Reply #23: Here's a portion of the BBC timeline on Uruguay which relates to this period:

[Judi Lynn]

Last Updated: Wednesday, 7 November 2007, 15:47 GMT
Timeline: Uruguay

~snip~
1973 - Armed forces seize power and promise to encourage foreign investment, but usher in a period of extreme repression during which Uruguay becomes known as "the torture chamber of Latin America" and accumulates the largest number of political prisoners per capita in the world.

1984 - Violent protests against repression and deteriorating economic conditions.

1985 - Army and political leaders agree on return to constitutional government and the release of political prisoners; law grants amnesty to members of the armed forces accused of human rights violations during years of dictatorship; Julio Maria Sanguinetti becomes president.

1989 - Referendum endorses amnesty for human rights abusers; Lacalle Herrera elected president.

1994 - Julio Maria Sanguinetti elected president.

1999 - Jorge Batlle elected president.

2000 - Commission begins investigating the fate of 160 people who disappeared during the years of military dictatorship.

2002 April - Uruguay breaks diplomatic ties with Cuba, after Cuba accuses it of being a US lackey for sponsoring a UN resolution which calls on Havana to implement human rights reforms.
(snip)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/1229362.stm

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This dictator, Gregorio Alvarez, would have been connecting with Ronald Reagan as his buddy in the White House. You recall Ronald Reagan was BIG on supporting barbaric Latin American violent oppression of leftists, union workers, villagers, local Catholic liberation theology priests and their households, suspected could be leftists, etc.