Five prisoners from Chile's indigeous Mapuche group began a hunger strike on Oct. 1 in the city of Temuco in the southern Araucanía region, joining four Mapuche prisoners who have been on hunger strike in Angol, also in Araucanía, since Aug. 27. The Temuco strikers—Leonardo Quijón Pereira, Luis Marileo Cariqueo, Fernando Millacheo, Guido Bahamondes and Cristian Levinao--said they were protesting the conspiracy by the "state, the business owners and the large landowners to use the laws against us to keep us far from our families and loved ones." The prisoners are asking to be moved to the Angol prison, which is closer to their homes, and are calling on the government to end the "humiliating and annoying searches the Gendarmerie of Chile [the prison authorities] carries out on relatives and friends who visit us in the prison."

Members of the Huilliche indigenous group blocked the highway between Valdivia and Paillaco in southern Chile's Los Ríos region the morning of Sept. 28, burning rubbish and setting up barricades to protest a Sept. 21 Supreme Court decision denying them access to a sacred site. A communiqué from an organization calling itself the Huilliche Aynil Leufu Mapu Mo Resistance claimed responsibility for the action, which was also in support of a hunger strike that five Mapuche prisoners in Angol, Araucanía region, began on Aug. 27. The Huilliche are a sub-group of the Mapuche, the largest indigenous group in Chile.

The Sept. 11 anniversary of Chile's 1973 coup exploded into a night of street battles in Santiago that ended with one officer of the Carabineros dead, 26 people wounded, and 255 arrested, including 83 minors. Five public buses were set on fire to make street barricades, and more than 400 others sustained broken windows and other damage, prompting the transportation agency to shut service throughout the city. There was widespread looting through the night, and at least 58,000 homes were left without power after hooded protesters threw metal chains onto power lines. The Carabineros officer was apparently killed when he tried to stop the looting of a supermarket in the northern district of Quilicura.

As of Aug. 31 six Mapuche activists were on hunger strike to protest what they consider the Chilean government's repression of struggles by the indigenous group, the country's largest. The strikers include five prisoners in Angol, in the southern region of Araucanía, and Pascual Catrilaf, a machi (healer and spiritual authority) who lives in Temuco, also in Araucanía. A seventh striker, Mewlen Huencho, a werkén (spokesperson) for the Mapuche Territorial Alliance, ended her six-day fast at the Santiago offices of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) after speaking to UNICEF officials on Aug. 31.

A Brazilian federal judge in Pará on Aug. 31 agreed to conduct the first trial against members of the former dictatorship for alleged crimes during the military's rule from 1964-1985. The defendants are two retired army reserve members, Col. Sebastiao de Moura and Maj. Licio Maciel, accused of kidnappings during suppression of the guerilla movement in the Araguaia region between 1972 and 1975. The judge agreed with prosecutors that Brazil's 1979 amnesty law, which provides amnesty for members of the government and military alleged to have committed political crimes between 1961 and 1975, does not apply because bodies of the alleged kidnapping victims were never found, and the cases are therefore still technically open.

A Brazilian federal judge on Aug. 23 ruled that permits for more than 120 proposed hydro-electric dams in the Upper Paraguay River Basin cannot be issued without first conducting environmental impact assessments, dealing a blow to a major thrust of development planned for the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul. The ruling comes in response to a request from state and federal prosecutors in Mato Grosso do Sul, who petitioned the 1st Federal Court in Coxim for an injunction suspending construction of 126 new dams in the Pantanal, a vast region of wetlands in the basin. The ruling also impacts 20 already operating hydro plants, which will be able to continue running under their current licenses, but must submit to an impact study before seeking license renewals. Utilities must seek approval for the studies from the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Natural Resources (IBAMA) as well as state authorities before the projects can move ahead.

A panel of UN human rights experts on Aug. 21 urged Chile to make sure that people who have been convicted of enforced disappearances all serve their sentences. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) stated that while Chile has made great strides since it transitioned to democracy, many challenges remain. While the WGEID praised Chile for combating human rights violations in recent years, it stated that Chile needs to do more to ensure that justice is served:

Chilean high school students occupied two important schools in Santiago on Aug. 13, after taking over at least eight public high schools the week before in a continuation of protests for educational reform that started more than a year ago. The students occupied the Barros Arana National Boarding School (INBA) and the prestigious High School of Implementation. They also tried to take over the José Miguel Carrera National Institute but gave up when police contingents arrived. Agents arrested 14 youths allegedly involved in the actions, which were supported by hundreds of students.