South America outlines new rules for dictatorship crimes

[Judi Lynn]

South America outlines new rules for dictatorship crimes
By MICHAEL WARREN | AP
Published: Oct 29, 2011 21:06 Updated: Oct 29, 2011 21:06

BUENOS AIRES: A generation after dictatorships gave way to democracy in South America, Brazil and Uruguay are catching up to their neighbors in digging into long-buried crimes against humanity.

A “truth and reconciliation” commission to investigate four decades of human rights abuses passed Brazil’s Congress unanimously this week. On Thursday, Uruguay’s Congress revoked a military amnesty and classified dictatorship-era kidnappings, torture and killings as crimes against humanity.

“It indicates an enormous leap forward, away from the fear,” Argentine-Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman said by telephone from London, where a revival is being staged of “Death and the Maiden,” his play about the failures of Latin American justice. “The past has been haunting Argentina, and Chile and Brazil and Uruguay for many years now, and unless you bury it well, it turns into a ghost, and you can’t kill a ghost.” Brazil’s vote late Wednesday night represented a compromise between military leaders and human rights advocates after years of argument.

Uruguay’s lawmakers did the opposite hours later, breaking a deal made a quarter-century ago to protect both the right and the left as democracy was restored.

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