Reply #7: AP story on Uruguay's new President. [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

March 2, 2005, 1:32AM

Uruguay's first socialist leader takes oath of office
Ties with Cuba are restored as he joins the ranks of leftist presidents in Latin America
New York Times

MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY - Culminating a long and divisive struggle, the left took power Tuesday for the first time in the history of this small South American nation as Tabare Vazquez, a 65-year-old physician, was sworn in as president.
Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to the streets to celebrate the sharp break with the past, many carrying Uruguayan flags or banners of the triumphant Progressive Encounter/Broad Front/New Majority Coalition. Until Vazquez, a Socialist, won a narrow victory in balloting last October, two traditional parties that had become increasingly difficult to distinguish from one another had alternated in power for more than 150 years.
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As his first official action, Vazquez announced a sweeping "Social Emergency Plan" that contains food, health, job and housing components. The program, whose cost is estimated at $100 million, is to be aimed at the hundreds of thousands of Uruguayans who have fallen below the poverty line as a result of economic crises of recent years.
(snip)

Vazquez's inauguration came exactly 20 years after the restoration of democratic civilian rule in Uruguay. From 1972 through early 1985, this nation sandwiched between Brazil and Argentina was ruled by a right-wing military dictatorship that killed, jailed, tortured or forced into exile thousands of Uruguayans in order to fight off what it described as a Communist threat.

Vazquez alluded in his inaugural speech to the widespread abuses of that era, saying there are still "dark zones in the area of human rights" that his government intended to investigate. "For the good of all, it is possible and necessary to clarify" such issues, he said, so that "the horrors of past eras never happen again."

In his inaugural address, Vazquez vowed that Uruguay would now adopt "an independent foreign policy," in contrast to the closer ties with the United States that Batlle had sought. "We will tolerate no outside interference in our internal affairs," Vazquez said to thunderous applause.
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http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/world/3063835
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Vasquez on the right side of the photo.