Chile, Latin America: Week in Review
Grandson Of Former Chilean President Allende Commits Suicide
December 17, 2010 By Staff
Chilean Senator Isabel Allende, mother of Gonzalo Meza.
Today in Latin America
Top Story — The grandson of former Chilean President Salvador Allende killed himself Wednesday, according to a statement.
Gonzalo Meza Allende, son of Chilean Sen. Isabel Allende, was a 45-year old political analyst who was known to suffer from depression, especially after the death of his wife from leukemia last year. The statement did not reveal how Meza he took his life.
Sen. Allende thanked the public for respecting the family’s privacy amid “this sad news.”
Suicide has been common in the Allende family. It is widely believed that Salvador Allende committed suicide moments before he was to be captured during the 1973 coup. His daughter Beatriz, shot herself in 1977 in Havana, and his sister Laura, who was terminally ill with cancer by 1981, jumped from a Havana hotel.
On the 37th anniversary of the coup in which his grandfather was killed, Meza wrote that he was mourning the death of his grandfather.
“It’s too much to bear,” Meza wrote on his blog.
President Salvador Allende was a democratically-elected socialist president, who was overthrown during a military coup on September 11, 1973 led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Just Published at the Latin America News Dispatch
- Brazil’s Lula da Silva may be one of the region’s emblematic left-leaning figures, but Nikolas Kozloff’s piece based on WikiLeaks cables concerning Brazil paints a different picture.
- The U.S. Supreme Court grappled last week over whether the state of Arizona has authority to implement standards and penalties on employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- United States federal authorities arrested seven men and confiscated 21,800 pounds of marijuana after six rail cars from Mexico delivered it to a warehouse in Chicago Heights, Ill.
- A federal judge in Phoenix dismissed a challenge to Arizona’s new immigration law by the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Caribbean
- Cuban leader Raúl Castro wanted to open secret talks with the White House in late 2009 to negotiate how “make major moves toward meeting U.S. concerns,” according to WikiLeaks cables.
- U.S. aid worker Paul Waggoner has been arrested on accusations that he kidnapped a Haitian infant.
- Puerto Rican officials proposed a mixed land-use plan Thursday for a lush coastal region long coveted by developers, disappointing conservationists who demanded more protection for the former nature preserve that is a major nesting ground for endangered leatherback turtles.
- A feature article in USA Today examines the plight of Haitian-descended Dominicans whose government does not recognize them as citizens.
Central America
- Carlos Vielmann, a former Guatemalan interior minister wanted on charges of extrajudicial killings, was arrested in Spain on Thursday for the second time in two months.
- Included in a list that named Pakistan as the deadliest country for journalists was Honduras, where 3 journalists have been killed this year.
Andes
- Colombia faces a mounting toll of dead, injured and homeless in floods that swept through areas with more than 2 million inhabitants.
- Ecuador and Colombia have resumed full diplomatic relations that were cut off nearly three years ago over a border violation by Colombian forces.
- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said on Thursday he had a “battery” of decrees ready to issue once parliament grants him special powers that opponents say are an attack on democracy in the South American nation.
- Peru’s Finance Ministry said Thursday it will shortly sign a $100 million natural disaster contingency loan with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
- Lawmakers in the natural gas-rich eastern Bolivian province of Santa Cruz removed its governor – a key opponent of leftist President Evo Morales – on Thursday after he was charged with dereliction of duty and causing economic damage.
Southern Cone
- Brazilian president Lula da Silva was named “Gays’ Father Christmas” by the country’s Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Travesties and Transsexuals (ABGLT) group.
- Argentina will probably receive next April the International Monetary Fund’s final recommendations for a new national consumer price index design.
- Member nations of Mercosur are seeking better political and economic ties with Cuba in a bid to make the country an associate member of the South American trade bloc.
- Paraguayan player Salvador Cabañas, who survived being shot in the head, will appeal to sport’s highest court to try to receive the $2 million in salary and benefits allegedly owed to him by Club América of Mexico.
Image: AlexCamPro @ Flickr.
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