This Thursday at around 5:40 p.m. in the Lost Steps Hall of the Legislative Palace, the act of acknowledging the Uruguayan state’s responsibility for the murders of the April Girls: Silvia Reyes, Laura Raggio and Diana Maidanik began. And also for the “enforced disappearance” of Luis Eduardo González and Óscar Tassino.
In 1974, the combined forces of the military regime dispersed Maidanik, Raggio and Reyes.
Without the presence of the President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, the act was directed by Vice President Beatriz Argimón; the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Relations, Nicolás Albertoni; and Karina Tassino, representing the victims’ families.
The state’s recognition of the deaths of these three women came following a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which in 2021 found that “Uruguay committed a lack of investigative diligence in resolving the case” and that there should be one “public act of recognition of international responsibility” should take place, at which authorities from the three branches of state and representatives of the victims should be present.
The group of mothers and relatives of detained and disappeared Uruguayans made a call to Primero de Mayo Square in front of the Legislative Palace, where the crime was broadcast on a screen as the quota inside the building was limited to 500 people.
Various state and departmental authorities as well as relatives of the victims were involved in the crime.
After the intonation of the national anthem, Argimón was the first to speak. Recalling the IACHR ruling, the Vice President stressed that the act was carried out in public, as required by the ruling.
It also expressed that, in accordance with the verdict, the Uruguayan state recognizes that it is responsible for human rights violations against Tassino and González.
“We recognize that the state is responsible for violations of the rights to guarantees and remedies enshrined in Articles 8.1 and 25.1 of the American Convention on Human Rights. “Moreover, to the detriment of said next of kin, the state has violated the right to know the truth,” said Argimón, who “expressed the state’s obligation to find out the whereabouts of the missing victims, as well as to investigate, punish and punish.” “to adequately redress the human rights violations committed in this case.”
What happened to Diana, Laura and Silvia?
More than four decades have passed since that early morning in 1974, on Calle Mariano Soler, when the combined forces of the Uruguayan military regime – under the command of José Nino Gavazzo and Juan Rebollo – attacked Diana Maidanik, Laura Raggio and Silvia Reyes, their faces jumbled They are immortalized in photos every April and their crime was still awaiting clarification until June 15th.
This case is one of the most brutal episodes of the Uruguayan dictatorship (1973-1985). In 2021, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) issued a historic ruling. It also condemned the state to be held accountable for the disappearances of Tassino and González. The first was kidnapped, tortured and interrogated in 1974; According to the La Paz Commission, he died on December 26 as a result of torture. The second died at the age of 40 as a result of beatings in the La Tablada secret detention center.
The early morning of 1974
Mónica Wodzislawski, Maidanik’s cousin, told EFE news agency that “families have been affected forever”.
He recalled that it was then that Midanik and Raggio found out that many of the anti-dictatorship militants who showed up at the barracks at the request of the authorities were in prison.
To avoid this, they both pretended to leave the country and sought the help of Reyes’ husband, who would get them the papers to travel to Argentina. However, early in the morning of April 21, a squad looking for him went straight to the house where the three women, aged between 19 and 21, one of whom was pregnant, were sleeping and shot them dead.
The Ways of Justice
With the restoration of democracy in Uruguay, complaints about crimes against humanity reached the courts, but they were unsuccessful because, as Jorge Pan, retired lawyer from the Institute of Legal and Social Studies of Uruguay (Ielsur), stressed to EFE, the Das Drainage Act “puts an end to absolutely all investigations.”
On behalf of the relatives of the Muchachas de Abril and the disappeared Tassino and González, Ielsur tried to have the judiciary order a new investigation into the crimes, even though the law exempted members of the Joint Forces from criminal responsibility during the dictatorship in democracy. for the “right to the truth”.
Judges and prosecutors disagreed, however, and when “all possibilities through the domestic route were ruled out,” the international route stood, hand-in-hand with the Inter-American Court of Justice, which, after a full review of the cases, ruled in favor of the applicants in November 2021 .
“[Según la sentencia] The Uruguayan state bears international responsibility for the executions of Raggio, Reyes and Maidanik and the enforced disappearances of González and Tassino. this responsibility […] it is exacerbated by the fact that the investigation has ignored the state; To date, in all of these cases, there has not been a person prosecuted,” he summarized.
With information from EFE