The people of Uruguay are to decide in a referendum whether the whole of the former military regime can be tried for human rights abuses commited during the dictatorship between 1973 and 1985.

The 250,000 signatures collected are more than enough to make the referendum possible.

Former conservative president Julio María Sanguinetti passed a law in 1986 which granted amnesty to those responsible for the abuses. During the first referendum in 1989, a majority of Uruguayans voted in favour of the amnesty law.

In 2005, the left-wing president Tabaré Vázquez found a loophole in the law which made it possible for certain human rights violators to be prosecuted. Since then, dozens of soldiers and police officers have indeed been prosecuted. 

During the military dictatorship in Uruguay, more than 200 people were killed and tens of thousands were imprisoned without trial and tortured.
 

photo by drl./flickr