Chile, Latin America: Week in Review
Chile: Protest For Educational Reform In Santiago Turns Violent
August 10, 2011 By Staff
Today in Latin America
Top Story — With much of the world’s attention focused on the widespread rioting in the United Kingdom, demonstrators in Chile took to the streets of Santiago Tuesday to protest the country’s educational policies. Vehicles burned, debris flew through the air and police used tear gas to repel a minority of demonstrators who caused disturbances and destroyed property during a protest for universal, free or subsidized access to education from kindergarten to university, and a host of other reforms. At least 273 protesters were detained, and 16 civilians and 23 police were injured. Besides students and professors, copper union members joined the protest and announced a strike in solidarity with the student movement. Tuesday’s violent protest comes only a week after police arrested 900 demonstrators accused of blocking roads and disturbing the peace as they participated in unauthorized marches. President Sebastian Piñera announced last month a new plan that included a $4 billion education fund, but it has done little to calm the situation in Chile. Student organizers insisted their march was peaceful and that only a few were responsible for causing disturbances and altercations with police. Chilean authorities estimated that some 2,000 demonstrators turned violent out of the estimated 70,000-80,000 who marched, but argued that the violence showed that student organizers could not control the situation. “Unfortunately, the results have shown one more time that they (organizers) do not have control of the marches,” said Chilean Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter.
Just Published at the Latin America News Dispatch
- Violence against Mexico’s LGBT community is darkening what should be its shining moment — the passage of milestone legislation, including a law legalizing gay marriage in Mexico City. Daniel Hertz reports from Mexico’s capital.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- The bodies of four police officers and one civilian were found dumped in the western Mexico state of Michoacan on Monday.
- Authorities said that a mail bomb that exploded inside a cubicle at Mexico’s Monterrey Technological Institute injured two professors.
- Mexico’s auto industry kept up its record pace of production in the January-to-July period and the current economic woes in the U.S. have not stifled hopes for a record year.
Caribbean
- Cuban authorities arrested senior executives at state-run telephone company ETECSCA in a move to stamp out corruption there, Reuters reports, citing unnamed sources.
- Swimmer Diana Nyad called off her attempt to cross the Florida Straits from Havana to Key West due to shoulder pain, an asthma attack and large waves.
- Dominican authorities are seeking resort owner Matías Avelina Castro in connection with the murder of journalist José Silvestre, Deputy Attorney General Frank Soto said at a news conference Tuesday.
Central America
- A constitutional court in Guatemala ruled that the country’s former First Lady Sandra Torres can not run for president because of her relationship to the current president.
- A Honduran court issued warrants for the arrest of 11 former officials accused of allegedly aiding U.S. authorities in seizing a drug trafficker on Honduran territory 23 years ago.
- A former officer in El Salvador’s Special Forces received 31 years in prison for attempting to sell weapons to an undercover agent disguised as a member of Colombia’s FARC guerrilla group.
- Over one million tourists visited Costa Rica during the first six months of this year, according to the country’s tourism minister.
Andes
- Peru plans to stop rationing energy in the industrial north today, after striking a deal to import electricity from neighboring Ecuador.
- Police arrested a man Sunday who they suspect of making the methanol-laced liquor that has killed 36 people.
- The coach of the Colombian national soccer team Hernán Darío Gómez resigned, after a coming under criticism for allegedly hitting a female companion after leaving a bar on Saturday night.
Southern Cone
- The chief of Brazil’s indigenous protection service will visit a remote jungle outpost due to fears that drug traffickers “massacred” members of an isolated Amazon tribe.
- Brazil’s Deputy Tourism Minister Frederico Silva da Costa and 37 other officials have been arrested on corruption charges.
- An Argentine judge formally questioned suspects in the death of two French tourists found on a hiking trail.
- Chilean President Sebastián Piñera is proposing a law that gives unmarried partners many rights currently allowed only by married couples.
- Uruguayan Vice-President Danilo Astori said that the country was well situated to deal with a new round of global economic and financial turmoil.
- Farmers in Paraguay rejected President Fernando Lugo’s proposed tax increase to help alleviate poverty in the country.
Image: Fernando Manujano @ Flickr.
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