Juan María Bordaberry, former Uruguayan dictator (respiratory problems)

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Ed Varner

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Jan 27, 2007, 1:05:51 AM1/27/07

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Juan María Bordaberry born June 17, 1928
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Former Uruguayan dictator Bordaberry hospitalized complaining of
respiratory problems

January 24, 2007

Associated Press
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay: Former dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry, arrested in
November in connection with killings during Uruguay's 1973-85 military
rule, was hospitalized Wednesday complaining of respiratory problems,
authorities said.

The British Hospital in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo issued a
statement saying Bordaberry, 78, was taken overnight from his jail
cell. It did not elaborate on his medical condition, but said he was in
a regular hospital room and not intensive care.

The statement said Bordaberry, who underwent a stomach operation
shortly before his arrest, was not allowed contact with relatives.

Elected president in 1971, Bordaberry dissolved Congress and banned
political parties the following year at the behest of military leaders
who seized power outright in 1973. The military eventually ousted him
in 1976, and Uruguay remained under the control of a right-wing
dictatorship until 1985.

Two criminal law judges are prosecuting him for 14 deaths and
disappearances during the dictatorship.

Bordaberry's lawyers say his arrest and indictment were politically
motivated.

Judge Pablo Eguren was summoned by police late Tuesday to the central
police jail where Bordaberry was being held, authorities said. After
examining Bordaberry, Eguren authorized his hospitalization early
Wednesday.

The arrests of Bordaberry and former Foreign Minister Juan Blanco were
part of this small South American country's efforts to grapple with
dictatorship's legacy of disappearances, torture and exile of thousands
of political dissidents.

Bordaberry and Blanco were ordered jailed by a judge investigating the
abductions and killings of two former lawmakers and two leftist rebels
in May 1976 that shocked Uruguay in the early throes of the long
military dictatorship.

On Dec. 20, another judge, Graciela Gatti, also indicted Bordaberry on
10 additional murder charges stemming from what prosecutors said was
the arbitrary detention and disappearance of leftists, including
communist militants Fernando Miranda and Ubagesner Chavez Sosa.

The skeletal remains of Miranda and Chavez Sosa, missing since the
mid-70s, were recovered last year by forensic experts searching for the
missing.

President Tabare Vazquez, Uruguay's first leftist leader, took office
in March 2005 promising to make human rights a priority.

In May, eight former military and police officials were detained in an
inquiry of the slayings of two leftist militants in 1976.