Southern Cone

Argentina: Menem to be tried for AMIA bombing coverup

A federal judge has ordered ex-president Carlos SaĂşl Menem to stand trial on charges that he impeded the first probe into a July 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) building.

The Andes

Bolivia: historic mineworkers’ leader dies

The Bolivian government declared three days of mourning for union and leftist leader Domitila Barrios de Chungara, who led the mass hunger strike that brought down dictator Hugo Banzer Suárez.

Central America

Guatemala: general sentenced in 1982 massacre

Former general Pedro Pimentel has been sentenced to 6,030 years in prison for his participation in a 1982 massacre of 201 civilians–most of them women and children–in the village of Dos Erres.

Mexico

Mexico: two more activists are murdered

Transgender activist Agnes Torres Sulca and anti-mining activist Bernardo Vásquez Sánchez are the latest victims of a wave of violence that seems to target grassroots political organizers.