Addiego was worked out with the agreement of the parties concerned, but in later years Álvarez found a not so unlikely defender in Sanguinetti, who argued that Álvarez's legal troubles since the coming of the Broad Front government in 2005 were unnecessarily one-sided, since known former Tupamaro insurgents were being ignored by Uruguayan justice.) Considered at the time a progressive politician in political questions and more conservative in economic questions, Sanguinetti managed to rehabilitate the image of a party that included a great variety of ideological diversity, the more conservative sectors of which had supported the coup d'état in 1973. He immediately lifted the ban on political parties and leaders that had actively opposed the dictatorship and signed an amnesty for political prisoners. With respect to foreign relations, Sanguinetti re-launched relations with Spain and re-established contacts with communist countries. In the nearer geographic arena, on 26 May 1987, and as a colophon to several preparatory meetings, he signed the Montevideo Agreement with his colleague, Raúl Alfonsín. This agreement was decisive in giving an impulse to regional economic integration according to the objectives outlined in the South American Integration Association (ALADI). Alfonsín had already been negotiating an ambitious agreement to dismantle tariffs in bilateral trade with the Brazilian José Sarney; now, Sanguinetti was included in an open field project that adopted a three-country shape and that gained impulse from the summit of the three presidents which the Uruguayan had organized in Colonia on 6 February 1988. With the inclusion of Paraguay, all this work led to the creation of the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) in 1991. In the economic area, Sanguinetti's Government had the reduction of the USD $510 million foreign debt as one of its most important objectives. This is an enormous figure which is close to the level of national production. Likewise, Sanguinetti was an active member of the Support Group (Uruguay, Peru, Brazil and Argentina) of the Contadora Group (Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama), an informal consultative forum dedicated to exploring preventive measures against the expansion of armed conflicts in Central America, which, in December 1986 decided to merge with the so-called Group of Eight, which in turn was called the Río Group in October 1990 coinciding with its expansion to include Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay. Sanguinetti presided the II Group of Eight Meeting, in Punta del Este on 29 October 1988. In his first presidential term,