Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
They are usually small in area and population, ethnically
and religiously homogenous, well-off, and situated in a peaceful part of the
world, alongside neighbours who have no designs on them.
What are they? Countries which go virtually unnoticed
internationally. Yet they can be quite interesting. The quintessential example?
Uruguay.
A settler state like its big neighbour Argentina, which lies
across from it, separated by the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, Uruguay’s
population of 3.32 million is composed almost entirely of Spanish and other
European immigrants.
At 176,215 square kilometres, it is the second-smallest
country in South America. Its only other neighbour is Brazil, and it has
historically served as a buffer between these two South American giants.
During the 19th century wars of independence in
South America, the country was briefly occupied by Brazil, but gained its
independence in 1828, with the help of Argentina.
Over the next decades, Uruguay became wealthy from the
export of livestock to Europe, and it became the world’s first welfare state.
The capital, Montevideo, became a major economic centre of the region.
But in the late 1950s, partly because of a decrease in
demand in the world market for agricultural products, Uruguay began having
economic problems, which included inflation, mass unemployment, and a steep
drop in the standard of living for Uruguayan workers.
This led to student militancy and labour unrest. An urban
guerrilla movement known as the Movimiento
de Liberacion Nacional-Tupamaros was formed in the early 1960s,
robbing banks and distributing food and money in poor neighbourhoods, and
undertaking political kidnappings and attacks on security forces.
The filmmaker Constantin Costa-Gavras drew inspiration for
his 1972 movie, “State of Siege,” from their abduction and execution in 1970 of
Daniel Mitrione, an American adviser to Uruguay’s security forces.
Democratic institutions could not withstand the strain. In 1968,
President Jorge Pacheco brought in a state of emergency; his successor, Juan
Maria Bordaberry, repealed all constitutional safeguards in 1972 and brought in
the army in to combat the guerrillas.
They not only defeated the insurgents but mounted a coup in
1973; the dictatorship would last twelve years.
The new regime suppressed all political activity, including
the traditional parties and the left. Many people were imprisoned, tortured and
killed.
Unions and political parties remained illegal until a
general strike in 1984 forced the military to accept civilian rule and the
restoration of democracy in 1985.
Though democracy was re-established, a controversial “Expiry
Law,” passed in 1986 by the Uruguayan parliament, prevents the prosecution of
police and military officials for crimes committed under military rule.
The country has in recent decades returned to its
progressive orientation. In 2004 Uruguayans elected Tabaré Vazquez as
president, while giving his Broad Front, a coalition of numerous left-of-centre
movements, a majority in both houses of parliament.
As president, he presided over improvements in education and
working conditions and a significant expansion of the welfare system.
He was succeeded after the 2009 election by José Mujica, who
had been a Tupamaro himself. He had been captured by the authorities on four
different occasions, was tortured, and was also shot once. He spent 14 years in
captivity, 10 of them in solitary confinement.
Like many other former Tupamaros, Mujica re-entered politics
and became a member of a movement which
is a member of the Broad Front. He was minister of Livestock,
Agriculture and Fisheries in Vazquez’s
administration.
Eschewing the opulent presidential mansion, the 79-year-old
former guerrilla and his wife, Lucia Topolansky, live in a modest house on
Montevideo’s outskirts. His net worth upon taking office in 2010 amounted to
about $1,800. He gives almost 90 per cent of his income to low-income housing
organisations.
Topolansky is also a former guerrilla who was imprisoned for
13 years. Today she is a senator.
Last December, Mujica signed into law a plan to create a
regulated, legal market for marijuana. Legislators have argued that the
legislation forms part of a tradition in Uruguay of searching for progressive
solutions to social problems.
Indeed, under Mujica, Uruguay has emerged as a laboratory
for socially liberal policies. The country has also enacted a groundbreaking
abortion rights law, legalized same-sex marriage and is becoming a centre for
renewable energy ventures.
Why is Uruguay so liberal? “We’re a country of immigrants, anarchists and persecuted people from all over the world,” Mujica explains.
It turns out there’s plenty of news from Uruguay!
