The 82-year-old Gregorio Alvarez, former Uruguayan army commander and president (1981-1985) of the military junta that ruled the country after a 1973 coup, was imprisoned on Dec. 17 in Montevideo after Judge Luis Charles ordered his arrest for participation in… Read moreUruguay: ex-dictator arrested
Brazilian Bishop Luiz Cappio of Barra, Bahia, announced during mass Dec. 20 that he was ending his 23-day hunger strike against a massive government water diversion project. President Luiz “Lula” Inacio da Silva said the previous day that the project… Read moreBrazil: bishop suspends hunger strike in river struggle
For the second year in a row, Brazil has witnessed a deadly prison riot on the first day of the year. A death toll of nine is reported from the central state of Goias. One inmate was decapitated. The violence began New Year's Day afternoon at the rural penitentiary in the outskirts of the state capital, Goiania. Rival criminal factions clashed, broke the barriers of the compound and escaped.
On Nov. 29, shock troops from the Military Police of Sao Paulo state in Brazil invaded the Elizabeth Teixeira encampment of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) in the Tatu Forest Plot in Limeira municipality near Campinas. The police… Read moreBrazil: police attack landless camp
Tens of thousands of protesters occupied the Gen. San Martin bridge, which links the Argentine province of Entre Rios to Uruguay, on Nov. 11 to protest Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez’s decision to let the Finnish company Botnia start operating a… Read moreArgentine eco-protesters again block Uruguay border
Uruguayan police clashed with Argentine environmentalists who were on a boat to protest a Finnish paper mill they fear will spew pollution into a border river Oct. 27. Police boarded one of 20 boats in a protest flotilla on the… Read moreUruguay police clash with Argentine eco-activists
Former Buenos Aires provincial police chaplain Christian von Wernich was sentenced to life imprisonment Oct. 9 for crimes against humanity committed under the 1976-83 military dictatorship. Human Rights Secretrary Eduardo L. Duhalde hailed the verdict as “historic and strictly legal.”… Read moreArgentina’s Father von Wernich gets life in “dirty war” killings
Tens of thousands of people mobilized throughout Argentina on Sept. 20 to demand that human rights witness Jorge Julio Lopez, who disappeared on Sept. 18, 2006, be returned alive. More than 20,000 people marched in Buenos Aires from the Congress… Read moreArgentina: thousands protest disappearance
Some 5,000 people, according to police estimates, marched in Chile on Sept. 9 to mark the anniversary of the military coup in which Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte overthrew democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende on Sept. 11, 1973. The peaceful… Read moreChile: one killed on coup anniversary
On Sept. 7, hundreds of Argentines rallied in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires in solidarity with jailed activists Fernando Esteche and Raul Lescano, who have been on hunger strike since Aug. 21 at the Ezeiza prison. Esteche and… Read moreArgentina: jailed activists on hunger strike
More than 670 people were arrested and some 50 people were injured in Santiago and other Chilean cities on Aug. 29 in massive protests against the economic policies of President Michelle Bachelet. The Unitary Workers Confederation (CUT), which organized the… Read moreChile: protest “Pinochet” policies
On July 28, thousands of people marched in Montevideo, Uruguay, to demand the repeal of Law 18.116, which modifies the penal code to impose prison sentences of between three months and three years on people who take part in the… Read moreUruguay: victory in squatters struggle
