The statements of Pepe Mujica and his wife about the dictatorship that reached Justice in Uruguay

MONTEVIDEO.- A prosecutor asked the Uruguayan Justice this Friday to order to former vice president Lucía Topolansky, appear to testify for some controversial expressions about people who would have lied in cases of crimes committed by soldiers during the dictatorship, some comments that sparked criticism against her and her husband, former president José “Pepe” Mujica, who endorsed the claims.

The prosecutor specialized in Crimes Against Humanity, Ricardo Perciballe, filed that request because of Topolansky’s statements in the book The indomitablefrom journalist Pablo Cohen, and who met this week.

Cohen quotes the leftist Topolansky (former member of the National Liberation Movement – ​​Tupamaros) on how investigations into crimes committed by soldiers during the dictatorship have progressed, with criticism of militants from other sectors of the left.

Topolansky said that there are “people who lie in their statements” about crimes that occurred during the dictatorship: “They came to one of our comrades to say—no matter what political sector—: ‘I lied, I said this and that, and we put so-and-so in prison.’ And he answered: ‘I’m not going to say it.’ There they accuse you of being a traitor and believe that the Tupamaros did not say anything. No, we say what we saw.”

“We know who are those who lied within the left. But we’re not going to say it.” she expressed, and when questioned by the journalist, she replied: “Because we are not traitors or buttons.”

Asked about his wife’s statements, Mujica endorsed his words. “Those things are known to us, yes. I’m not going to say that it was general, but there were people who came out with a lot of resentment and found that that was exactly what they went through. Not all, but I know there were cases,” said the Frente Amplio leader in a radio interview.

After this, the Attorney General’s Office issued a statement informing that since the creation of that Prosecutor’s Office in February 2018 “There have been 38 prosecutions and formalizations and 28 convictions. At the same time, 73 files have been registered because the prosecutor’s team understood that there was not enough evidence to move forward with the case.” and they add that the defendants “have had all the guarantees of the rule of law.”

In his writing, prosecutor Perciballe defends that “the Prosecutor’s Office maintains its absolute conviction that the victims of this case, like all those it has had to act on, have expressed the truth. Likewise, that There is no conspiracy to harm anyone, much less an innocent person.”.

However, lawyer Emilio Mikolic, who works for the Military Center and has defended former members of the Armed Forces in various cases linked to the period of State terrorism, said that They will try to reopen cases that have already been sentenced and to review others that are in process, because it is interpreted that Mujica and Topolansky’s statements are new.

The statements of Topolansky and Mujica sparked immediate repudiation from organizations of victims of repression. and the general rejection on the left, who came out to turn his back on the two historical figures of the Frente Amplio.

The National Political Table of the Frente Amplio (FA) met on Wednesday for the last time in 2024. Despite being a year of triumph that meant the return of the left to the government, The celebration was marred by the obligation to speak out quickly, and they did so by expressing a common feeling of “indignation, pain and rage.”

Also the president-elect, Yamandu Orsi, He distanced himself from the statements of his political leaders, and said that “If someone doubts or has indications that they did not proceed correctly, they take responsibility for what they say.”

During a press conference within the framework of an activity for National Police Day in Canelones, Orsi said that the issue has “different edges”.

“The first is memory, and Uruguay has already resolved that and today no one doubts and no one stops thinking about those May 20 (day of the March of Silence) in what we are talking about,” he noted.

“The other component is the truth,” he said, adding: “If anyone ever doubted, the truth is the truth. Here human rights were violated, There are many people who are missing here, human rights have been violated here in a cruel and unacceptable way.”

The third “is that of Justice.” “I am not the one to analyze or doubt what the judges determine,” he continued, and then responded directly to Mujica and Topolansky: “To be more specific, if someone doubts or has indications that they did not proceed correctly, they take responsibility for what they say and they will have their reasons.”

“I never doubt what the Justice of my country imparts, regardless of whether I like or don’t like what it determines,” he stated.

With information from El País/GDA