After 63 days on hunger strike, four jailed Mapuche rights activists agreed to temporarily suspend their protest on May 14 after reaching an agreement with Chilean legislators. In exchange for an end to the fast, the government promised to give… Read moreChile: Mapuche end hunger strike
Mapuche rights activists Juan Patricio Marileo Saravia, Florencio Jaime Marileo Saravia, Juan Carlos Huenulao Lienmil and Patricia Troncoso Robles (known as “La Chepa”) have been on hunger strike since March 13 in prison in Angol, Chile’s Region IX, demanding a… Read moreChile: Mapuche prisoners strike
On Feb. 6 police arrested six leftist activists in the community of Antebi Cue, town of Sgto. Jose Felix Lopez (also known as Puentesinho), in San Carlos municipality in the northeastern Paraguayan department of Concepcion, near the border with Brazil…. Read moreParaguay: activists arrested in guerilla scare
On Jan. 17, members of Paraguayan social and political organizations marched in Asuncion and burned US flags to protest the presence of US soldiers in their country, and to condemn the Paraguayan legislature’s decision last year to let the troops… Read moreParaguay: march against US troops
Will Chile be the next to join South America’s growing anti-imperialist bloc? Michelle Bachelet will certainly not prove a radical populist like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez or Bolivia’s newly-elected Evo Morales. But she could prove a more moderate member of the… Read moreChile to join anti-imperialist bloc?
From Reuters Dec. 9: The founder of Argentina’s leading human rights group was laid to rest yesterday, 28 years after she was abducted during the country’s military dictatorship. Family and friends buried the ashes of Azucena Villaflor on a prominent… Read moreArgentina: rights crusader dead, “dirty war” legacy lives on
Some 30,000-40,000 people marched through a heavy rain on Nov. 4 in the Argentine seaside resort of Mar del Plata, in Buenos Aires province, to protest the presence of US president George W. Bush among the 32 heads of state… Read moreAnti-FTAA resistance in Argentina —and throughout hemisphere
From Chile’s English-language Santiago Times, Oct. 14: Second-To-Last Yagana Woman Dies Of A Heart Attack The second-to-last member of Chile’s pre-colonial Yagán tribe, 84-year-old Emelinda Acuña, died on Wednesday, taking with her the traditions, stories, and secrets of a little-known… Read moreChile: indigenous people faces extinction
On Oct. 3 some 300 Paraguayan indigenous people from the departments of Canindeyu, Alto Paraguay, Caaguazu, San Pedro and Caazapa arrived in Asuncion and began a protest encampment in the Plaza Italia to demand that Congress approve reforms to Law… Read moreParaguay: indigenous march
Controversy is raging in Paraguay, where the U.S. military is conducting secretive operations. 500 U.S. troops arrived in the country on July 1st with planes, weapons and ammunition. Eyewitness reports prove that an airbase exists in Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay, which… Read moreUS military presence in Paraguay worries Bolivian left
Dozens of protesters shouted, “Rumsfeld, you fascist, you are the terrorist,” on Aug. 17 as US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld presented a floral offering at the Tomb of the Heroes in downtown Asuncion during a brief visit to Paraguay. The… Read moreParaguayans Protest Rumsfeld
Early on Aug. 2, unidentified individuals broke into and used homemade explosives to set fire to the Quebracho Poty community radio station at the San Ramon Nonato parish in Puerto Casado, Paraguay. No one was hurt, but the attack left… Read moreParaguay: community radio bombed
