Families reflect on the killings of Zelmar Michelini and Hector Gutierrez and the ongoing search for the disappeared.
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Uruguayan lawmakers Zelmar Michelini and Hector Gutierrez Ruiz in Buenos Aires. On May 20, 1976, they and former Tupamaro militants Rosario Barredo and William Whitelaw were victims of one of the most emblematic crimes of Operation Condor, a U.S.-backed counterinsurgency plan that coordinated repression across the Southern Cone dictatorships.
Santiago Gutierrez, grandson of Hector Gutierrez and a lawmaker from the National Party, said their assassination represented “the assassination of the formal party system” in Uruguay, while Rafael Michelini, son of Zelmar Michelini and a senator from the Broad Front, described it as “the beginning of the end” of the civic-military dictatorship that governed the country between 1973 and 1985.
For Michelini, the murder of the four victims sought to send the message that “no one was safe from terror,” while Gutierrez said the crime struck figures who represented “the entire political spectrum” of Uruguay at the time.
“My father, Gutierrez Ruiz, Rosario Barredo and William were killed by the Uruguayan dictatorship. I believe that was the beginning of the end,” Zelmar Michelini’s son said.
Although Uruguay’s dictatorship ended in 1985, Michelini said the crime marked a turning point in support for the perpetrators: “Uruguayan society is very clear on that: It does not support murderers.”
Gutierrez recalled Zelmar Michelini as “a central figure” in the political landscape of the time. Michelini had begun his political career in the Colorado Party and later became one of the founders of the Broad Front, while his grandfather was president of the Chamber of Representatives for the National Party.
“That representation included the entire political spectrum of that time,” Gutierrez said, adding that the deaths of the lawmakers represented an attack on “the formal political party system in Uruguay.”
“They took Dad away, he’s not coming back,” are the words Rafael Michelini remembers from the day his father was kidnapped in Buenos Aires on May 18, 1976. Three days later came the news that the bodies had been found.
Gutierrez said he became familiar with his grandfather’s story through the documentary D.F. Destino Final, by his uncle Mateo Gutierrez, which reconstructs the investigations but also presents a more human side of the lawmakers.
Where Are They?
Unlike those who are still searching for disappeared relatives, the families of Michelini and Gutierrez Ruiz know where they are and what happened to them.
At the beginning of May, the Association of Mothers and Relatives of Disappeared Uruguayan Detainees met with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi and urged him to order the Armed Forces to provide information on the whereabouts of the disappeared.
Michelini believes that decision should be implemented through “a decree ordering the recovery of archives, clues, oral testimonies and other materials,” in addition to assigning responsibilities within the Armed Forces to locate possible files related to the disappeared.
Gutierrez said this is “institutionally important and necessary,” but questioned its effectiveness, to the extent that those responsible do not feel remorse.
“Even in a war there comes a moment when weapons are put down, the wounded are treated and the dead are mourned. They did not even allow that,” he said, referring to what he described as “the depth of the evil of those people.”
For the younger Gutierrez, the search for the disappeared “became a state policy,” insofar as “the country’s three most important parties while in power have taken executive actions regarding the issue, some with greater rhetorical emphasis and some with less.”
Gutierrez acknowledged that disagreements remain regarding the dictatorship and events before and after that period. Nevertheless, he said there should be agreement on May 20 “that it is unacceptable for a Uruguayan not to have returned home because of the actions carried out by the state.”
teleSUR/ JF
Source: EFE
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