‘Ending our support for the dictators’: Ed Koch, Uruguay, and human rights

Abstract

Primed by Amnesty International’s reporting, inspired by interactions with a centrist exiled politician, and galvanised by a growing congressional human rights movement, in 1976 Representative Ed Koch introduced an amendment that ended military assistance to the Uruguayan government. The article demonstrates that Koch’s efforts were part of a broader transnational campaign to end US support for the repressive Uruguayan government and how such a measure could be achieved despite executive branch resistance.