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MONTEVIDEO — Uruguay's ruling party wants to pay $17.4 million in reparations to victims of state oppression during its dictatorship.
A reparations bill passed the Senate on Wednesday and now goes to the lower house of the legislature, where the ruling party has a comfortable majority, and leftist President Tabare Vazquez is expected to sign it.
The bill says Uruguay's ruling military junta violated fundamental individual rights and was responsible for systemic physical and psychological torture, forced disappearances, murders, arbitrary sentences, political exiles and blacklists in the name of national security.
At least 26 victims are officially missing from Uruguay's 1973-1985 dictatorship, according to an armed forces report released in 2005. But human rights groups say thousands were tortured and many opponents of military rule were forced to flee the country in a "dirty war" against dissidents.
The bill also would pay reparations to victims of state oppression beginning in 1968, when Uruguay was still a democracy. But it excludes reparations for victims of family members of those affected the actions of subversive groups such as the Tupamaro Movement.
Leftists were responsible for an estimated 70 deaths as well as assaults, kidnappings, robberies and fires, according to the opposition National Party. Its presidential candidate, former President Luis Lacalle, said Thursday that the bill discriminates against victims of left-wing violence.
