Impunity - Uruguay

WHEREAS Zelmar Michelini, a journalist of the daily La Opinión of Buenos Aires was kidnapped on May 18, 1976, from a downtown hotel in Buenos Aires where he had been living in exile since 1973. His body was found three days late in a car along with the bodies of Héctor Gutíerrez Ruiz, speaker of the Uruguayan Chamber of Deputies, who had been kidnapped the same day and Tupamaro militants William Whitelaw Blanco and Rosario del Carmen Barredo de Schroeder. Their hands and feet were tied and they had been tortured and shot WHEREAS a case is open in Argentina mentioning as alleged perpetrators members of the armed forces, the police, and security and intelligence agencies of Argentina and Uruguay coordinated in Operation Condor, according to a criminal complaint by relatives of Michelini and Gutiérrez Ruiz WHEREAS 28 years later the crime still has not been solved WHEREAS Article 4 of the Declaration of Chapultepec says, “Freedom of expression and of the press are severely limited by murder, terrorism, kidnapping, pressure, intimidation, the unjust imprisonment of journalists, the destruction of facilities, violence of any kind and impunity for perpetrators. Such acts must be investigated promptly and punished harshly” THE MIDYEAR MEETING OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to urge the governments of Argentina and Uruguay to work to solve these crimes.