An Argentine court sentenced 12 former military and police officers to life in prison for crimes against humanity. The defendants were convicted of various crimes that took place in the notorious Naval Mechanics School.
About 50 Chilean students and their supporters took over a congressional budget subcommittee’s meeting in Santiago to demand that the government hold a binding plebiscite on their demands.
Environmentalists and Mapuche indigenous leaders rallied in Chile’s remote southern town of Curarrehue to oppose the planned Panqui hydro-electric project, which would inundate several small Mapuche communities.
Latin American leaders, writers and activists considered Oct. 15 an historic event, because of its global scope—and because of the unusual leading role of a movement based in the United States.
Thousands of Latin Americans joined the global day of action against the current economic system on Oct. 15.
Reuters reports that Saudi officials advised Argentina about an Iran-backed plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington. Meanwhile, US and/or Israeli agents have carried out three assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists this year.
The indigenous Aché community of Chupa Pou in Paraguay sent warriors armed with bows and arrows into a 2,000-hectare area to defend it from Brazilian farmers who had invaded the land, in violation of Aché territorial rights recognized by Paraguayan law.
On Columbus Day/DÃa de la Raza, some 10,000 indigenous Mapuche and their supporters marched through Santiago, many dressed in traditional costumes and carrying flags, to demand freedom for political prisoners and restoration of traditional lands.
Chile’s militarized carabineros police used water cannons and tear gas to stop an unauthorized march by student strikers one day after talks between the government and the students broke off.
Elite forces from Chile’s Special Police Operations Group (GOPE) invaded the Mapuche community of Wañako Mellao, firing at and terrorizing residents, after a group of Mapuche men occupied a local timber camp on traditional indigenous lands.
Chilean students took to the streets again to push their demands for free public education and a reversal of the privatization policies started under Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s 1973-1990 dictatorship.
A Buenos Aires court declared former Argentine president Carlos Menem (1989-1999) innocent of involvement in the government’s clandestine sales of arms to Ecuador and Croatia from 1991 to 1995.
