After a heated 14-hour session, Argentina's Senate voted 33-27 with three abstentions in the early morning of July 15 to approve a bill extending the right to marry and to adopt to same-sex couples. The Senate vote completed the approval process for the measure, which the Chamber of Deputies had passed on May 5. Argentina is now the first country in Latin America to extend full marriage equality to same-sex couples.

Twenty-three Mapuche indigenous comuneros being held at two prisons in Chile have been on hunger strike since July 11. The prisoners are demanding the dismissal of the cases brought against them in military courts, the release of all "Mapuche political prisoners," and the end to the application of a Pinochet-era anti-terrorism law against them.

This year Pride celebrations, held on the last weekend in June in much of the world, coincided with a debate in Argentina over proposed legislation that would make the country the first in Latin America to authorize same-sex marriages. On June 28, hundreds of supporters of the legislation marched in front of the Congress building in Buenos Aires in a demonstration organized by the Argentine LGBT Federation and supported by about a dozen social groups and cultural figures, including singers Fito Páez and Vicentico, who were to hold a recital at the end of the march.

Following a cross-country march that converged on the capital from some 30 indigenous communities across Argentina, some 15,000 protesters established themselves in Buenos Aires' Plaza de Mayo on May 20, and are demanding a dialogue with the government on establishing a "pluricultural" state. The National March of Original Peoples comes just before Argentina celebrates its bicentennial Revolution Day on May 25, marking the beginning of the independence struggle from Spain in 1810. Dressed in colorful ponchos and other traditional garb, and carrying whipalas—the rainbow flag of South America's indigenous movement—many of the protesters had marched up to 2,000 kilometers. Representing the Wichi, Toba, Kolla, Mapuche, Huarpe and Guaraní peoples, among others, the protesters' first demand is for the recuperation of traditional lands. (BBC Mundo, La Jornada, Mexico; Informador, Mexico, May 21)

A supposed member of the rebel Army of the Paraguayan People (EPP), identifying himself as "Máximo Brizuela," called into radio station Primero de Marzo on May 10 to take responsibility for an attack that left four dead on April 21 at the department of Concepción. The supposed guerilla spokesman said he was calling "from the northern hills of Paraguay" (desde los norteños montes del Paraguay), and said the attack was carried out by the EPP's "Commando Number 7 Mariscal López." He stated: "This execution was a reprisal for the assassination of community residents" in the area of Guaraní-Santa Adelia. He added that "as protector of the people, the EPP will carry out reprisals...against the foreign landlords and their representative, Fernando Lugo," Paraguay's ostensibly leftist president.

The Spanish government on May 6 extradited pilot Julio Alberto Poch to Argentina to face trial for his alleged role in the nation's 1976-83 "Dirty War." Poch was a navy officer at Argentina's Naval Mechanics School, one of the most notorious detention centers of the military dictatorship, and is believed to have piloted flights known as "death flights," which were used to dump the military junta's political opponents into the Plata River and the Atlantic Ocean. Poch holds dual Dutch and Argentine citizenship, which had protected him from earlier attempts at extradition, but he was arrested and imprisoned last September when he landed in Valencia while en route to the Netherlands. A Spanish court agreed to his extradition in January, finding that there are adequate measures in place to guarantee that Poch will receive a fair trial in Argentina. Poch continues to deny the charges against him.

Latin Americans generally used the traditional International Workers Day marches on May 1 this year to protest around national issues, but some also demonstrated their support for immigrants in the US—where tens of thousands of immigrants and supporters were marching against anti-immigrant measures and laws.

On April 20 Uruguayan criminal judge Juan Carlos Fernández Lecchini handed down a 20-year prison sentence to Juan Carlos Blanco--foreign relations minister from 1973 to 1976, at the beginning of a 1973-1985 military dictatorship—for "especially aggravated homicide" in the case of the schoolteacher Elena Quinteros. With the judge's decision, all the principal figures accused of human rights violations during the dictatorship have received prison sentences, although some face additional charges. Former dictator Juan Bordaberry (1973-1976) has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, former dictator Gregorio ("Goyo") Alvarez (1981-1985) to 25 years, and eight other former officials to 20-25 years for homicides, kidnappings and forced disappearances.