[2] The term "civic-military" refers to the military regime's relatively gradual usurpation of power from civilian presidents who continued to serve as head of state,[3] which distinguished it from dictatorships in other South American countries in which senior military officers immediately seized power and directly served as head of state.

His constitutional successor, President Jorge Pacheco Areco (1967–1972) banned the Socialist Party of Uruguay, other leftist organizations and their newspapers, purged liberal professors from universities, and suppressed labor unions.

His repressive policies, as well as economic crisis and high inflation, fueled social conflict and far-left guerrilla activity; the latter of which manifested in the form of the Tupamaros.

To coordinate their anti-guerrilla activities, the armed forces created the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Junta de Comandantes en Jefe y el Estado Mayor Conjunto) abbreviated as ESMACO.

One of the proposals, put forward by the Colorado party, would have amended the constitution to allow a sitting president to run for re-election.

Additionally, presidential candidate Líber Seregni received the backing of the newly created Broad Front, a coalition of over a dozen left-wing parties.

Though outlawed in 1973, the Broad Front later put forth candidates such as former presidents Tabaré Vázquez (2005–2010, 2015–2020) and José Mujica (2010–2015), a former member of the Tupamaro urban guerrilla.

Under the Ley de Lemas system in effect at the time, the highest-finishing candidate of the party that won the most votes was elected president.

As a result, Pacheco's hand-picked successor Juan Maria Bordaberry became president, even though he personally received around 60,000 fewer votes than Ferreira.

Torture was effectively used to gather information needed to break up the Tupamaros and against trade union activists, members of the Communist Party of Uruguay and even regular citizens.

[5] On February 8, 1973, Bordaberry tried to assert his authority over the military and appointed a retired general, Antonio Francese, as the new Minister of National Defense.

The Navy initially supported the appointment while the Army and Air Force commanders rejected it outright and on February 9 and 10 issued public proclamations in which they demanded radical changes in the country's political and economic system.

[9][10] He was succeeded by Alberto Demicheli, a Colorado and head of the Council of State who, while a relative liberal among the ruling group, canceled the elections that were supposed to take place in 1976.

The military's belief that it needed to legitimize their proposed constitution by holding an actual referendum, as opposed to simply falsifying the voting results, was itself an indication that democracy was not quite dead yet in Uruguay.

On September 1, 1981, General Gregorio Conrado Álvarez, who was secretary of the National Security Council since 1973 and Commander-in-Chief of Uruguayan Armed forces from 1978 to 1979, assumed the presidency.

Talks between military leadership and civilian politicians intensified despite the fact that several political leaders were still notable, such as Wilson Ferreira Aldunate.

On August 3, 1984, the Naval Club Pact was signed and restored the constitution of 1967 and allowed the military to advise in security matters and control appointments of senior officers.

Nonetheless, Sanguinetti never supported the human rights violations accusations, and his government did not prosecute the military officials who engaged in repression and torture against either the Tupamaros or the MLN.

For example, in 1968, the government mandated the censorship of all official publications made by the University of the Republic after it put out a statement denouncing a warrantless raid of its campus by police.

News outlets were required to provide the names of all journalists, editors, and other staff members to the Ministry of Education and Culture as well as a clear statement of its political views and financial sources.

Through his novels, poems, and plays, Bendetti criticized the strict censorship of the Civic-Military dictatorship and called for non-violent opposition to the regime.

Songwriters and performers of protest songs were forced to leave the country and some radio stations went so far as to stop broadcasting music altogether.

Moreover, the state imposed a stringent syllabus, censored textbooks that attributed all major advancements in Uruguayan history made by civilians to members of the military, and evaluated students' on their ideological attachment to the regime.

[28] After the return to democracy, some Uruguayan have called for establishing June 27 as a national day of remembrance that will compel citizens to defend truth, justice and transparency.

In the negotiations that led to the Naval Club Pact, the military insisted that it would not compromise on the issues of complete amnesty for all their actions during the dictatorship.

Many considered it unacceptable, but the military's refusal to negotiate without such protections led to the controversial enactment in 1986 of the Law on the Expiration of the Punitive Claims of the State (Spanish: Ley de Caducidad de la Pretensión Punitiva del Estado), which is still in force:[30] in 1989 and 2009, Uruguayans voted in referendum twice to keep the law, which detractors heavily criticize.

In December 2007 Gregorio Conrado Álvarez was indicted on charged of human rights abuses during the dictatorship in which he played a prominent role.

[34][35] On 5 March 2010, Bordaberry was sentenced to 30 years in prison (the maximum allowed under Uruguayan law) for murder and of being the intellectual author of kidnappings and disappearances of political opponents of the regime.