The 1973 Uruguayan coup d'état took place in Uruguay on 27 June 1973 and marked the beginning of the civic-military dictatorship which lasted until 1985.
President Juan María Bordaberry closed parliament and ruled with the assistance of a junta of military generals. The official reason was to crush the Tupamaros, a Marxist urban guerrilla movement. The leftist trade union federations called a general strike and occupation of factories. The strike lasted just over two weeks. It ended with most of the trade union leaders in jail, dead, or exiled to Argentina. As part of the coup all associations including trade unions were declared illegal and banned; the Constitution of Uruguay of 1967 was practically voided.
Unions and political parties remained illegal until a set of several general strikes in 1984 forced the military to accept the civilian rule and the restoration of democracy in 1985.
Antecedents
On September 9, 1971, President Jorge Pacheco Areco instructed the armed forces to conduct anti-guerrilla operations against the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional-Tupamaros. On December 16, a Junta of Commanders in Chief and of the Estado Mayor Conjunto (Esmaco) (Joint Chiefs) of the Armed Forces was created. Following the presidential elections of November 1971 a new government took office on 1 March 1972 led by Juan María Bordaberry. The role of the Armed Forces in political life continued to increase. On October 31, 1972, Defense Minister Augusto Legnani, had to resign for failing to remove a chief in charge of a mission of great importance for the ministry. Subsequently, military commanders made public statements indicting the President of the Republic.
On February 8, 1973, in order to control the buildup of military pressure, President Bordaberry replaced the Minister of National Defence, Armando Malet, with retired general Antonio Francese. On the following day, the new minister met with the commanders of the three forces and only found support in the Navy.
At eight o'clock of the same evening, the commanders of the Army and the Air Forces announced from state television they would disavow any orders by Francese and demanded that Bordaberry sack him. At 10:30 pm Bordaberry announced from the (private) Canal 4 that he would keep Francese in the Ministry and called on the citizens to gather in Plaza Independencia, in front of Government House (Casa de Gobierno).
In the early hours of the morning of February 9, Uruguayan Marines barricaded the entrance towards the Ciudad Vieja of Montevideo. In response, the Army pulled M113 armored personnel carriers and M24 Chaffee light tanks into the streets and occupied various radio stations, from which they exhorted the members of the Navy to join their initiatives (or propositions).
Decree (Comunicado) No. 4 was issued, signed only by the commanders of the Army and Air Force, in which they proposed to achieve or promote socio-economic objectives, such as encouraging exports, reorganizing the foreign service (the subject of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), eliminating the oppressive foreign debt, eradicating unemployment, attacking economic crime and corruption, reorganizing public administration and the tax system, and redistributing the land.
On Saturday 10 February, three ministers sought a rapprochement with the positions of the rebel commanders, so that the president would retain his position. At night, the commanders of the Army and Air Force issued a new Decree No. 7, that modified the previous statement. Several officers of the Navy ignored the command of Vice Admiral Juan José Zorrilla and supported the statements of the Army and Air Force. The next day, February 11, Zorrilla resigned from the Navy Command, while Captain Conrad Olazaba assumed this position, so that this force also abandoned its constitutional position.
On Monday February 12, Bordaberry went to the "Cap. Juan Manuel Boiso Lanza" base and accepted all the demands of the military commanders and negotiated his continuation in the presidency, in what became known as the Pacto de Boiso Lanza. This "agreement" entrusted to the Armed Forces the mission of providing security for national development and established forms of military involvement in political-administrative matters. It resulted in the creation of the National Security Council (Consejo de Seguridad Nacional) (COSENA), an advisory body to the Executive Power, subsequently established by Decree No. 163/973 of 23 February 1973.