On Jan. 4 Argentine federal judge Sandra Arroyo charged two coast guard officers, Angel Volpi and Ruben Iglesias, with homicide in connection with the death of former navy officer Hector Febres. Febres, who was 66, was found dead on Dec. 11 in the Naval Prefecture in Buenos Aires, two days before he was to be sentenced for participation in torture and other crimes, including the theft of babies from dissident women during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Febres' wife, Stella Maris Guevara, and their children, Hector and Sonia Febres, were charged with concealment.

On Dec. 18 Argentine judge Ariel Lijo gave seven former military officers and one former police agent prison sentences of 20-25 years in connection with the disappearance of some 20 members of the rebel Montonero organization in 1980. This was the first time since 2003 that former officers received prison sentences for crimes committed during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship; the Due Obedience and Final Point laws had shielded officers from prosecution until they were annulled in 2003. In 1980 a group of Montoneros, who had originally been allied to the left wing of the Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist), tried to return to Argentina to fight the dictatorship but were captured by the military. Most remain disappeared, although the shot-up bodies of some have been found.

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 the disappearance of at least 21 people in 1977 and 1978. The judge is in charge of an investigation into the disappearances of Uruguayan dissidents who had taken refuge in Argentina but were brought back to Uruguay secretly and illegally, with the cooperation of the Argentine military government under Operation Condor, a clandestine program of coordination between Latin American military regimes in the 1970s and 1980s. The judge also ordered the arrest of retired army officer Juan Carlos Larcebeau and retired navy officer Jorge Troccoli. (La Jornada, Mexico, Dec. 18 from wire services)

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 will go forward, as Brazil's Supreme Court overruled a federal judge who had ordered construction halted. Brazil's largest public works project is to divert water from the Rio Sao Francisco through 700 kilometers of canals to towns and farms in the arid northeast, where Lula was born. Bishop Cappio, who had been hospitalized the previous day, "decided to interrupt the fasting, but not the fight," said his assistant Adriano Martins. (Reuters, BBC, Correio da Bahia, Dec. 20)

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 agents destroyed makeshift homes and violently evicted the 250 families living on the encampment, which has been occupied by the MST since April 21, 2007. The police operation left some 30 people injured, some of them hit by police rubber bullets. MST leader Gilmar Mauro and Jose de Arimateia, coordinator of the encampment, were among those injured. The National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) had promised the MST that there would be negotiations to prevent an eviction. The MST blames the state government and the local authorities of Limeira for the police operation. (Adital, Nov. 29 from Prensa MST; Agencia Brasil, Nov. 29)

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 paper mill it has built in Fray Bentos, across the Uruguay River from Gualeguaychu, Entre Rios. Argentine environmental activists have been protesting plans for the mill for four years and have blocked traffic between the two countries at the San Martin bridge, at Concordia and at Colon.

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 Rio Uruguay in front of the paper mill owned by Finnish company Botnia which is due to open soon. "We were conducting a peaceful protest near the Uruguayan coast when three Uruguyan police boats surrounded us and wanted to detain us," protester Gustavo Zapata, told reporters. Zapata claimed that he was struck by one of the officers, who tried to detain him. Another activist said an officer and a protester fell in the river. Argentine environmentalists have maintained a human blockade on one border bridge for nearly a year in protest over the mill, which has been a source of tension between the two countries' governments. Argentina has asked the International Court of Justice to halt the project on the grounds that it violates a bilateral agreement on water quality. (AFP, Oct. 27)

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." The first clergyman to be convicted in atrocities carried out during Argentina's "dirty war" against left-wing dissidents, von Wernich was found guilty of every charge against him, including seven counts of murder (as "co-author"), 41 of kidnapping and 32 of torture.