The daily newspaper El País reports that the National Human Rights Institution, an agency of questionable constitutional status, is requesting a seventy five percent increase in its budget. Retirees will receive at the beginning of February an adjustment that does not even reach six percent, no comment needed. The purpose of this increase is, yes, you guessed it, dear reader, to continue the search for the disappeared. And it is very likely, although the newspaper does not say it, that the Broad Front, yes, you guessed again, will support that small percentage or perhaps a slightly smaller one, because protecting votes is a Herculean and almost sacred task.
Therefore this worn out and overused topic deserves some reflection.
First, according to the Peace Commission formed at the time by Dr. Jorge Batlle, the number of disappeared persons within national territory was thirty two. And while there might possibly be some more in a neighboring country, it is obvious that the Uruguayan state has no jurisdiction to carry out excavations or searches in a police station or military post outside its own territory.
Second, there is a generalized opinion that these people are dead, perhaps with one exception that at some point was rumored to have lived in Europe while still officially listed as disappeared. Even if true, this does not really change the balance, leaving aside the immorality of such a situation.
Third, from the original number of thirty two, the remains of several of them have already been found, so the number has obviously gone down.
And the fourth point seems to be the most important.
If by any chance someone had any information or any clue about where the bodies might lie, that person would not only be very old, but would also have to be extremely reckless to speak up and complicate what remains of their life. That would open the door to an inquisition worthy of Torquemada, asking how they know, what they were doing back then, why they did not speak earlier, whether they are protecting someone else, and a long and exhausting list of questions, possibly even with an uncertain ending for the informant. In this matter nothing can be ruled out.
Money is powerful.
Fifty years on average after the events, it is hard to believe that people are still profiting, economically and politically, from the victims and their families, who are in fact the only ones who truly have the right to know something more. At this stage that seems extremely difficult.
As a comparative example, it is worth remembering that the Soviet Union returned the last nine thousand German prisoners of war it held in nineteen fifty five and fifty six, that is ten or eleven years after the end of a conflict that was extremely brutal on the so called Eastern Front. This was achieved through talks between German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev.
Will there ever be someone with the civic courage to put an end to this dark and hardly edifying situation.
Sadly for now, there is no such person, and none is expected.