The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances* said this Friday that Uruguay must end decades of impunity for human rights violationsredoubling efforts to search for missing persons and taking the necessary steps to bring those responsible to justice.
At the end of an official visit to the South American nation, the experts highlighted that, to date, no exhaustive clarification exercise has been carried out and reconstruction of the truth regarding the violations committed against fundamental guarantees.
The Group indicated that Uruguay must take effective measures to prosecute those responsible for the crimes committed in the past.
“It is It is imperative that the State assumes its responsibility and immediately reverse the lack of progress in the search for missing persons over more than five decades,” the experts said in a statement.
In their preliminary remarksthey considered urgent a comprehensive, coherent and participatory State policy that breaks the silence and contribute to improving the collection of information “both from human and documentary sources”.
Commitment to the truth
The specialists highlighted the commitment of the victims and the relatives of the disappeared persons with the truth and the preservation of historical memoryas well as its demand for guarantees of non-repetition.
They also underlined his courage and tireless fight to find the disappearedensure justice and fight against impunity for crimes committed during the period of illegitimate action by the State and dictatorship, between 1968 and 1985.
They emphasized the role of the victims and their families in generating a social consensus that recognizes and rejects the crimes of the dictatorshipas well as their work in the construction of a “never again”, but lamented the possible change in narrative that is perceived in initiatives that tend to dilute responsibility for crimes committed by the State.
For the Working Group, the work of the National Human Rights Institution is positive and has credibility and trust among the victims.
At this point, he referred to the upcoming election of a new Board of Directors for that institution, highlighting the need to that the candidates represent civil actors involved in the promotion and protection of human rights.
Reparation is not for all victims
With regard to reparation measures for victims and relatives of victims of enforced disappearances, the Group expressed concern about to established criteria, which do not meet international standards.
The experts explained that many victims who were disappeared and subjected to acts of torture and sexual violence during their detention have not been officially recognized to date, so they will not benefit with repair measures.
They also expressed alarm over the reparation laws, which do not include girls, boys and adolescents as direct victims of human rights violations during the period 1968-1985.
International cooperation against the abuses of Operation Condor
Regarding the forced disappearances that occurred in the framework of the Operation Condorthe Group urged Uruguay to provide the necessary international judicial assistance for criminal proceedings.
Operation Condor was a US-backed campaign of political repression and state terrorism that united the security forces and intelligence services of the dictatorships of the Southern Cone to silence people considered “subversive elements”.
“Uruguay must cooperate with other States in the assistance, search, and location of disappeared persons and, in the event of death, the exhumation, identification, and restitution of their remains,” he stressed.
The experts called for not neglect the disappearances of girls, boys and adolescents After their stay in state protection centers, they no longer ignore the disappearances of women, who could have been victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking.
They noted that there is a climate of stigmatization and an absence of preventive measures, search mechanisms and policies directed specifically at this group of people and at the effective investigation of these cases.
The Working Group will present to the Human Rights Council the concluding remarks of his visit to Uruguay in September 2023.
* The Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances is made up of five independent experts from all regions of the world: Luciano Hazan (Argentina); Aua Balde (Guinea-Bissau); gabriella citroni (Italy); Henrikas Mickevicius (Lithuania); Y Angkhana Neelapaijit (Thailand).
The Working Group was established by the UN Human Rights Commission in 1980 to assist relatives of disappeared persons in finding out their whereabouts or fate. The Group acts as a channel of communication between the families and the governments involved in order to ensure that individual cases are investigated, with the aim of clarifying the whereabouts of people who, having disappeared, are outside the protection of the law. . The panel of experts continues to deal with the disappearance cases until they are resolved. In addition, the Working Group provides assistance to States for the application of the United Nations Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. For more information on the Working Group, visit: https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/wg-disappearances
The UN Working Groups are part of what are known as the special procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the umbrella name for the Council’s independent investigative and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. world. Special Procedures Experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN employees and do not receive a salary for their work. Its members are independent from any government or organization and act in their individual capacity.
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