50 years ago since the mythical escape of 106 Uruguayan guerrillas from the Punta Carretas prison | Among the Tupamaros who escaped was José “Pepe” Mujica

Behind bars that in 1971 separated 106 guerrillas of the National Liberation Movement-Tupamaros (MLN-T) from their freedom, a tunnel made by dint of calculations and rods transformed into drills allowed a cinematic escape in a key year in Uruguay’s recent history. This sixth of September is 50 years of the mythical escape of Tupamaros prisoners from Punta Carretas prison in Montevideo.

The laborious corridor crossed three floors of the prison and a street to lead to the house of a lady with whom some even shared tea.. Among the fugitives were four historic leaders of the guerrilla organization: the former president José “Pepe” Mujica, Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro, who would be your Minister of Defense, Jorge Amilcar Manera Lluberas, a civil engineer who was instrumental in planning and carrying out the escape, and Raúl “El Bebe” Sendic.

“The important thing was the decision we all made, the awareness that we had to get out somehow because we had to keep fighting, that was the message of the escape, we lived in prison thinking about what was going on outside, in the comrades who fought “, summarizes the tupamaro Jorge “Tambero” Zabalza on the feeling of schematizing what they called the operation “The abuse”.

In complex times With several years of economic stagnation and a democratic government but with heavily repressive management, the MLN-T emerged., a “political movement in arms”, as defined by the writer Mauricio “Russian” Rosencof. Through various operations, including bank robberies, kidnappings and executions, this group developed an urban guerrilla warfare in the 1960s that brought them harshly confronting the government of the then President. Jorge Pacheco Areco, Colorado Party.

The escape was in a key year as it was the presidential elections. Pacheco Areco wanted to be reelected, which was not provided for in the Uruguayan Constitution and he needed a special majority which he did not obtain. In front was the leader of the National Party, Wilson Ferreira, and they were also the first elections of the Broad Front (FA).

The Tupamaros had assured Ferreira and the FA that they were not going to carry out high impact operations, a kind of “truce” to allow the elections to take place without complications. However, if the colorados won (as José María Bordaberry finally did, who in 1973 was to carry out a coup d’etat), they would take up arms again.

With all the leaders imprisoned in the Punta Carretas prison, now turned into a shopping center, escape plans began. A few months earlier, they had dealt a first blow when 38 women of the movement escaped from another prison.

The task was not easy and it seemed an almost impossible mission. Rosencof, who considers “the triumph of ingenuity” what his companions did in prison, explains that the only antecedent of an escape of this magnitude was that of a group of anarchists who escaped through a tunnel in the 1930s.

The air was missing during the whole excavation but these anarchists who escaped long ago were finally their salvation because when oxygen barely penetrated there, their tunnel crossed with that of the previous escapees and a breath of air opened which saved them.

On leaving, after calming the hostess with talks and tea that Zabalza himself prepared for her on leaving the tunnel, a new stage began for the MLN-T. with the return to armed struggle. A year later, the Tupamaros will be defeated by the armed forces and locked up long before the start of the civil-military dictatorship (1973-1985).