Chile's Supreme Court on May 11 issued a ruling blocking construction of the Cuervo hydroelectric dam in Patagonia until further environmental studies have been carried out. The dam was one of three hydroelectric plants proposed by Energía Austral, a private joint-venture between Anglo-Swiss mining giant Xstrata Copper and Australia's Origin Energy, to supply power to copper mines in the area. The court found that the project failed to file a required soil study with the National Geology and Mining Service, overturning a decision earlier this month by Aysén region's Environmental Evaluation Commission giving the project the green light. The environmental advocacy group Chile Sustentable welcomed the decision, hailing it as "a tremendous achievement for the citizens." Chile, the world's leading copper producer, needs to double its electrical generating capacity in the next decade to meet requirements of a planned massive expansion in the mining sector. The two remaining hydro-plants in the Energia Austral mega-scheme, Blanco and Cóndor, still await approval. (International Water Power, May 14; Jurist, May 13; Reuters, May 11; AFP, May 8)

Many of the traditional celebrations of International Workers Day on May 1 this year had the minimum wage as a central theme—in some cases because governments marked the occasion by increasing wages, in other cases because the governments refused to do so. Between 40,000 and 100,000 Chileans marched in Santiago on May 1 in a demonstration organized by the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT) and bringing together unionists and protesters from the student movement. CUT president Arturo Martínez called for "a real minimum wage, which this year should reach 250,000 pesos" a month (about $520). According to Labor Minister Evelyn Matthei this "isn't possible"; she claimed it would cause an increase in unemployment. As frequently happens in Chile, violence broke out at the end of the peaceful protest: some 200 hooded youths threw rocks at police agents, journalists and other demonstrators. Six agents from the carabineros militarized police were reportedly injured and some 20 people were arrested.

A 16-year-old Chilean youth was seriously wounded with metal pellets on April 20 when agents from the carabineros militarized police raided the indigenous Mapuche community of Temucuicui in the southern region of Araucanía. The youth, Lautaro Naín, was rushed to the city of Victoria for emergency treatment. According to Mijael Carbone, the community's werken (spokesperson), about 100 uniformed police burst into the village and began firing at houses. The Chilean Foundation in Support of Children and Their Rights (Anide) denounced "the violence exercised by the police forces against the Mapuche communities, a violence which once again has a child as its victim." The organization called for an end to police raids against Mapuche communities in Araucanía and for negotiations to end "the conflict created by the Chilean state by dispossessing the Mapuche communities of their ancestral land." The Mapuche Territorial Alliance (ATM) demanded the immediate removal of local prosecutor Luis Chamorro from investigations in the area, charging that he had an anti-Mapuche attitude and constituted "an obvious public danger." (Prensa Latina, April 22)

Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced on April 16 that her government planned to take control of 51% of the shares in YPF SA, the country's largest oil company. The Spanish company Repsol has had majority ownership of the Argentine company, formerly known as Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, since 1999. Later in the week the government took control of YPF Gas, which is also owned mostly by Repsol. A tribunal is to determine how much Argentina will pay in compensation to the companies' private shareholders.

Imprisoned former Argentine dictator Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla has admitted for the first time that the military disappeared—detained and killed—thousands of people and sometimes abducted the victims' children during its 1976-1983 "dirty war" against leftists and dissidents. The killings "were the price that regrettably Argentina had to pay to go on being a republic," Videla said in one of several interviews journalist Ceferino Reato held with him from October 2011 to March 2012 in the Campo de Mayo prison. Now 86, the former dictator was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2010 for crimes against humanity. Human rights groups estimate that the military disappeared some 30,000 people in the violence and turned over several hundred of their children to foster parents.

Unidentified Argentine judicial sources reported on March 30 that federal judge Ariel Lijo has ordered former president Carlos Saúl Menem (1989-1999) to stand trial on charges that during his presidency he impeded the initial investigation into a July 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires. The judge in charge of the original investigation, Juan José Galeano, is also to stand trial, along with former intelligence service directors Hugo Anzorreguy and Juan Carlos Anchezar, and two commanders of the federal police.

A sergeant in Chile's carabineros militarized police force, Hugo Albornoz, died in a hospital in Temuco, the capital of the southern region of Araucanía, the evening of April 2; he had been shot in the neck by unknown attackers earlier in the day. Sgt. Albornoz was part of a large group of police agents from the carabineros Special Operations Group (GOPE) that had searched through homes of indigenous Mapuche that morning in the village of Wente Winkul Mapu in Ercilla commune, Araucanía, for evidence about an October 2011 attack on the Centenario estate, the property of Juan de Dios Fuentes.

The Supreme Court of Chile ruled April 4 that a proposed mega-scale hydroelectric dam complex in Patagonia does not violate the constitutional rights of residents opposing the project. Several environmental advocacy groups, including Chile Sustentable, challenged a ruling of the Court of Appeals of Puerto Montt which refused to issue an injunction to stop the construction of the dam, finding that the project does not violate the constitutional rights of those in opposition. The HidroAysen, a private Chilean venture, seeks to build five dams whose construction was approved by the Chilean government in May 2011. Chile Sustentable expressed disappointment following the ruling but vowed to continue to challenge the project in court, indicating the group is considering bringing a challenge to the project in an international forum.