also include a small drawing,” Sanguiñedo explained. Mimeograph creators could also decide to put many smaller messages onto one larger sheet of paper, similar to the way in which money is produced in large sheets that are trimmed after printing. This allowed protestors to maximize the amount of messages that could be produced on a given sheet. Sanguiñedo recalled:

56 “Jack Iwata — Mimeograph Machine,” Discover Nikkei, accessed October 12, 2016 http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/nikkeialbum/items/1618/ 41

On one sheet of paper you could have multiple messages that you would then take and cut. Sometimes it would be the same message for all the flyers, sometimes it would be different so as to get more information out. For each sheet you get could eight. Sometimes you made different message about the same topic — a student strike.57

Figure 15 illustrates this technique, showing the trimmed fragment of a message that was initially Figure 15 Small mimeographed flyer, undated, author unknown. printed on a larger (likely 8.5x11”) sheet of paper.58 Once printed, the composer simply had to trim the sheet down to reveal eight smaller, mimeographed flyers. By the 1950s, the Universidad de la República had installed mimeograph machines at various locations throughout its colleges, making them a readily available method for producing handouts and other educational materials. In fact, according to Sanguiñedo, all of the FEUU’s “actas” (their own internal documents) from the period were printed as mimeographs. “It was the main mode of documenting and informing.”59 It was only natural that mimeograph machines would be repurposed for political reasons. The FEUU, already deeply invested in national conversations about university autonomy, the economic crisis, and the movimiento syndical, could quickly halt their production of handouts to print a small run of flyers advertising an upcoming strike or

protest. Sanguiñedo reflected on his own experience as a student and member of the FEUU during the 1960s:

The FEUU never had their own press, but they had a practice of printing out study materials for students in all the schools, and when there was a strike or conflict they

57 Sanguiñedo. 58 Benson Collection Box 1. 59 Sanguiñedo. 42 changed the stencil and made volantes. So on the one hand you had union propaganda [being produced] and on the other, classroom study materials being printed. If there was a small conflict, the FEUU would print just a few mimeographs — an example of this would be an issue with a plan of study or a professor. But if there was a really big social or political conflict, they made offset volantes and there’d be a massive distribution in the street.60 Thousands of volantes accompanied Uruguay’s protests, bearing simple, straightforward messages that offered solidarity with other unions, denounced the country’s leadership, and advocated for widespread change. Surviving mimeographs bare footprints and other ephemeral markings showing they occupied visible, physical spaces along the streets of Montevideo, creating a new web of readers along the way. Much of volantes’ potency was owed to their ability to traverse channels that other modes of protest could not. Their portability, cost efficiency, physical size and sheer quantity helped them to reach large audiences, generating new communities of readers in the process. To produce these flyers, protestors relied — at least initially — on both offset and mimeograph reproduction techniques. Offset printing leant itself particularly well to producing massive quantities of flyers that protesters could throw into the air or pass out at in-person demonstrations. Despite being the costlier option for protestors, the cheap paper meant that, once the initial printing plate was paid for, mass quantity production offered activists the best return on their investment. Yet offset printing required professional print services. For a do-it-yourself, in-house option, mimeograph machines proved most effective. The technology, already ubiquitous both on the UDELAR campus and at various union headquarters around Montevideo, offered an affordable way to produce smaller runs of homemade but still effective flyers. “Think of it this way,” advised

60 Sanguiñedo. 43 Sanguiñedo. “Few flyers, mimeograph. Lots of flyers, printing press. The mimeographs, we made ourselves. The imprenta, we paid for.”61 But a swift change in the government’s once tolerant response to protest would soon catalyze sweeping change in the country. By the end of the 1960s, the climate of contestation had reached a crescendo, and the government decided to take action. Their response would catapult the mimeograph in particular to a central role in the nation’s protest efforts. By the official start of the dictatorship in 1973, mimeograph machines would offer one of the only recourses for protesters left. The next chapter, “The Decline of Democracy,” discusses the emergence of the authoritarian regimes of Pacheco Areco and later Bordaberry, and the increasingly critical role that mimeographed documents began to play in resisting state sponsored violence.

61 Ibid. 44 Chapter 5: The Decline of Democracy

Though the protests of the early 1960s had occasionally been met with police repression — such as the time during Eisenhower’s visit when riot control forces blasted students with water cannons — most of the time, the Uruguayan government granted Leftist activists the latitude to exercise their beliefs. Towards the latter half of the decade, though, the Uruguayan government sharply curtailed public dissention by student, union, and Tupamaro activists. Some of their motivations for doing so were owed to pressures from the IMF and the United States government. Neither party would consider providing significant financial aid if Uruguay could not get their ‘house in order.’ Other motivations were internal; stubborn Uruguayan leaders were determined to prove their power over the increasingly consolidated Left. So the Uruguayan government significantly ramped up efforts to quell disruption by suspending the constitution in order to ban the right to free assembly, arrest “delinquents,” censor and shutter the press, and torture and kill protestors. This dangerous political climate increasingly forced critics of the government into hiding or exile and fostered an environment in which access to DIY forms of political participation — in this case, mass duplication machines — proved essential. This chapter traces the slow deterioration of democracy within the country, from the 1966 presidential election of Colorado party member Diego Gestido and his imposition of repressive “security measures” through the 1971 election of Juan María Bordaberry — the man who would be dictator.

GESTIDO BECOMES PRESIDENT

In November of 1966, following growing turmoil, Uruguay held a presidential election that restored power to the country’s traditional ruling party, the Colorados, by

45 electing Diego Gestido and Jorge Pacheco Areco as President and Vice President, respectively. Though Gestido would hold office for only nine months before his abrupt death in December of the following year, his tenure marked an important turn for Uruguayan politics. In his short time in office he attempted to bring order to the chaotic political and economic situation by enacting increasingly repressive measures, catalyzing the nation’s descent into authoritarian rule. Gestido’s first months in office proved to be as formidable as one might expect. Widespread strikes persisted, with members of the CNT — as well as numerous other organizations — calling for the repayment of back wages and raises on a near-daily basis. Student groups occupied University buildings to protest the visit of “imperialist” figures such as U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who they Figure 16 Woodblocked flyer denounced for his participation in the Vietnam war (Figure co-roduced by FEUU and CNT, 1966. 16).62 Rationing of basic ingredients such as sugar further created an air of desperation. 63 President Gestido knew his success as a leader depended on his ability to bring about major economic reform throughout the country. He also knew such reform would require him to remain open to negotiations with the US. Not only did the US maintain the largest share of voting power within the International Monetary Fund, but they had long provided their own modest sum of financial aid to Uruguay. Yet inherently tied to the

62 Benson Collection Box 1. 63 Carlos Demasi, et al., Cronología comparada de la historia reciente del Uruguay. La caída de la democracia (1967-1973) (Montevideo: Fundación de Cultura Universitaria, 1996) http://www.geipar.udelar.edu.uy/index.php/2017/06/14/cronologia-comparada-de-la-historia-reciente-del- uruguay-la-caida-de-la-democracia-1967-1973/ 46 economic issues plaguing the country, a growing concern with leftist ideology threatened Washington — a threat the State Department wanted to stamp out. At the time, the Department was headed by Dean Rusk, a policy hawk widely known for using military intervention to thwart communism. So Gestido began to work with the United States in order to meet the conditions that would be needed for them to help the small nation get ‘back on track.’ In August of 1967, the Uruguayan president met with US Ambassador Henry Hoyt so the two could “review once again steps which would be needed, including IMF agreement, to make it possible to give worthwhile assistance.”64 In exchange, Gestido made it clear to Hoyt that his new government would not “allow communists and CNT to ‘run wild and dominate the situation.” He added that he would “move strongly against […] agitators,” hoping Washington would be “understanding and patient” and that Uruguay “not be forgotten in its problems.” Thus, the Gestido administration began an intense crackdown against the protestors whose flyers, signs, and chants had so loudly criticized their nation’s shortcomings.65 In August of 1967, the Executive branch began limiting syndicalists’ right to convene, forbidding an upcoming meeting by the Congreso Pemanente de Unidad Sindical de Trabajadores de América Latina.66 Then, in October, Gestido enacted “Medidas Prontas de Seguridad” (MPS) — essentially a form of martial law. The MPS allowed him to suspend traditional constitutional rule, suppressing strikes both in the public and private

64 Henry Hoyt to Secretary of State, August 1967, Department of State Telegram, National Security Files, LBJ Presidential Library, Austin, TX, Country Files, Box 74. 65 Ibid. 66 Leandro Kierszenbaum. “‘Estado peligroso’ y medidas prontas de seguridad: Violencia estatal bajo democracia (1945-1968)." Contemporánea: historia y problemas del siglo XX 3.3 (2012): 109. 47 sector and arresting all workers who were seen as posing a ‘threat’ to the government. Gestido justified the measures, saying:

The severe unrest caused by labor unions has forced me to rapidly install these security measures in defense of public order. The continuation of this estate of affairs would have only lead to our political and social destruction.67

During the 23 days the MPS were active police detained 442 people and seized editions of several well-known, leftist newspapers including El Popular and Marcha, among others.68 Finally, in 1967, Gestido began to double down on curtailing extremist groups such as the Tupamaros, accepting logistical support and financing from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) — a front for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) — to create the country’s very own intelligence agency, the Dirección Nacional de Información e Inteligencia (DNII). The seeds of authoritarianism had been sown.

PACHECO TAKES OVER

On December 6, 1967, Gestido died of a heart attack, having served less than one year of his five-year term. Yet his death did not reprieve the wave of repressive legislation washing over the nation. His Vice President, Jorge Pacheo Areco, immediately assumed the office of the President sparing no time before following Gestido’s lead. Just days after taking Pacheco’s installation, police shuttered the daily Época and weekly El Sol, sending a firm message about how the new Poder Ejecutivo intended to bring order to the nation.69 In many cases, newspaper confiscations happened without any explanation. In the case of

67 Ibid. MPS were instated October. 68 Eduardo Rey Tristán, La Izquierda Revolucionaria Uruguaya, 1955-1973 (Seville: Universidad de Sevilla, 2005), 432. 69 Demasi 37. On December 12, Pacheco announced: “Seguiré la política de Gestido” (I will follow the politics of Gestido. 48 El Sol and Época, the reason cited by police was that they were shut down for "ideological preachings against the state.”70 Pacheco also continued his predecessor’s approach to dealing with the nation’s fiscal situation by reaching out to lenders such as the IMF for additional financial aid packages. His efforts proved unable to seriously correct years of economic deterioration and income stagnation. By January of 1968 the number of people requesting a “carnet de pobre” (welfare card) had jumped from 25,000 to 106,000,71 bringing even more workers into the streets to protest and distribute flyers on a near-daily basis. Following six months of unrelenting strikes and manifestations in which police and protestors increasingly clashed, President Areco re-invoked the emergency security measures on June 13, 1968. The measures, which allowed the Executive Branch to suspend constitutional rights in the case of “cases of extreme and unforeseen external attacks” or “internal commotion,” effectively nullified the constitutional provision that had protected citizens from being taken as political prisoners without proof of ‘treason’ from a judge.72 Under the measures, anyone suspected of “conspiracy against the country” could now be arrested and taken ‘elsewhere.’73 Pacheco cited the recent wave of strikes and street violence as justification for the measures and prohibited the spread of any information publicizing or alluding to strikes, manifestations, protests, or occupation of buildings. Hostility and resentment grew and clashes continued.

70 Ibid 43. 71 Hugo Cores. El 68 uruguayo: los antecedentes: los hechos: los debates. (Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1997), 14. 72 Uruguayan Constitution, Article 168. 73 Ibid. 49 Just weeks later, the government of Pacheco Areco took yet another attempt to grab hold of the country’s ever-more-tenuous political and economic situation. On June 28, 1968, President Areco issued Decree N° 420/68, effectively freezing all wages under the suspension of constitutional rule made Figure 17 Undated flyer co-produced by CNT and AEBU, the Asociación de Empleados possible by the “medidas prontas de seguridad.” The Bancarios Uruguayos. measure most heavily impacted the working class, further cleaving the already-large divide between various economic strata and social groups. In Figure 17, an offset volante collaborative produced by the CNT and the bank workers union (AEBU) opines: “WAGE FREEZES MEAN HUNGER FOR WORKERS.”74 In this context of heightened repression, it is clear to see why protestors increasingly relied on access to homemade printing techniques such as mimeograph machines. In fact, protestors took full advantage of their access to mass duplication technologies, releasing a wide range of volantes designed to combat and drown out their leadership’s ever- more-repressive measures. Flyers also continued to help organize Figure 18 Flyer made by Comité de movilización de la Asociación strikes, despite the fact that such de Estudiantes Veterinarios to advertise a strike, undated. activities had been prohibited under the MPS. The volante appearing in Figure 18 specifically advertises one such “general strike,” citing a desire Figure 19 “Down with the security measures,” flyer made by the FEUU, 1968.

74 Benson Collection of Political Propaganda. 50 to bring students and workers together for a day of protest against the government’s security measures, “anti-syndicalist projects,” and “anti-university rhetoric.”75 More straightforward flyers, like the one pictured in Figure 19, simply call for an end to Pacheco’s security measures.76 The affordances volantes offered did not limit them to use by the nation’s critics. Pro-Pacheco groups, too, took advantage of the genre, showcasing just how central the practice of flyering was to citizens on all sides of the political spectrum. In Figure 20, a vivid red “Yes Figure 20 A Pro-Pacheco wood-blocked or offset volante, undated. to Pacheco” volante is pictured. Up until August 9, 1968, protestors had responded mainly to specific acts of legislation passed by the Uruguayan government, who, it should be noted, had been democratically elected. The day of August 8 marked a turning point: the raid on the Universidad de la República and the ensuing protests resulting in the first of several student deaths. The events of that week would become a major symbol in the fight against repression, emboldening protest and radically reorienting the language and purpose of flyers, which they now used to publicize the student’s death in real time.

THE RAID ON THE UNIVERSITY AND THE ASSASSINATION OF LIBER ARCE

On August 8, 1968, Pacheco’s Ministry of the Interior, Eduardo Jiménez de Aréchaga, authorized — with orders from the Executive Power — the search of several university premises without prior order or judicial presence and with heavily armed personnel. The raid specifically targeted the University’s Schools of Agriculture, Architecture, Psychology, Medicine and Fine Arts; the Minister claimed students were

75 Ibid. 76 Ibid. 51 collecting weapons and circulating pamphlets, activities forbidden under the country’s “medidas prontas” (emergency security measures). When students arrived to school Friday morning, they found their classrooms damaged and in complete disarray. The basis for justifying police repression was the alleged existence of a subversive plan of “unsuspected scope."77 Three days later, on August 12, students from a variety of departments were protesting outside the Facultad de Veterenaria —with leaflets in hand — when they were detained by police. Liber Arce, a 28-year-old student in the School of Dentistry as well as a member of the FEUU and the Unión de la Juventud Comunista was among the group when a confrontation broke out. An officer shot Arce, who died two days later, on August 14. Immediately, protestors took to their mimeograph machines in outrage. The volante in Figure 21 states: “Today, the 14th of August, our classmate Liber Arce passed away. Vigil at the University. GET OUT, ASSASSINS! FEUU-

Figure 21 Notice of Arce’s death and AEQ.”78 One easily imagines its author hearing the arrangement of vigil created by FEUU, August 14, 1968. news, tearing down a hallway to the closest known mimeograph machine, grabbing the nearest stencil and starting to respond however he could, never hesitating to reflect on what this moment might mean for the movimiento estudiantil or for the history of the country — only knowing that what had just happened mattered immensely and that people needed to know.

77 Collection of Political Propaganda, Box 1. 78 Ibid. 52 In another flyer created by the FEUU following Arce’s death, an author writes, “Arce was murdered by the dictatorship for defending his freedom. His blood will not run in vain. Today, we meet at the University” (Figure 22).79 The authors scrawled the message hastily, handwriting it in Figure 22 Additional FEUU flyer notifying capital letter. They clearly trimmed it down from a readers of Arce’s death, undated (1968). larger sheet, wasting no time cutting it neatly or worrying about aesthetics. The flyer is raw and real, uncalculated but still betraying an impressive amount of organization; its authors made sure to sign the document in order to make their solidarity known. The death of Liber Arce represented a watershed moment in Uruguay’s descent towards authoritarianism, with mourners from across the political spectrum expressing shock, disbelief and outrage. Scholars estimate that, in a Figure 23 Image of mourners at Arce’s funeral, 1968. city with a total population of just over one million, between 200,000 to 300,000 Montevideans attended his funeral (Figure 23).80 At the time, few could have predicted that by the end of 1968, two more student deaths would be added to the body count. Yet only one month after his assassination, while

79 Ibid. 80 François Graña “Líber Arce, ha muerto un estudiante,” Los padres de Mariana (Ediciones Trilce 2011) 59–61. . 53 members of the FEUU were holding a demonstration in Arce’s honor, their efforts were met with bullets. Police shot a student of the Faculty of Economics, Hugo de los Santos, and when fellow-student Susana Pintos ran to assist him — holding up a white shirt as a peace offering — police shot her, too. She died the following day. By the end of the 1968, police had killed three student protestors and the Poder Ejecutivo had either censored or entirely shut down a total of 12 newspapers. This closure would continue throughout the entire period of authoritarianism, only worsening annually. Censorship is another key reason why access to mimeograph machines became critical during Pacheco’s presidency and the following dictatorship. In this context, volantes’ ability to disseminate information quickly and discreetly took on new symbolism. Consider this August 1968 mimeographed volante distributed by the FEUU, which summarizes the current political situation while also providing information about imprisoned students (Figure 24).81 It reads:

If you want stay informed, they censor the press. If you want to distribute Figure 24 Flyer summarizing political situation, information, they lock you in a cell. Right August 1968. now more than 20 students are being detained for distributing an announcement about the dead and injured. […] If you want to organize, they close your syndicate. If you want to resist, they kill you — like they killed three students and injured more than 100. Facing all these problems, the People resist. Students fight in the streets, workers carry out strikes and occupy factories. YOU HAVE A PLACE IN THIS STRUGGLE. The People must unite and organize to expel the exploiters that rule this administration. ORGANIZE AND RESIST.

81 Collection of Political Propaganda. 54 THINGS GO FROM BAD TO WORSE

In June 1969, Pacheco authorized Decree 313/969 specifically to prohibit strikes by public servants. One month later, he authorized Decree 313/969, prohibiting all news reports — be they oral, written, or televised — from spreading any information related either directly or indirectly to grupos delictivos (criminals) in the country, including by foreign publications.82 Then, in August, the Poder Ejecutivo prohibited the use of words such as “cell,” “command,” “political delinquent,” “ideological delinquent,” “subversive,” “extremist,” or “terrorist.” According to El Popular, this was communicated by the Jefatura of the police. Throughout the course of the year, yet another 12 newspapers were seized, and by December the number of people jailed since the start of the MPS reached more than 5,000. Protestors also began denouncing well-documented cases of torture within the once- peaceful nation.83 Torture increased because the Pacheco administration ramped up efforts to quash the Tupamaro guerilla challenge by increasingly relying on assistance from the United States. Recognizing the Uruguayan government’s “strained capacity to cope with increased internal security problems,” the United States began to bolster counterintelligence capabilities, and in 1969 assistance by the U.S. Public Safety office in the form of specialized training nearly doubled.84 U.S.-trained officers also came to occupy key positions within the Uruguayan police force. The United States sent FBI agent Dan Mitrione to Uruguay that same year to head USAID’s Office of Public Safety, where he

82 Demasi et al. 83 Ibid. 84 Carlos Osorio, “Nixon: ‘Brazil Helped Rig the Uruguayan Elections’ 1971,” The National Security Archive, June 20, 2002, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB71/index.html 55 allegedly instructed Uruguayan police in techniques including electroshock, psychological, and genital mutilation.85 During this ever-more-dangerous period, pamphlets and volantes provided Tupamaros with a crucial method for circulating information — as well as receiving it. A mimeographed “Correo Tupamaro” Bulletin no. 1 stated:

If you think you know a member of the MLN do not tell anyone about it, not even the people in your inner circle. On the other hand, if you have information about repressive forces, make a flyer at your union, your factory, your office, or with someone you really trust. Your information will reach the MLN. These methods, though not exciting, are effective means of supporting the struggle for revolution. Thousands of efforts of these kinds will lead to our victory.

Protestors not only made flyers to communicate with the Tupamaros. They increasingly made them to try to speak with the very Armed Forces who so harshly repressed them. In the context of such a highly censored political atmosphere – where newspapers could not curry messages between both sides of the conflict, flyers and leaflets operated as the mouthpiece for a people who no longer had other recourse for being heard. The leaflets say so expressly. In one document printed in August, 1969, pitched as an “Open Letter” to the Armed Forces, the anonymous authors write: “The doors to our presses, Mr. Soldier, have been closed on us. This is why now, whenever we want to speak directly to you, we have to resort to flyers, with no guarantee that they will reach your hands.”86 The flyer is startling in its direct honesty, as well as its bid for open communication with the opposition. The decision to address the Armed Forces as “you” is an effective rhetorical device allowing the authors greater personalization and a deep sense

85 “Dan Mitrione, un maestro de la tortura” Clarín, February 09, 2011, http://www.clarin.com/diario/2001/09/02/i-03101.htm 86 Collection of Uruguayan Propaganda, Box 1. 56 of intimacy — all tactics to make them better heard. The document also reveals the extent to which flyers attempted repartee with selected groups within the government. In addition to acting as channels for communication with the Armed Forces, flyers — particularly mimeographed ones — began to keep citizens informed, taking on the now- vacant role of traditional news organizations. In some cases, they even announced the closures of such organizations. An undated bulletin titled “Boletín No. 1” informs, “The dictatorship has shut down the “frentistas” presses Marcha, El Popular. They are trying to prevent our opinions…[we] consider it imperative to tell the truth to our people.”87 The volante goes on to provide an update about the state of resistance efforts, assuring readers that the fight continues and that the syndicalists are resisting:

The UTE is still occupying their buildings and only two of their telephone centers have been overtaken by military forces. OSE, which had been evicted last night, has been reoccupied, and at ANCAP the service stations are still working, only 2 of 3 plant sections have been overtaken by the military.88

On July 31, 1970, the Tupamaro guerillas kidnapped FBI agent Dan Mitrione, publishing a communique — possibly a mimeograph — offering to release him in exchange for the safe return of 150 political prisoners within the next 10 days.89 The Pacheco administration immediately assured the United States government they would employ “every means available” to facilitate Mitrione’s return, though both parties agreed to ignore the MLN-T’s demands to release political prisoners. Instead, on August 1 the Minister of the Interior authorized Armed Forces to open fire without warning on any person caught in a “suspicious activity.”90

87 Ibid. 88 The UTE is the government-owned power company. The OSE is the Sanitary Works Organization. ANCAP is a state-owned company that produces petroleum products, cement, and alcoholic beverages. 89 Carlos Osorio and Marianna Enamoneta, “To Save Dan Mitrione Nixon Administration Urged Death Threats for Uruguayan Prisoners,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book no. 324, August 11, 2010, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB324/index.htm. 90 Rey Tristán 439. 57 US Secretary of State William Rogers also implored the Uruguayan government to threaten to assassinate recently-captured Tupamaro leader Raul Sendic and “other key MLN members” if Mitrione was killed, concluding, “If this has not been considered, you should raise it with GOU at once.” A secret telegram sent back to Rogers on August 9th revealed that Uruguayan forces had indeed threatened the captured Tupamaros that, if Mitrione were not safely released, their families would be murdered by members of “illegal, private death squads.”91 The cable was the first time Washington acknowledged the existence of such organizations. Ten days after the Tupamaros kidnapped Mitrione, his body was found in the trunk of a Buick parked on a quiet Montevidean street, unleashing a deluge of reactionary violence against Tupamaro forces — as well as anyone suspected of being associated with them. 92 In September 1971 Pacheco Areco entrusted the Armed Forces with leading the struggle against the Tupamaros, transferring a major share of disciplinary might from the police to the army. Meanwhile, mimeographed volantes continued to denounce tortures, inform about political prisoners, and even organize illegal strikes.

A RIGGED ELECTION USHERS IN A DICTATOR

In November 1971, Uruguay held a Presidential election. The names on the ballot included Colorado Party member Juan María Bordaberry, Pacheco’s hand-picked candidate, and Partido Nacional candidate Wilson Fereira Adulante. By all estimates, a

91 Osorio and Enamoneta, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 324. 92 Ibid. 58 Bordaberry presidency would be the option most likely to “continue [Pacheco’s] current policies.”93 Fereira Adulante, on the other hand, had been a vocal opponent of Pachequismo’s authoritarian bent. Though he was far from a “leftist” Figure 25 “Youth with Wilson” volantes denounce Paecho leadership, undated. candidate, Fereira Adulante — commonly referred to as ‘Wilson’ — represented the more progressive option of the two political parties, and US intelligence reports show he was the candidate most likely to draw young supporters behind him. To that end, numerous youth organizations produced homemade mimeographs to support Wilson’s campaign and denounce current leadership, such as these volantes created by the Juventud con Wilson or “Youth with Wilson” faction. They read: “Prison for the traitors!” before referring Pacheco Areco and several members of administration as criminals (Figure 25).94 But another political party had appeared on the electoral ballot, representing the first time in the nation’s history that a non-Blanco or Colorado option made it to the polls. Leftist leader Liber Seregni also wanted a shot at the Presidency, leaving Pacheco — and the US government – deeply worried that the country could fall to communist influence. Seregni represented the Frente Amplio or Broad Front, a political party only a few months old that had quickly gained ground amongst members of the Uruguayan Left.

93 Osorio 2002. 94 Collection of Political Propaganda. 59 The Frente Amplio undertook widespread efforts to garner support for their new campaign, using their close affiliation with organizations such as the CNT to produce and distribute far-reaching propaganda such as this undated, mimeographed volante that both promotes the Frente Amplio and airs grievances against the current administration (Figure 26). In fact, United States intelligence reports deemed the Frente Amplio’s propaganda efforts so sophisticated that, by mid-1971, Washington’s “main goal” for Uruguay was to “lessen the threat of a political takeover by the Frente.”95 To that end, the Embassy recommended the U.S. "“[c]ollaborate Figure 26 A footprint-marked Frente overtly and covertly with those media elements which Amplio flyer addressed to “Mr. Neighbor” compete with those of the Frente. A team of professional journalists well-versed in psychology could study Marcha] and its attraction for the Uruguayan intellectual and could improve a media product that could effectively combat this noxious weekly.”96 In November of 1971, Juan María Bordaberry — Pacheco’s handpicked successor — was elected as president of Uruguay. Immediately, members of the Partido Nacional levied accusations of fraud against the new President, who had eked out only a small margin of victory over the opposition by capturing 39.46% of votes as compared to the

95 Embassy Montevideo, "Preliminary Analysis and Strategy Paper — Uruguay," August 25, 1971, Microfiche on Human Rights in Uruguay 1971-1983, Department of State Reading Room. Accessed May 2, 2018, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB71/doc2.pdf. 96 Ibid. 60 Partido Nacional’s 38.72%.97 Observers also pointed out that, due to double voting practices, there had been more votes than voters, and claims were even made that National Party ballots had washed up in Montevideo’s Miguelete stream. An Electoral Court investigated the matter finding no evidence of fraud, yet the court had been comprised entirely of Colorado membership. In 2009, declassified information from the National Security Archives revealed that Nixon himself had acknowledged the fraud, and that the Uruguayan right had collaborated with the Brazilian dictatorship to ensure the election swung in Bordaberry’s favor.98 Meanwhile, Frente Amplio candidate Liber Seregni had captured 17.62% of votes, allowing intelligence agents to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Although the Frente Amplio did not win the election, the fact that they had so successfully organized in such a short period of time meant the incumbent Bordaberry administration still felt threatened. The new leader undertook sweeping efforts to repress and quash leftist forces. In 1972, he gave the military free reign over counterinsurgency efforts. They subsequently crushed the Tupamaros guerrillas, then repressed further university students, labor unions, and anyone else they could deem ‘opposition.’ As the military’s successes grew, so too did their thirst for power. The generals of the Armed Forces challenged the executive branch and increasingly rejected Bordaberry’s attempt to “strengthen his own position,” evidently viewing the civilian leader as “inept.”99 This conflict ushered in a major power struggle between the Poder Ejecutivo and the Armed Forces for the control of the country. The following February, the armed forces

97 Additionally, Bordaberry had not actually received the largest number of votes in his favor, Fereira Adulante had. Due to the country’s “ley de lemas” system, which essentially functioned as both a primary and a final election, the presidency went to Bordaberry because the Colorado Party had received the most overall votes and he was the winner within that party. 98 Conversation between President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State William Rogers, December 7, 1971, 6:51 pm, Nixon Presidential Materials, Conversation 16-36, National Archives. 99 Howard Handelman, “Military Authoritarianism and Political Change in Uruguay,” American Universities Field Staff Reports No. 26 (1978), 2, http://www.icwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/HH- 1.pdf 61 forced Bordaberry to establish by decree a new advisory body to the Executive Branch.100 The National Security Council of Uruguay, abbreviated to COSENA, would consist of key military leaders who would “oversee the running of the country in close contact with the executive.” While Bordaberry, a civilian, would formally govern, the military would now hold the power to control the nation. Despite the fact that Uruguay's civic-military dictatorship did not officially begin until 1973, the administrations of Oscar Gestido, Jorge Pacheco Areco and Juan María Bordaberry all created a climate in which speaking out against the Uruguayan government could lead to arrest, imprisonment, and even death. The three Colorado leaders were motivated to install repressive measures for a number of reasons. For one, huge lending powers like the IMF and the United States would not consider authorizing aid packages unless Uruguayan leadership proved they could take decisive steps to curtail dissent and growing chaos. Additionally, gains by extremist groups such as the Tupamaros suggested to intelligence agencies that the threat of communist insurrection was increasingly real. To that end, Uruguayan presidents collaborated with US-backed agencies to rapidly install a sophisticated intelligence apparatus and a police force capable of encroaching upon labor strikes and arresting any dissenters seen as posing a ‘’threat” to the country’s internal order. As the various presidents attempted to bring order to their chaotic nation, students, unions members, and Tupamaro extremists increasingly turned to mass duplication technologies to make their voices heard. For some, the production of volantes served as a means of organizing protests and demonstrations — despite the fact that the Poder

100 Uruguayan government, Decree N ° 163/973, “Inter-Am. C.H.R., OEA/Ser.L/V/II.43, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Uruguay, Doc. 19 corr. 1 (1978),” University of Minnesota Human Rights Library, Accessed May 3, 2018, http://humanrts.umn.edu/iachr/country-reports/uruguay1978-ch1.html

62 Ejecutivo strictly prohibited such activities. For others, mimeograph machines proved instrumental in publicizing the deaths of activists — which is precisely what members of the FEUU did when Uruguayan police shot and killed fellow University student Liber Arce in 1968. By 1972, flyers start announcing that they are in “particularly difficult and risky circumstances” noting that “All political and union operations in the country have gone virtually underground.”101 Still, they persisted, using portable mimeograph devices to publicize the names of individuals who had participated in attacks against unions and to organize acts of solidarity. The following and final Chapter first considers how volante production evolved during the government’s most violent repressive years, paying close attention to goals specific volantes aimed to accomplish. Finally, Chapter 6 reflects on the enduring impact and legacy of mimeograph resistance, discussing how this case study can inform larger efforts to reconstruct socio-technical histories.

101 Ibid. 63 Chapter 6: The Mimeograph in the Midst

The men with their war uniforms, assault rifles, and clenched faces could not remove those who believed in peace. There were women and men throwing flyers to the four winds. The banners that a few days before waved at the doors of the factories and faculties became flags. The chant, “Orientales, la patria o la tumba” was sung by thousands of mouths.102

Figure 27 Tear-gassed protestors run to escape police repression following the 1973 Golpe de Estado. Volanes litter the ground.

THE GOLPE DE ESTADO AND THE OFFICIAL START OF THE 1973-1985 DICTATORSHIP

On June 27, 1973, Bordaberry and the new COSENA extinguished the “last vestiges of civilian democracy” by dissolving Congress, arguing that its own institutions

102 Gonzalez describing Montevideo’s response to the June 27, 1973 Golpe, p. 15. 64 had been corrupted by supporters of the left.103 Following the dissolution of Congress, the new government illegalized the CNT, the Frente Amplio, and the Communists and Socialist parties. They also took hold of the University, which would remain under the control of armed forces until the end of the dictatorship in the mid 1980s. And of course, by the official start of civic-military dictatorship, dozens of periodicals had long been confiscated, effectively silencing any chance of sanctioned dissent. This sixth and final chapter does two things. First, it examines the role of the mimeograph in the context of the official reign of the military dictatorship. During the dictatorship, all opposition to the new government was forbidden. Rival parties such as the Frente Amplio and the Partido Nacional banded together, creating a body of volantes that promoted solidarity amongst the two groups and attempted to distance them from the dictatorship. Volantes also served to organize more covert and subtle forms of protest than ever before — providing people with the means to whisper dissent when no other option prevailed. Finally, this chapter reflects on the impact of political flyers and role technology played in facilitating resistance. Without access to mass duplication techniques, protestors would not have had recourse to make their voices heard — nor would they have been able to condemn so scathingly the repressive forces that surrounded them. The thesis concludes by outlining future avenues of investigation that can build off the groundwork this project has laid.

RESISTING AFTER THE GOLPE

The ability to take jobs to a professional printer had become impossible long before the 1973 Golpe, slowly creating an environment in which access to mimeograph machines

103 After three years of joint leadership through COSENA, the Fuerzas Armadas would eventually depose Bordaberry in 1976. U.S. security assistance to Uruguay, then dubbed a "prison state," continued uninterrupted until 1977. Penal colonies and forced disappearances abounded. 65 proved essential. Surprisingly, though, things got even worse following Bordaberry’s dissolution of Congress. In this context, handwritten copies of flyers became increasingly common, and flyers began to circulate hand-to-hand through covert networks — often bearing the instructions “Léalo y páselo” — “Read this and Pass it On.” Some of this was owed to the Armed Forces’ intervention at the Universidad de la República. The place where students once produced voluminous quantities of offset and mimeographed protest flyers was now controlled by men who carried guns and closely watched student’s every move. Openly using mimeograph machines proved impossible. Sanguiñedo recalled how protestors coped with their sudden loss of access and created alternative options to diffuse their messages:

During the golpe de estado it was really risky to print, so they did it in really clandestine spots with only a few copies at a time. Some organizations had underground mimeograph machines, and you could go certain hours of the day to make them secretly — those are the ones that passed by hand.

To distribute these flyers, they left them in discrete places. “You would go to a [public] bathroom and find a volante.”104 Some of these flyers continued in the tradition of their pre-Golpe counterparts, providing notices of new press closures or listing captive political prisoners. For instance, this 1973 circular by a group called “Los 8 Héroes de la 20a” notifies readers of an attack on the offices newspaper El Popular, who had Figure 28 Aftermath of 1973 attack on El Popular, July 16, 1973. already been heavily censored and repressed in

104 Sanguiñedo. 66 the years leading up to the dictatorship: “Out of vengeance, they attacked El Popular with tanks (Figure 27). They broke machines, Nazi-style. They beat workers and journalists, who used their bodies to try to protect their machines […]”105 Flyers also promoted solidarity efforts between outlawed political parties that would not have otherwise collaborated (Figure 28).106 For instance, a June 30, 1973 flyer titled “Declaration of Figure 29 A 1974 mimeographed volante, co- Joining of Frente Amplio and Partido Nacional” produced by the Frente Amplio and the Partido Nacional, offers support of the working class. states: “The Partido Nacional and the Frente Amplio declare their most fervent solidarity and support in this fight to defend the interests of our nation. READ THIS AND PASS IT ON.”107 These sorts of messages became a common way for disparate groups to make it clear to both the populace and the leadership that dennouncing the dictatorship mattered far more that adhering to party lines. Finally, flyers helped to promote small acts of resistance in an era in which physical protest had become unthinkable. During the dictatorship, opponents of the government used volantes to organize small forms of dissention. In Figure 29, a volante signed by the “Resistance to the Dictatorship Committee” instructs: “If you are opposed to the Bordaberry dictatorship, Friday the 10th, at 7:00pm Figure 30 Mimeographed message urging sharp, MAKE NOISE with: radios, cd players, car citizens to protest by making noise at specified times, March 1974.

105 Flyer from Collection of Political Propaganda. Figure 27 from González 62. 106 Collection of Political Propaganda. 107 Ibid. 67 horns, pots and pans. Participate in the fight against the dictatorship.”108 These small acts of resistance helped send a sign that protestors were not alone in their efforts, that their voices would not be silenced – even if they could no longer parade through the streets.

WHAT’S NEXT? FUTURE AVENUES OF INVESTIGATION

To fully understand the impact volante production had on the trajectory of Uruguay’s political history, more research must be done. It is to see how volantes framed and oriented discourse during the dictatorship, on top of playing a critical role in diffusing news, organizing protestors and condemning state-sponsored violence. What is not yet know is precisely how the government collected and interpreted flyers. Volantes directly addressed the members of the Armed Forces. How did the Armed Forces receive and respond to such messages? To better understand the threat volantes constituted to Armed Forces, the next phase of this research will involve an extensive review of the newly- opened DNII archive housed at the Centro de Estudios Interdiscplinarios Urguayos (CEIU). Preliminary investigations prove promising. Though the digitized archive can only be accessed in person, the CEIU has posted approximate inventories of the archive’s holdings. These inventories show that intelligence agencies did actively collect flyers during their intelligence work, that flyers addressed to the Armed Forces did not get produced simply to litter the streets.109 Members of the Armed Forces actually collected

108 Ibid. 109 “Carpetas pertenecientes al fondo documental «Asuntos» que fueron procesados archivísticamente entre noviembre de 2015 y noviembre de 2016, primera parte,” Relación de contenido, Archivo DNII, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación, Published October 2017, http://www.fhuce.edu.uy/index.php/institucional/archivo-central-universitario/archivo-dnii/relacion-de- contenido.

68 them, read them, and likely responded to them. The next step will be to read those files as well as interview Armed Forces members. This research project also lays the groundwork for other forms of investigation. As shown throughout this thesis, flyers produced by groups such as the Frente Amplio constituted a major threat to the Uruguayan administrations of Gestido, Pacheco Areco, Bordaberry, and the Armed Forces. Archival sources also show that, despite the extreme repression and violence directed toward the Frente Amplio, the party remained highly active during the height of the dictatorship, using this period to strategically unite disparate causes and incorporate new members. The fact that the Frente Amplio has been the governing party of Uruguay since 2004 shows their efforts to unite the Left during the nation’s most authoritarian years were not in vain. Ultimately, the foundation the Frente built through activism and solidarity efforts proved capable of giving the nation a viable alternative to the traditional Blanco and Colorado ruling structure that had characterized the country for its first several hundred years of existence. Future research should trace, in greater detail, how the language and rhetoric employed by volante-producers helped to create new political subjects and further consolidate the Left. Much work remains in this attempt to uncover the history of volante production during the Uruguayan dictatorship, and many aspects of this history remain unknown. What is known for certain is that, without access to mass duplication technologies, the voices of Uruguay’s most disenfranchised never could have contested authoritarianism so wholeheartedly, so creatively. The time to carry on this investigation is now.

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