Details of Brazil’s plans to invade Uruguay in 1971 exposed

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The plan was called Operation 30 Hours and some of its details were disclosed October 29 by UOL website, based on U.S. government documents. These documents show that dictator Emílio Garrastazu Médici also helped to commit fraud in the Uruguayan elections that year.

The Brazilian media company analyzed classified documents produced by the U.S. Department of State, through embassies and consulates in Brazil and South American countries; it also had access to telegrams, reports and memoranda. From the investigation it was found that Brazil’s intervention was requested by the then president of Uruguay Jorge Pacheco Areco of the Colorado Party; the plan was presented and had the support of U.S. President Richard Nixon.

The Operation was called “30 hours” because it was the time Brazil estimated to take over Montevideo, entering through the Rio Grande do Sul state border.

According to the media, on July 20, 1971, Argentine ambassador to Rio de Janeiro Osiris Villegas confirmed the plan to invade Uruguay. On August 20, three months before the elections, a document from the U.S. embassy in Montevideo already spoke of “possible Brazilian plans for action in Uruguay to prevent the Frente Amplio from taking power.”

A secret report from the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, addressed to the Department of State in Washington, dated August 27, 1971, reported that “Argentina has no plans to intervene in the elections, but would support a coup to reinstate incumbent President Pacheco should the leftist Frente Amplio win.”

According to a confidential report by the U.S. ambassador William Rountree, the Brazilian military would help Uruguay in several areas, such as training and financial assistance. The Brazilian military was to counter labor union and student protests and fight the Tupamaro guerrillas, who in 1970 had kidnapped the head of the U.S. Public Safety program in Uruguay Dan Mitrione and Brazilian Consul Aloysio Dias Gomide.

According to the documents analyzed, the Brazilian troops would set out from Porto Alegre, Uruguaiana, Santana do Livramento and Bagé, reach Montevideo and take over the hydroelectric power plant of Rincón del Bonete, in Paso de los Toros.

Ultimately, the invasion did not take place because the Frente Amplio received 18% of the votes in the elections won with 41% by Juan María Bordaberry, who two years later promoted a coup d’état with the support of the military, that resulted in a dictatorship.

According to the Brazilian media report, over the years, several military officers who took part in Operation 30 Hours have given different testimonies that enable history to be retraced. For instance, it is known that it was called Operation Charrúa internally and that espionage tasks were carried out, mainly against the Tupamaros (left-wing urban guerrilla group in Uruguay), under the command of this operation.

In fact, General Dickson Grael acknowledges in his book “Aventura, corrupción y terrorismo: a la sombra de la impunidad,” (Adventure, corruption and terrorism: in the shadow of impunity) that he was “assigned to conduct the first studies of the guidelines to be followed by the unit, seeking to participate in a comprehensive plan of military intervention in Uruguay, in case the Frente Amplio won the elections.”