Military Authoritarianism and Political Change in Uruguay by Howard Handelman

19781No. 26 South America Military Authoritarianism and Political Change in Uruguay by Howard Handelman The militarization of Uruguayan politics represents a sharp break with the nation's d~mocraticpast. Despite economic iation and signs of disagreement within ~drmedforces, there is no reason to sxpect an early return to civilian rule. [HH-1-78] ISSN 01 61 -0724 The American Universities Field INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERS Staff, Inc., founded in 1951, is a non- American profit, membership corporation of University of Alabama American educational institutions. It The Asia Society universities- em~lovsa full-time staff of foreign Aspen Institute for Humanistic area specialists who write from Studies abroad and make periodic visits to Brown University Field Staff member institutions. AUFS serves Dartrnouth College the public through its seminar pro- Indiana University grams, films, and wide-ranging pub- Institute for the Study of World lications on significant develop- Politics ments in foreign societies. University of Kansas Michigan State University Ramapo College of New Jersey University of Pittsburgh University of Wisconsin AUFS Reports are a continuing Associates of the Field Staff are series on international affairs and chosen for their ability to cut across major global issues of our time. the boundaries of the academic dis- Reports have for almost three ciplines in order to study societies in decades reached a group of their totality, and for their skill in col- readers- both academic and non- lecting, reporting, and evaluating academic-who find them a useful data. They combine long residence source of firsthand observation of abroad with scholarly studies relat- political, economic, and social trends ing to their geographic areas of in foreign countries. Reports in the interest. Each Field Staff Associate series are prepared by writers who returns to the United States periodi- are full-time Associates of the cally to lecture on the campuses of American Universities Field Staff the consortium's member institu- and occasionally by persons on leave tions. from the organizations and universities that are the Field Staff's spon- sors. THE AUTHOR HOWARD HANDELMAN, a Faculty in the Andes: Peasant Political Mobiliza- Associate for Latin America, has been tion in Peru and has contributed articles involved in the study of that region since to the Latin American Research Review, 1968 when he spent a year conducting Journal of Inter-American Studies and his doctoral dissertation research in Peru. World Affairs, Studies in Comparative In 1972 and 1973 he conducted field re- International Development, Industrial search in Mexico City and Guadalajara on Labor Relations Review, and Worldview the Mexican labor movement and in 1976 as well as a chapter in Political Participa- hespent six months in Uruguay studying tion and the Poor in Latin America. the political activities of that nation's economic elite (under a grant from the Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities). He received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the Uni- versity of Wisconsin and is currently on leave from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee where he is an Associate Professor of Political Science and a @ 1978, American Universities Field member of the Center for Latin America. Staff, Hanover, NH Dr. Handelman is the author of Struggle 1978INo. 26 by Howard Handelman Military Authoritarianism and South America [HH-1-'781 Political Change in Uruguay Nearly 20 years ago, political corre- tarian model,"4 identifying as char- politics consistently ranked Uruguay spondent Tad Szulc wrote optimis- acteristic of most of the new military as the most democratic nation in that tically of the "twilight of the tyrants" regimes their efforts to suspend region.6 Yet Uruguay today, like in Latin ~merica?In the oeriod earlier expansion of mass political Chile, has become a symbol of polit- immediately preceding publication participation; repression of labor ical repression and military dictator- of Szulc's book, military rulers had unions, peasant associations, and ship. relinquished power to elected civilian other organizations expressing mass- governments in Argentina, Colom- based economic and political de- The militarization of Uruguayan bia, Peru, and Venezuela. By 1961 mands; suspension of political party politics represents a sharp break only one military dictatorship, Para- activity; placing of political and eco- from a long armed forces tradition of guay, remained in South ~merica.~ nomic decision-making in the hands nonintervention in the nation's polit- The inauguration of President John of military and civilian technocrats, ical affairs. During the twentieth F. Kennedy's "Alliance for Progress" rather than politicians (most of century, only once had the country inspired the hope that socioeco- whom the military holds in con- been subjected to dictatorial rule nomic reforms might buttress tempt); heavy reliance on foreign (1933-1938). Even then, power was already existing political trends, investment as the basis of economic seized by an elected civilian presi- accelerating and strengthening the growth; implementation of con- dent (Gabriel Terra) whose backing development of democratic, civilian servative economic policies often came not from the military but from regimes in the hemisphere. drawn from Milton Friedman and the police. During the 1960s, when other "Chicago School" economists; Uruguay's leading scholars pub- The promise of easy democratiza- and enforcement of economic aus- lished the Enciclopedia Uruguaya, a tion, however, soon proved illusory. terity programs whose burdens fall series of monographs analyzing the Increased political participation by most heavily on the shoulders of the country's political and economic peasants, the urban poor, and the urban working class, often sharply structure, they failed to include a industrial working class produced reducing their real income. Clearly section on the armed forces. Carlos demands for economic redistribution such policies were extremely un- Real de Azua, the nation's foremost and social justice in traditionally popular among large setments of the historian, noted that, owing to its hierarchical societies. Not surpris- population and could often only be traditionally minor role in national ingly, such demands were fiercely implemented through the suppres- politics and society, virtually nothing resisted by entrenched political and sion of basic civil liberties, the arrest had been written on the Uruguayan economic elites and, often, by an of political dissidents, and, ulti- military7 already satisfied middle class. From mately, the use of torture and other 1964 through 1973, Brazil, Argentina, repressive techniques5 Uruguay's current military regime Ecuador, Chile, and Uruguay all has significance in two respects. experienced conservative military Of all the South American nations First, it illustrates the possibility of coups. fitting this bureaucratic-authoritarian military authoritarianism in even the pattern, Uruguay presents one of the most apparently well-entrenched Analysts of Latin American politics most sobering pictures. Throughout democracies. And, second, the Uru- were forced to abandon the op- most of the twentieth century this guayan armed forces differ in many timism of the early 1960s and to nation ranked with Chile as the most ways from their counterparts in Chile focus their attention on the harsher stable democracy in Latin America. or Argentina, and contradict several realities of "corporatism" and Indeed, a series of polls conducted stereotypes of Latin American mili- "authoritarianism." They began to from 1945 through the mid-1960s tary rule. The following Report describe the "bureaucratic-authori- among experts on Latin American reviews briefly the origins of Uruguay's military government, dis- America. Through 60 years of nearly activities and exposes of govern- cusses its development since 1973, uninterrupted democratic, civilian ment corruption elicited a surprising and analyzes possiblefuture trends. government, Uruguayans enjoyed level of sympathy from Montevideo's an extraordinarily high level of civil disenchanted middle and working The Fall of Uruguayan Democracy liberties. To foreign observers and classes. While all Latin American nations are Uruguayans alike, the country came undoubtedly "atypical" of the region to be known as "the Switzerland of As Uruguay became increasingly in some way, Uruguay particularly Latin America." polarized-workers against em- violates almost all the stereotyped ployers, Tupamaros against police- images of socioeconomic and Expanding world demand for meat the ruling Colorado Party moved political underdevelopment. The and wool during the Korean War sharply to the right of its usual re- economic base of Uruguayan devel- produced the last of Uruguay's eco- formist stance. Colorado Presidents opment was forged during the nine- nomic booms, and the war's end Jorge Pacheco Areco (1967-1971) teenth century when the nation's ushered in two decades of economic and Juan aria Bordaberry (1971- sparsely populated countryside was stagnation. The failure of the 1976)-backed by the military-re- converted into rich sheep and cattle nation's rural elite to modernize their sponded to the growing unrest by ranches. Subsequently, in the ranches, an overly protected and imposing a series of restrictions on closing decades of that century, a inefficient industrial sector, declining traditional civil liberties. Under an wave of Spanish and Italian

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