In Uruguay, thousands of retirees who worked all their lives and contributed to the Banco de Previsión Social (BPS) barely survive on pensions that are not enough to make ends meet. They are elderly men and women who, after decades of effort and contributions—thirty years or more in many cases—receive in return a pittance that reflects neither their sacrifice nor their right.
Meanwhile, in this same country, there are privileged individuals who never contributed or did so partially, and who today enjoy hefty pensions, subsidies, and million-dollar reparations protected by laws passed over time.
Who are these favored ones? The supposed victims of the "illegal state repression," a group that, thanks to an arsenal of regulations, has turned Human Rights into a prosperous business at the expense of the people.
Reparatory laws, such as 18.596 of 2009, are a flagrant example of this distortion.
According to them, the Uruguayan state assumes responsibility for torture, forced disappearances, homicides, and exiles from June 13, 1968, to June 26, 1973, a period that includes years of constitutional government elected by popular vote.
Yes, you read that right: the "state repression" that these regulations denounce began, according to their own logic, under a legitimate democracy, before the institutional breakdown of 1973.
Thus, the doors are opened for individuals who attacked that same democracy—many of them members of terrorist groups like the MLN-Tupamaros or the armed wing of the Communist Party, formed since the early 60s—to receive undeserved benefits under the guise of victims.
Privileges paid with others' blood and sweat
There are no euphemisms that suffice: this festival of reparations is financed by the Uruguayan taxpayer.
Every peso that swells the coffers of these "persecuted" comes out of the pocket of those who sustain the system with their taxes. And it doesn't end there.
