Juan Maria Bordaberry at a public ceremony in Montevideo in 1972.
The name of Juan María Bordaberry, president of Uruguay from 1972 until 1976, who has died aged 83, will be forever associated with the slow death of a democracy at the hands of those entrusted with its care. The word bordaberrización was coined to refer to the way this elected president first bowed to military demands for control of the executive, then became an enthusiastic advocate of military rule. So enthusiastic, in fact, that even the armed forces ultimately balked at his fascist ideas, replacing him with pliant yes-men.
Bordaberry was an ultra rightwing Catholic. His father, a businessman and politician in the Colorado party, belonged to one of the most powerful landed families in Uruguay and was fervently opposed to the so-called batll- ista wing of the party, named after the reformist president José Batlle y Ordóñez (in office 1903-07 and 1911-15). Under Batlle, Uruguay had become a pioneer welfare state, but many – and especially the landowning conservatives – felt that state interventionism had gone much too far.
After studying law and social sciences at the University of Montevideo, the young Bordaberry threw himself enthusiastically into agrarian politics. In 1958, the Federal League for Rural Action, of which his father was a leading member, forged an alliance with the country's other main, traditional political force, the National (or "Blanco") party. Thus, in 1962, it was as a Blanco that Bordaberry Jr, aged 34, was elected to the senate. However, he gave up his seat two years later to run the League himself.
When the Colorados took power in 1967, under President Jorge Pacheco, Bordaberry once again switched sides, and from 1969 to 1971 he was Pacheco's minister of agriculture. A bid to change the constitution, so that Pacheco could be re-elected, failed, and Bordaberry became the chosen successor. He was elected in November 1971, amid charges of vote-rigging by opponents, and took office the following March.
Uruguay was in the throes of a counter-insurgency campaign against the mainly urban Tupamaro guerrillas. Bordaberry's government would defeat them, but at the cost of suppressing civil liberties and handing power to the armed forces, who would not relinquish it until 1985. In April 1972, the country's parliament declared a state of "internal war". As the military pressed for ever greater powers, the president initially resisted. But in February 1973, after a military uprising, he was coerced into signing the so-called "Boiso Lanza agreement" (named after the air-force headquarters where the meeting was held), under which the high command obtained what amounted to veto power over civilian authorities. The agreement established a national security council, known as Cosena, dominated by the generals.
A mere four months later, Bordaberry closed down parliament, banned political parties and began to rule by decree. The number of political prisoners mounted, eventually reaching around 5,000, which was probably the highest concentration in the world at the time, per head of population. Torture was systematic. Relations between the president and the armed forces, however, gradually deteriorated, and in 1976 he was ousted after proposing a new, corporatist constitution which would have abolished political parties.
Bordaberry's coup against his own government had been followed in September 1973 by Augusto Pinochet's against the leftist government of Salvador Allende in Chile. In March 1976, the armed forces in Argentina also seized power. The dictatorships of South America's "southern cone" set up Operation Condor, under which their secret police collaborated in capturing and "disappearing" each other's dissidents.
Among the most notorious cases were those of Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, Uruguayan legislators kidnapped in exile in Buenos Aires on 18 May 1976. Their bodies, with those of two other political refugees, were found three days later. Found guilty by a Uruguayan judge in 2006 of helping to plan the quadruple homicide, among others, Bordaberry was sent to jail. In all, he was eventually sentenced to 30 years for crimes which included repeated violations of the constitution. Due to age and ill-health, he spent the remainder of his life confined to the house of his son, Pedro, a senator, where he died. As well as Pedro, he is survived by his wife, María Josefina ("China") Herrán, and eight other children.
• Juan María Bordaberry Arocena, politician, born 17 June 1928; died 17 July 2011
Bordaberry was an ultra rightwing Catholic. His father, a businessman and politician in the Colorado party, belonged to one of the most powerful landed families in Uruguay and was fervently opposed to the so-called batll- ista wing of the party, named after the reformist president José Batlle y Ordóñez (in office 1903-07 and 1911-15). Under Batlle, Uruguay had become a pioneer welfare state, but many – and especially the landowning conservatives – felt that state interventionism had gone much too far.
After studying law and social sciences at the University of Montevideo, the young Bordaberry threw himself enthusiastically into agrarian politics. In 1958, the Federal League for Rural Action, of which his father was a leading member, forged an alliance with the country's other main, traditional political force, the National (or "Blanco") party. Thus, in 1962, it was as a Blanco that Bordaberry Jr, aged 34, was elected to the senate. However, he gave up his seat two years later to run the League himself.
When the Colorados took power in 1967, under President Jorge Pacheco, Bordaberry once again switched sides, and from 1969 to 1971 he was Pacheco's minister of agriculture. A bid to change the constitution, so that Pacheco could be re-elected, failed, and Bordaberry became the chosen successor. He was elected in November 1971, amid charges of vote-rigging by opponents, and took office the following March.
Uruguay was in the throes of a counter-insurgency campaign against the mainly urban Tupamaro guerrillas. Bordaberry's government would defeat them, but at the cost of suppressing civil liberties and handing power to the armed forces, who would not relinquish it until 1985. In April 1972, the country's parliament declared a state of "internal war". As the military pressed for ever greater powers, the president initially resisted. But in February 1973, after a military uprising, he was coerced into signing the so-called "Boiso Lanza agreement" (named after the air-force headquarters where the meeting was held), under which the high command obtained what amounted to veto power over civilian authorities. The agreement established a national security council, known as Cosena, dominated by the generals.
A mere four months later, Bordaberry closed down parliament, banned political parties and began to rule by decree. The number of political prisoners mounted, eventually reaching around 5,000, which was probably the highest concentration in the world at the time, per head of population. Torture was systematic. Relations between the president and the armed forces, however, gradually deteriorated, and in 1976 he was ousted after proposing a new, corporatist constitution which would have abolished political parties.
Bordaberry's coup against his own government had been followed in September 1973 by Augusto Pinochet's against the leftist government of Salvador Allende in Chile. In March 1976, the armed forces in Argentina also seized power. The dictatorships of South America's "southern cone" set up Operation Condor, under which their secret police collaborated in capturing and "disappearing" each other's dissidents.
Among the most notorious cases were those of Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, Uruguayan legislators kidnapped in exile in Buenos Aires on 18 May 1976. Their bodies, with those of two other political refugees, were found three days later. Found guilty by a Uruguayan judge in 2006 of helping to plan the quadruple homicide, among others, Bordaberry was sent to jail. In all, he was eventually sentenced to 30 years for crimes which included repeated violations of the constitution. Due to age and ill-health, he spent the remainder of his life confined to the house of his son, Pedro, a senator, where he died. As well as Pedro, he is survived by his wife, María Josefina ("China") Herrán, and eight other children.
• Juan María Bordaberry Arocena, politician, born 17 June 1928; died 17 July 2011
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