Lucía Topolansky, senator, historical companion of Pepe Mujica, He was in Buenos Aires, a city where they used to come to listen to tango in pre-pandemic times. “We are tangueros, did you see? We are very friends of (Héctor) Stamponi”. On this occasion, the Uruguayan couple participated in the massive act for democracy led by Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández, along with Lula da Silva. For Topolansky, it was a day of “triple memory”: human rights, the 38 years since the end of the dictatorship and the second year of Fernández’s presidency.
“The Latin American countries are in the same boat, but particularly with Argentina we are from the River Plate, we are scattered around that river and we all suffered in the same times dictatorships that were expressed in the Condor Plan. So we believe that democracy must be cared for, it is a value that must be preserved “, says Topolansky in an interview with Page 12.
Former Tupamara guerrilla, was imprisoned for 13 years during the last Uruguayan dictatorship. Today, at 77 years old, the former vice president in the second term of Tabaré Vázquez affirms. “In the globalized world, democracy must be preserved and the part of equality and inclusion and solidarity must be developed, because I can choose because of the circumstance in which I lived, but I know that all Uruguayans cannot choose. In Uruguay we did one A big march for human rights because there is a new party in parliament, led by Manini Ríos, that wants to return the condemned soldiers to their homes. “
–It refers to the project promoted by the official senator and former commander-in-chief of the Army, Guido Manini Ríos, by which repressors could receive the benefit of home detention upon reaching 65 years of age.
– Yes, I am totally against it. They propose the law as a generic, as if they were some poor old men and they forget what happened. And if those crimes were judged 50 years later, it was because the Expiry Law that they promoted was in force.
–-In the plebiscite to end the Expiry Law, in 2009, the continuity of impunity was the winner. What expectations do you have with the consultation, scheduled for March 27, to annul 135 articles of the Urgent Consideration Law -LUC-, which contemplates an advance of the heavy hand and the easy trigger?
– Signatures had to be collected at the worst moment of the pandemic. The militants did a miracle because they went house to house explaining the law. While they were militants, you couldn’t see the whole thing, because there was like a silence imposed: because they (the government of Luis Lacalle Pou) regulated article 38 of our Constitution that prohibits meetings and they said it was because of the dances. Lie. It was because of the social, union and political meetings. There was like a silence. Despite these obstacles, despite the fact that they did not lend us the public channel to advertise, nothing, at times we had doubts if we could gather the number of signatures. But in the last 15 days of collection, waves and waves of signatures began to come to the premises of the labor union and the Frente Amplio. It was the greatest joy. It could. It was very similar to the feeling of the last presidential elections: we did not win the ballottage but we were 30 thousand votes. That plebiscite on the Expiry Law in 2009 coincided with the presidential election, and the axis was not there. That is why this query is different. We question the mechanism of having used a law of urgent consideration for things that are not urgent. We are ready to explain why the LUC represents a setback of rights. We have been doing it. We have faith in each other, we have to fight until the last day. The only fight you lose is the one you give up. Our life has always been one of struggle.
– How did you live this time of pandemic with Pepe?
– I always say that we did not have economic distress, which is a brutal differential; We live in a 14-hectare farm, we are four families; We were imprisoned for 13 years, so it was not an issue to be locked up. But one gets into the shoes of the people who had to spend in the departments, in precarious situations, in uncertain work situations. A lot of vegetables came out of my house and the neighborhood for the popular neighborhoods and we tried to help from a distance what we could. People were having a very bad time. There are those who say that telework solves everything, no, it is relative. Although it served at the time of emergency, the person who leaves his home to work generates work just because he leaves: because he travels in a bus or car; The car-sitter is there, at noon he eats something from a local that provides him, he goes to the kiosk to buy the newspaper and when the schedule ends he goes to have a drink with a coworker or make a purchase. All that is over, because the guy is at home, isolated. While telecommuting is here to stay, it is not a panacea for me. In Uruguay, the Ceibal Plan had been in place for a long time, in 2008, and fiber optics: that helped a lot for this moment. Even in the rural schools, they always had connectivity. But the child needs another child and many times the difficulties could not be solved on the screen. I am not against technology but I do not put it on an altar either.
–After a very tough start to the year, is the virus controlled in Uruguay, despite the new variants?
– We are three and a half million people, if it was not solved in Uruguay, retire! (laughs) People, except those who had no other alternative and had to find a way to eat, did not resist staying at home. Domestic violence increased, suicides, these problems have to be looked at. It is not only those who went to the ICC (intensive care). The Broad Front carried out a health reform that is the integrated national system and the ECLAC report indicates that Uruguay is the country in Latin America that spends the most on health: 9.5 of GDP and the others are between 3 and 6. So we had a fortress.
-Did you continue with the Lacalle Pou government?
– They couldn’t disarm it because people had already gotten used to it, as an acquired right. But they have made colossal budget cuts in the supply of medicines. There was a significant delay in the surgeries and they still have not put in place a strong plan to catch up. We began to see it in diseases like HIV, cancer, people who skipped controls. The emergency did not arise. In March-April the number of deaths in relation to the population, I, who am 77 years old, had never seen it: 50, 52, 53 deaths per day. For a population of 3.5 million it is nonsense. There a controversy was installed. They had stayed cool on that Covax vaccine system, which is a global scam. And we learned that there were some mutuals and health sectors that were negotiating for some vaccines to come and the guys were quiet. We started calling the Minister of Health and other managers, we clicked, we clicked and they began to move.
– They got immunized with the Chinese Sinovac vaccine …
– Because it was easy to get in volume, and also Chile was going to search for them and on the same plane brought them to Uruguay. And then came Pfizer. What happened was a rejection of the AstraZeneca vaccine because information was coming from Europe that made people mistrust. There was no explanation. I called the minister one day and told him that they were explaining badly. To such an extent that this vaccine was donated to Paraguay. On Monday I receive the third dose. In Pepe’s case, it was delayed because he has an autoimmune disease and it was necessary to make other consultations.
– The land borders with Argentina were recently opened.
– The problem is the exchange rate difference, the merchants of the Villa Unión, Paysandú, Salto coastline are with Jesus in their mouths, the salary yields more in Argentina than in Uruguay and there was also a salary freeze: the purchasing power of the people It was reduced and the family basket increased, and that also hit the pensions.
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