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Chile 1 (Below) Before September 1970

School of the Americas Graduates (Notorious): Uruguay

U. S. involvment with deaths of guerrillas:

Uruguayan retired navy rear admiral and former intelligence chief Eladio Moll revealed in a letter on July 23 that during Uruguay's dirty war in the 1970s, orders came from the US to kill captive members of the rebel National Liberation Movement (MLN)--better known as the Tupamaros--after interrogating them. Moll, who retired this past February, had also served as Uruguay's military attache in Washington. US ambassador Christopher Ashby called the charges "ridiculous." [Cable News Network en Espanol 7/23/98; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 7/24/98 from AP]
"The guidance that was sent from the US was that what had to be done with the captured guerrillas was to get information, and that afterwards they didn't deserve to live," said Moll, although he did not specify which US agency made the recommendations. "The Uruguayan navy respected the lives of the guerrillas," said Moll. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 7/22/98] Moll said specifically that the Uruguayan navy "saved the life" of Tupamaro leader Raul Sendic and other guerrilla leaders. [CNN en Espanol 7/23/98]
Moll first made the accusations on July 20 while testifying in secret proceedings before a commission of the Chamber of Deputies, which was investigating charges by US businesspeople who claimed to have been defrauded by his son, Ricardo Moll, in a scheme involving fishing permits. The accusations were then made public by opposition deputy Jose Mujica of the leftist Frente Amplio coalition, himself a former militant of the MLN who was imprisoned between 1972 and 1985. "Those things we already knew and we had said them many times, but that a rear admiral says it, a man with 40 years of service... that's something else, it has another significance," said Mujica. [Agencia Informativa Pulsar 7/22/98; CNN en Espanol 7/23/98; Clarin 7/22/98]
Moll reiterated his charges in the July 23 letter, a response to US ambassador Ashby's denial. Moll said he had documents to prove his statements, and wrote: "We allow ourselves to suggest to you that you request the documents about the matter which exist in official and international agencies of the US." [ED-LP 7/24/98 from AP]
Former MLN member Mauricio Rosencoff, who was also imprisoned during the dictatorship, told the press that Moll's statements help reveal the truth about what happened under Uruguay's military regime. Rosencoff emphasized that the training given to Uruguayan military officers in Panama, as well as the help that agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) gave to the army and police in Uruguay, included the practice of torture. [CNN en Espanol 7/23/98]
According to human rights organizations, more than 900 Uruguayan military officers took courses from the US Army Southern Command at the School of the Americas, which was located in Panama from 1946 to 1984 before moving to Fort Benning, Georgia. In 1970 in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, the Tupamaros murdered CIA agent Dan Mitrione, who had taught courses about torture methods to many Uruguayan officers. [Clarin 7/22/98]
Source: "Uruguay: US Accused of Murder of Rebel Captives," Weekly News Update on the Americas, Issue #443, Jul 25, 1998, Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York, 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012. For more information, email to wnu@igc.apc.org

History of U. S. Military Interventions: URUGUAY/1947/Nuclear threat/Bombers deployed as show of strength. S. Brian Willson, "Who are the Real Terrorists?", citing several sources including William Blum, Killing Hope: U. S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Monroe, Maine: common Courage Press, 1995

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Updated March 27, 1999

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