Towards the fall of dictatorship
The political situation in Uruguay began to change in mid-1983.
shift was marked by the breakoff of dialogue between the traditional bourgeois parties and the military, after the military presented to the parties a 24-point document that was essentially a repeat of the draft constitution rejected in the November 3, 1980, referendum by 58% of
The following article describes the evolution.
URUGUAYthe voters. Daniel JEBRAC
After the success of the 1983 May Day celebration organized by the trade-union movement, the government proved unable to stop a planned "march for democ-
Although it banned this demonstration on August 6, the action nonetheless took place on August 10.
Then there were student demonstrations for amnesty, pot-banging concerts and ten-minute strikes. multiplied, coming to an initial peak on
9, with a new ten-minute strike and a demonstration in the evening of 15,000 persons.
The crowd marched down the Avenida 18 de Julio in Montevideo in defiance of a government ban and explicit threats of repression. The police intervened brutally, arresting 270 persons.
Nonetheless, this was the first time the workers movement directly defied the dictatorship in this way, openly braving its threats. Seeing the change in the attitude of the masses and anxious not to lose control of the situation, the traditional political parties (1) called a big rally for "democracy, jobs and freedom" on November 27.
The organizers got permission for a legal rally, and it drew 400,000 persons, in a country whose total population is just over 3 million. All the political parpeople's organizations represented on the platform, the banned organizations, although in the later case this was through wives or relatives of political prisoners. In this way, the Frente Amplio reappeared on
The manifesto adopted at this rally by political parties was couched tough-sounding language. But it in fact accepted the dictatorship's calendar for democratization and made major concessions on the questions of amnesty and
Nonetheless, the success of this rally, which was tolerated by the dictatorship, lent a renewed confidence to the mass movement and a new momentum to
The Colorado and Blanco Parties tried to ride on the back of this movement up until the beginning of 1984, when despite International Viewpoint 4 June 1984
The the Southern Hemisphere summer, number of labor conflicts erupted, strikes and occupations of workplaces.
On the crest of these struggles, the Inter-Union Workers Plenum (PIT), general strike on January 18, 1984, the first since the coup d'etat of June 1973. The action was built to push a platform of economic and democratic demands.
This platform was adopted on January 13, 1984, and included the following 2,500 pesos, with cost-of-living increases struggles underway and for an immediate resolution of them. Subsidies to families to allow them to buy the basic necessities. A program for creating jobs until full employment is reached. A general and unconditional amnesty. Full restoration of trade-union rights. The immediate granting of civil and political freedoms. Lifting of the bans on persons, union organizations and political organizations. Bourgeois party backs out
Before the strike the Colorado Party declared that it was inopportune because it coincided with shifts in the military hierarchy and could be taken as a provocation by the dictatorship. back by one of the major parties obviously made it easier for the government to
On the day of the strike the dictatorship outlawed the PIT
The junta was out to smash the means for centralizing the struggle and mobilizing that the workers movement was forg-
But while the ban could make it more difficult for the PIT to function and act, it could not reverse the course of events. The chains of fear were broken. So, in early March there was a new rise of initiatives for amnesty, for International Women's Day, as well as to greet the resuccessively of Party leader and mathematician Luis Massera, and the former leader of the Frente Amplio, General Liber Seregni.
The military dictatorship has never managed to attract any mass base whatso-
Every attempt it has made since
1974 to reshape the trade-union movement has failed. It was resoundingly rejected at the polls in the 1980 constitutional referendum and once again in the parties in 1982. So, now the military had to pass the stick as quickly as possible to the bourgeois parties before they themselves were outflanked by the radicalization of the workers and people's move-
In early March, the Montevideo carnival offered a graphic demonstration of the nearly unanimous rejection of the die-
Following the costumed contingents and the drummers, the people of
"If we aren't the are the people?" and "Seregni, friend, the people are with
("Seregni, amigo, el pueblo esta Every day the immense majority of the population feels the results of ten years of dietatorship like a
By comparison with 1973, real wages have fallen by 60%. The rate of inflation is running around 60% annually, and the foreign debt has gone over 4.5 billion
Under the pretext of nonpayment of debts, the banks have taken over 30% of the land. Almost all of industry is under the financial control of the big multinational banks, such as the Chase Manhattan Bank or the City Bank.
The unemployment rate has shot up, going officially from 8% to 16% of the
The two traditional parties are the Partido Nacional (Blanco), or the Whites, and the Partido Colorado, or the Reds. Another bourgeois formation, the Union Civica, a Christian Democratic group, a recent revival of a group
What is the Frente Amplio?
The Frente Amplio (Broad Front) was formed for the 1971 elections, in which it
It included the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the economically active population, to say nothing of the plague of unemployment.
Industries such as leather and textiles have been hit hard. After the building boom in the Punta del Este tourist region, the construction industry, Which gives
A impetus to others, is now sluggish.
Christian Democracy and a series of other organizations among which was the decline for the market in meat is expect-
Revolutionary Workers Party-Uruguay (PRT-U), today the Socialist Workers Party ed for 1984, which will have an impact of Uruguay (PST-U). In the context of the economic crisis that rocked the country on the Uruguayan economy. Moreover, in the 1960s, the formation of the Frente Amplio was an attempt to break out of economy is being bled white by the the framework of the bourgeois two-party system of the Blancos and Colorados.
military spending, which absorbs 50% of
After the 1973 coup d'etat, the Frente Amplio continued to exist only formally
But it reappeared on the Uruguayan political scene in the course of the the budget.
new rise of the mass movement, especially after November 1983. Frente Amplio
In these conditions, whatever govbase committees were formed in more than twenty neighborhoods in Montevideo.
ernment that comes out of the general
Today, the Frente Amplio embraces the CP, the SP, a group of organizations inelections next November will face more cluding the March 23 Movement, the Party for the People's Victory (PVP), known
The than difficult social problems.
"Fourth Option," or the Independent Left, and the PST-U.
present regime was able to gain time by
Democracy had withdrawn from it and wanted to make its return conditional on taking advantage of a favorable conjunc discussion of a new platform. But it underwent a change of leadership in February ture in the market for meat and by re-
1984 and decided to re-adhere unconditionally.
scheduling payments on the foreign debt.
Finally, the Frente Amplio includes independent personalities such as its candidate for the 1971 elections, Liber Seregni, who was released in March, after eight
Balance sheet of general strike
The Frente Amplio has not drawn up a new platform for the new political
It ran on a thirty-point platform in 1971.
under the heading "Immediate Governmental Measures."
Nonethless, in 1982, it had to reach directly into the pay packets of workers
We denounce the statement of intent signed with the IMF and other for the first time, imposing a 5% wage agreements that violate national sovereignty.
tax. In the best of circumstances, an upto postpone payment and eliminate unjust conditions. If we are unable to accompturn in the world economy could breathe lish this, we will take adequate unilateral steps...
life into such industries as some new leather and wool. But the internal mar-in particular with the Republic of Cuba, the only country in Latin America with ket is contracting more and more, be-
"4) We will intervene in the private banking system, using the legislation on the limited to the satisfaction of coming books, while we are preparing to nationalize it...
"6) We will intervene, using the legislation on the books, in exporting firms
So, in order for a civilian government
(the packing-house industry, wool), as a first step toward nationalizing foreign of the bourgeois parties to be able to effectively take over from the military, it would need the benefit of a social
"9) We will increase the wages and income of workers in the private sector, both pact that would enable it to put off urban and rural, and of public workers to reestablish a minimum of the buying facing the social problems. The Compower that existed before the wage freeze, in agreement with the workers organmunist Party previously supported the izations and in the framework of planning...
"progressive" sectors of the Blanco Party
We will assure the buying power of the population and the necessary supply of mass-consumption items by establishing price controls and eliminating in the 1982 "internal elections," while the
For this purpose, organs of popular control including proother left parties and General Seregni from his prison called for a blank vote. It
"23) We will reinstate with full rights workers fired, suspended or transferred as has now become the champion of the a result of persecution, and provide compensation for the economic and other damgreat "national accord."
monthly paper published abroad ran a
We will work for the adoption of an amnesty law to get the release of all front-page headline in its February 23 issue calling for "Support for National
This program includes measures that remain urgent after ten years of dictatorship and in view of the social effects of the economic crisis.
From the same standpoint, the PIT
It is too early today to know whether the Frente Amplio as such will be able to leadership adopted a balance sheet of the participate in the November elections, and if so, in what form.
January 18 general strike, in large part pend on the attitude of its various components.
inspired by the CP, that defined accord ticipate in an electoral process marked by limitations on democratic freedom of all the antidictatorial forces as expression, such as maintaining the ban on political parties or certain potential
"a fundamental value in the struggle to definitively oust the dietatorship."
Moreover, the Communist Party, a key component of the Frente, has not yet
This phrase is also played up in the Comdecided whether to intervene in the elections through the Frente Amplio or support what it considers the progressive wing of the bourgeosie by calling on people to munist Party press.
The PIT's balance sheet was approved ten of the twenty federations that make up the organization. Five ab-
And five approved the counter balance sheet presented by the Union of
Workers in the Fuel,
Alcohol and Cement Industries (ANCAP).
This counter balance sheet stressed the responsibility assumed by the traditional parties in refusing to back the January 18 general strike, concluding:
"United-front mobilization against the dictatorship is central to defeating it.
we must remain aware of the limitations of such unity that derive from the differgot 20% of the vote.
which they have been interrupted.
parasitic middle men.
ducers and consumers will be set up.
political prisoners.... vote for the Blanco Party. ent class interests of the forces involved. The traditional parties have already taken the trouble to define these limitations in
The document also called for mobilizing to win legality for the PIT. It proposed a new 48-hour general strike, and organizing a major mobilization for May
In fact, from November 1983 to January 1984, the PIT represented a class alternative within the opposition, both
The Christian
The following ones were
We will re-negotiate the foreign debt
This will also de-
Some of them may refuse to parwith respect to its methods of struggle
(the general strike) and the axes around which it mobilized. Its slogan, dom, decent wages, jobs and amnesty!"
served to distinguish it from the traditional bourgeois parties on the platform at the big November 1983 rally.
"Democracy, jobs, free-
There is no doubt either that the political polarizations that developed in the
PIT leadership will also show up in the
International Viewpoint 4 June 1984
Fente Amplio. These have turned around three key questions.
A determined fight for democratic
1.
demands involves pressing for full restoration of political and trade-union freedoms.
First of all, this means amnesty for all without exceptions.
But the traditional
The reorganisation of the parties would let the cases of some polit ical prisoners accused of terrorist acts.