Information on whether Julio Maria Sosa was a Uruguayan army colonel prior to 1998 or whether he worked for Operation Condor could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate. However, a cadet by the name of Julio Sosa is listed in a database of Derechos Human Rights, a California-based non-profit corporation (n.d.b), as being a Uruguayan who was either a student or an instructor at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (Derechos Human Rights n.d.a), a "training school for Latin American soldiers" (Wikipedia n.d.b; SOAW n.d.), in a course entitled "Small Unit Leader's Orientation C-6 between 19 January and 13 February 1976" (Derechos Human Rights n.d.a). Operation Condor was a "counter-terrorism" program led jointly by the military dictatorships of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay in the mid-1970s, in order to gather intelligence and assassinate political opponents (HRW Dec. 2001; Wikipedia n.d.a; Front Page Magazine 26 Aug. 2002).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Derechos Human Rights. n.d.a. "SOA Students and Instructors from Uruguay 1949-1996." http://www.derechos.org/soa/uy4996.html [Accessed 4 Apr. 2005]

_____. n.d.b. "Corporate Information." http://www.derechos.net/about/corp/ [Accessed 5 Apr. 2005]

Front Page Magazine. 26 August 2002. Michael Radu. "Human Rights Fifth Column." http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=2533 [Accessed 5 Apr. 2005]

Human Rights Watch (HRW). December 2001. Vol. 13, Issue 5. Reluctant Partner: The Argentine Government's Failure to Back Trials of Human Rights Violators. "Operation Condor." http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/argentina/argen1201-09.htm [Accessed 5 Apr. 2005]

School of the Americas Watch (SOAW). n.d. "What is the SOA?" http://www.soaw.org/new/type.php?type=8 [Accessed 5 Apr. 2005]

Wikipedia. n.d.a. "Operation Condor." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor [Accessed 5 Apr. 2005]

_____. n.d.b. "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Americas [Accessed 5 April 2005]

Internet sites, including: Americas.org, Amnesty International (AI), Brecha [Montevideo], Center for Justice and International Law (CJIL), Desaparecidos.org, European Country of Origin Information Network (ECOI), Memoria Activa, Memoria para Armar, La Nación [Buenos Aires], El País [Montevideo], Servicio Paz y Justicia/Uruguay, Uruguayan Ministry of Defense, Uruguayan Ministry of the Interior, World News Connection (WNC).

Publications: Encyclopedia Britannica 1989, International Who's Who 2005, Le Quid 2005, Repression, Exile and Democracy.