Flood of rights lawsuits after Uruguay lifts amnesty

Scores of people have come forward in Uruguay to seek justice for alleged crimes committed during the country's 1973-1985 dictatorship after the lifting of a 25-year-old amnesty law. The Institute of Legal and Social Studies of Uruguay (IELSUR), a rights group, filed a complaint on Monday against some 100 troops in the name of 90 people detained in a decade-long crackdown against communists launched in 1975. The plaintiffs allege "torture, cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment during the entire period of their detention," IELSUR lawyer Jorge Pan told AFP. The complaint follows a suit filed last week by 28 women who say they were sexually abused in detention facilities during the same period. On Thursday Uruguay's parliament voted to overturn a 1986 amnesty law that had long hindered investigations into alleged human rights abuses committed during Latin America's "dirty wars" of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The amnesty law required judges to consult the executive before trying such cases, and successive governments rejected such requests until then-president Tabare Vazquez gave the green light in 2005 for the first trials. A presidential peace commission established in 2000 found that 38 people were abducted and either executed or tortured to death during the period of military dictatorship. Uruguay's military often worked with the militaries of neighboring nations, putting into effect a secret plan called "Operation Condor" to eliminate leftist political opponents. Several Latin American countries have prosecuted former military officers and even heads of states for crimes committed from the 1960s to the 1980s, when rightwing dictatorships battled leftist opponents across the continent.