Former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1973-1990) died of heart failure at the age of 91 in the Santiago Military Hospital the afternoon of Dec. 10. Dozens of his right-wing supporters gathered outside the hospital as soon as they heard he had died. Heavily guarded by the police, they sang the national anthem, waved flags and photographs of the dictator and tried to assault reporters and photographers. Dozens of Pinochet's opponents gathered in the nearby Plaza Italia, embracing each other and carrying signs celebrating the general's death.

Paraguayan foreign minister Ruben Ramirez announced on Oct. 2 that in 2007 Paraguay will stop granting US troops immunity from prosecution. The change in policy is an effort to coordinate policies with the other member nations in the Mercosur economic bloc--Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and most recently Venezuela.

On Sept. 6, Chile's Senate voted 20-13 with two abstentions against a bill introduced by Socialist senator Alejandro Navarro which would have granted conditional release to jailed Mapuche activists. In May, four Mapuche political prisoners ended a 70-day hunger strike on the promise that the bill would be approved. Navarro said the bill sought to "correct an injustice" imposed on the Mapuche activists when they were given harsh sentences under a widely criticized anti-terrorism law. (Adital, Sept. 11; La Nacion, Sept. 6; El Mostrador, Sept. 6)

Thousands of people marched on Sept. 10 in Santiago, Chile to commemorate the Sept. 11, 1973 coup in which Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte overthrew the democratically elected government of Socialist president Salvador Allende Gossens. The march led from the center of the capital along the Alameda Bernardo O'Higgins to the Santiago General Cemetery to remember the victims of the coup and the subsequent 17 years of brutal military dictatorship.

On Aug. 20, Brazilian landless activists Josias de Barros Ferreira and Samuel Matias Barbosa were murdered at an encampment of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) in Pernambuco state. Police claim the two men were murdered by other landless workers at the encampment; the MST says they were killed "by people who infiltrated the encampment with the objective of demobilizing the landless workers and demoralizing the movement." State police say the killers wanted $1,000 in compensation to give up their lands to a company building a gas pipeline near the MST encampment, and that Barros and Barbosa had refused the offer and demanded other lands in exchange for the deal.

More than 2,000 workers went on strike Aug. 7 at the Escondida mine in northern Chile, the world's largest privately owned copper mine. The workers were demanding a contract with an increase in salary and benefits that reflects this year's sharp increase in copper prices. During the work stoppage, most of the strikers were camped out at the sports complex of the Escondida company's corporate offices in the northern coastal city of Antofagasta. The strike ended after workers voted in a secret ballot late on Aug. 31 to accept a new 40-month contract providing a 5% wage increase and a special $17,000 bonus. The union had sought an 8% raise; management initially offered 4%.

On Aug. 28, two agents of Chile's militarized Carabineros police, acting without a warrant, raided a Mapuche family's property in the Bollilco Chico sector of the Nueva Imperial commune, Region IX, allegedly to search for stolen livestock. The family refused to allow the agents to enter their property, and the Carabineros responded by shooting to death Juan Collihuin, a 71-year-old lonko (traditional Mapuche authority), and wounding his sons Juan and Emilio Collihuin. (Argenpress, Sept. 1)

On Friday, Sept. 8th, Alwan, the Arab Center for the Arts in New York City, will host an event in support of the indigenous people of Northern Argentina. Luisa Boggiano, an Argentinean activist, will present a documentary about the conflicts affecting the native peoples of the Missiones and Salta regions, which will be followed by a Q&A. One of the issues facing these communities is the devastation being wreaked on the land by US corporations. Another is the disenfranchisement of the indigenous communities and their limited access to education, among other basic rights.