"Rivals headed to runoff vote in Uruguay" by Associated Press | October 26, 2009
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay - Uruguay faced a stark choice in the election between Jose Mujica, 74, the candidate of the ruling socialist party [and] a former guerrilla who yearns to create enduring socialism, and former president Luis Alberto Lacalle, 69, who wants to downsize government and distance his nation from Latin American leftists.
Smacks of US rigging. We want no more leftists down there!
Uruguayans also considered a voter initiative to remove amnesty for human rights abuses under the 1973-85 dictatorship.... The military amnesty law was passed in 1986 as a balancing move a year after Mujica and other Tupamaru guerrillas were granted amnesty for their crimes.
So the socialists put up a war criminal for office?
Lacalle described the amnesty as key to a peaceful transition to democracy after the 12-year dictatorship and says it should stand.
And the other guy was in on it!
Related: Files in Paraguay Detail Atrocities of U.S. Allies
As in SO MANY PLACES, it was OUR DICTATORSHIP, America.
Others say the country must confront its past, even if it means opening old wounds.
It was true for South Africa, it's true for Uruguay, and it would be TRUE for Americans, too!!
That means JFK, 9/11 and ALL the OTHER TRUTHS you do not want to see.
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The result of the run-off:
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay - A plain-talking socialist who once led an armed revolutionary movement and now scorns “stupid ideologies’’ won Uruguay’s presidential run-off yesterday, keeping the ruling center-left coalition in power, according to three exit polls.
Jose Mujica’s victory keeps the Broad Front center-left coalition in power for another five-year term beginning March 1. The former Tupamaro guerrilla said he will continue the policies of popular President Tabare Vazquez and work to unify Latin America. Mujica’s rebellion in the 1960s caused so much chaos that Uruguayans initially welcomed the 1973-85 dictatorship. He spent all that time in prison, an experience he said cured him of any illusion that armed revolution can achieve lasting social change. Lacalle said his rival would transform the South American country into a radical socialist state, but Mujica campaigned as a consensus builder, and most voters were apparently convinced he would govern from the center.
Mujica’s victory also gave the Broad Front a narrow majority in Congress, where his wife, Senator Lucia Topolansky, was the top-vote getter and therefore is now third in line to the presidency, after Vice President-elect Danilo Astori....
Mujica, 74, vowed to do everything possible to build bridges and avoid creating an atmosphere of tension and drama. He said negotiation and dialogue would be his tools, and cited President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil as his inspiration.... Many voters said the single five-year term required by Uruguay’s constitution wasn’t enough to consolidate the successes of Vazquez, a Marxist oncologist and former Montevideo mayor who enjoyed 71 percent approval ratings in a poll this month. Vazquez imposed a progressive income tax, using the additional revenue to lower unemployment and poverty, provide equal access to health care to everyone under 18, and steer the economy to 1.9 percent growth this year even as many other economies shrank....
No wonder they wanted to CONTINUE with what they had!!!
Mujica cofounded the Tupamaros, one of many Latin American leftist rebel groups inspired by the Cuban revolution in the 1960s to organize kidnappings, bombings, robberies, and other attacks on US-backed right-wing governments.
Amazing how when GOVERNMENTS do those things it seems to be NOT as much of a problem, huh?
Convicted of killing a policeman in 1971, he endured torture and solitary confinement during nearly 15 years in prison.
Oh, yeah, it is OKAY for GOVERNMENTS to TORTURE, as well -- as long as they are an ALLY or IN the EMPLOY of the U.S.
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