An Argentine court commenced the trial of former dictators Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone for overseeing the theft of babies born to political prisoners during the “Dirty War.”
In a significant setback for Chilean prosecutors, judges in Cañete in the central province of Arauco voted not to convict 17 indigenous Mapuche activists on “terrorism” charges.
Protesters in the southern Chile region of Magallanes y Antártica Chilena have erected road blockades, halting traffic in response to a government hike in fuel prices.
Indigenous groups in Argentina are lobbying for Julio Argentino Roca, the army general who conquered Patagonia, to be recognized as a political criminal who exterminated indigenous peoples.
Argentine labor ministry inspectors announced the discovery of 199 farm workers in conditions close to slavery on estates in the area of San Pedro, Buenos Aires province.
Police in Argentina sealed off the Villa Soldati area of Buenos Aires following violence between squatters, authorities and local residents in which at least three have been killed.
Voters chose Dilma Rousseff of the leftist Workers Party (PT) to be Brazil’s 36th president in a runoff election. Rousseff, who takes office in January, will be the country’s first woman president.
Thousands of Argentines rallied in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires to protest the killing of the student Mariano Ferreyra during a demonstration the day before.
Indigenous peoples marched throughout the hemisphere on Oct. 12, while El Salvador’s President Mauricio Funes apologized in the name of the state for centuries of “persecution and extermination.”
While the world media focused on the successful rescue of 33 Chilean miners, union leaders charge that persistent problems with safety in the country’s mines are being downplayed.
Ten indigenous Mapuche prisoners in Chile’s southern Araucanía region agreed to end a liquids-only hunger strike protesting the use of an “anti-terrorism” measure against indigenous activists.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that Paraguay must return lands to the Xákmok Kásek indigenous community—but the Paraguayan government has ignored such rulings before.
