Uruguay National Security
The colonial fortress museum of Santa Teresa
National Park near Laguna Negra in Rocha Department
AS OF 1990, URUGUAY FACED no external threat. Its defense
posture
was based on the country's geostrategic position as a
buffer
state. Defense planners recognized that the nation could
never
independently deter invasion, however unlikely, by either
of its
two giant neighbors--Argentina and Brazil--and instead
counted on
attracting aid from one should the other attack. As a
result, the
armed forces were chiefly organized to cope with internal
threats, although Uruguay had no terrorist or insurgency
problem
in the 1980s and 1990.
During the 1960s and early 1970s, an urban guerrilla
movement--the National Liberation Movement-Tupamaros
(Movimiento
de Liberación Nacional-Tupamaros--MLN-T)--posed a
significant
threat to national security. The military ruthlessly
suppressed
the Tupamaros in 1972 after the police proved unable to do
so.
Although the Tupamaros had been brought under control by
then,
the military seized control of the government of Juan
María
Bordaberry Arocena (1972-76) in 1973 in order to suppress
all
activity it interpreted as threatening the public order.
The
military's effort to rationalize and legitimize its role
as
political arbiter was rejected in a 1980 referendum. The
defeat
was attributable to the country's strong national
democratic
tradition and to public bitterness over human rights
abuses under
military rule. The military, itself divided over the armed
forces' proper role in national political life, accepted
the
public's decision, and civilian rule was restored
completely in
1985.
After the resumption of civilian rule, the armed forces
occupied a position much like that during the period
before
military rule; they were under the control of the civilian
government and were largely excluded from national
political and
economic decision making. The armed forces continued to
embrace a
conservative and anticommunist political orientation. The
military leadership, however, expressed its commitment to
a
pluralist democratic system on several occasions during
the late
1980s and in 1990.
Acknowledging reluctantly that the nation faced no
serious
threat to internal order and sensitive to the dictates of
a
constrained national economy, during the late 1980s the
military
accepted an approximately 20 percent reduction in
personnel, as
well as a significant reduction in spending. As of 1990,
armed
forces strength was about 25,200, somewhat higher than the
level
maintained during premilitary rule.
The army was deployed geographically under regional
headquarters; it was organized and equipped principally as
a
counterinsurgency force. The navy operated a coastal and
riverine
patrol fleet; it was supported by a small naval air arm.
The air
force provided counterinsurgency air support and transport
and
logistics services. Equipment in all three services was
aging or
obsolete, and, because of shortages of spare parts, some
equipment could not operate. The straitened national
economy,
however, made replacement or modernization of the armed
forces
inventory unlikely in the near term.
Public order in the late 1980s was chiefly disturbed by
occasional--and usually not very lengthy--public
demonstrations
or labor actions. Little violence was associated with such
activities, and for the most part the National Police were
able
to maintain public order and contain ordinary crime
without
resorting to unusual force. The National Police were
divided into
local commands under a departmental chief in each of the
country's nineteen departments.
Criminal justice was the responsibility of the national
government. The Supreme Court of Justice administered the
national judiciary and the country's criminal courts.
Constitutional guarantees regarding civil rights and the
right to
a fair trial were routinely honored. Political prisoners
were
granted amnesty in 1985 and released from prison; there
have been
no credible reports of political arrests or human rights
abuses
since that time.
Data as of December 1990
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