The Memorial de los Detenidos Desaparecidos: Fragile memory and contested meaning in Post-dictatorship Uruguay

Abstract

Nearly thirty years after the Uruguayan civil-military dictatorship (1973–1985) ended, the ways in which memory of this period is treated remains the subject of considerable contestation. In early 2010, controversy erupted over the filming of an advertisement for Sprite. During the shoot, the Memorial de los Detenidos Desaparecidos, conceived and constructed between 1998 and 2001 in homage to the victims of state terrorism, was covered up by the production company, rendering it camouflaged against the landscape of its location in Montevideo's Parque Vaz Ferreira. This episode demonstrates that rather than draw a line under the past, the construction and continued presence of the Memorial precipitates new debates over how memorial sites are interpreted and preserved. It provides an interesting point of departure from which to explore the fragility of memory in post-dictatorship Uruguay and the open-ended meanings of memorials, particularly within shifting judicial, political and urban contexts. Through analysis of the Memorial's aesthetics, peripheral location and the consumer-driven context it inhabits, this paper examines the Memorial's complexities and the threats to memorialisation in Uruguay, arguing that they are intimately tied to the broader struggles of state and society to address recent repression, which go beyond the dichotomies of remembering versus forgetting.

Notes

1 During the civil-military dictatorship approximately as many as 200 Uruguayans were forcibly disappeared, whilst thousands were subjected to torture and illegal detention. Meanwhile, by the end of the dictatorship, Uruguay had the highest per-capita prison population in the world and between 300,000 and 400,000 of Uruguay's three million inhabitants had been forced into exile (Weschler 1990: 85).

2 A copy of the letter to Ricardo Ehrlich from MFUDD, dated 1 Feb 2010, is available online at http://familiaresdedesaparecidos.blogspot.com/.

3 The Ley de Caducidad was narrowly upheld in the October 2009 plebiscite though 47.98% had voted for it to be repealed. This result is indicative of a society which remained just as divided as it had been in the first referendum in 1989. In that instance, 55.95% voted for the law to be upheld and 41.3% against.

4 Text of Law 18,831 is available here: http://archivo.presidencia.gub.uy/sci/leyes/2011/10/cons_min_400.pdf.

5 The Intendencia de Montevideo published ‘Montevideo: Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial 1998–2004’ in which the Parque Vaz Ferreira was identified as one of a number of areas which had fallen into disrepair and needed significant regeneration.

6 Several years after the Memorial was completed, the glass was broken in an act of anonymous vandalism, which resulted in a guard being employed to “police” the Memorial. See Nelson Di Maggio (2004) for more details.

7 The documentary Tupamaros (Germany/Switzerland) was written and directed by Heidi Specogna and Rainer Hoffmann. The documentary focuses on a number of ex-members of the MLN Tupamaros, interviewing them about their experiences of 1970s state terrorism, and the 1972 escape of political prisoners from Punta Carretas.