Chile, Latin America: Week in Review, Southern Cone
Chilean Government Orders Pinochet’s Will Opened
April 25, 2012 By Staff
Today in Latin America
Top Story — The Chilean government will unseal the last will and testament of deceased dictator Augusto Pinochet on Wednesday in an effort to determine the size of Pinochet’s fortune and the amount he owes the state. The will was drawn up in 2006, the year Pinochet died, and was sealed by his immediate family. However, the Defense Council of the State is seeking to recover public funds it says were diverted by Pinochet, who may have amassed a fortune of up to $21 million before he died, according to a study by the Chilean Supreme Court. The study said that Pinochet should have only accumulated $3 million with his military salary. Pinochet ruled Chile from 1973-1990 and was the face of a military dictatorship that killed and disappeared thousands. Though Pinochet was put under house arrest in 2004 for tax fraud and passport forgery, he claimed in 2005 that his wealth was from “lifetime savings”.
Read more from the Boston Globe.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- A 48 year-old U.S. citizen from Rhode Island has filed a lawsuit against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after she was detained on suspicion of being in the country illegally.
- Enrique Pena Nieto, Mexico’s leading presidential candidate, has pulled ahead of his rival candidates with 40.1 percent of voters expressing support.
Caribbean
- About 3500 former Haitian soldiers and their followers are refusing to disband despite numerous orders from the government to clear out of old military bases they are occupying in protest.
- Dominican health officials reported that at least 6 people have died and 17 remain hospitalized in a cholera outbreak in a northern village.
- Puerto Rican nationalist Norberto Gonzalez Claudio is negotiating with prosecutors ahead of his trial for allegedly helping rob $7 million from a Wells Fargo armored car depot in Connecticut in 1983.
Central America
- Honduran General René Osorio criticized the U.S. government for not offering “the necessary support” to break up drug trafficking groups in the country.
- Gunmen killed Honduran TV personality Noel Alexander Valladares and two others on Monday.
- Costa Rican Vice President Luis Liberman said that government wages would be frozen for two years to contain Costa Rica’s $2 billion fiscal deficit.
- Panamanian and U.S. authorities are helping a California family search for an American woman who has been missing in Bocas del Toro, Panama for the last five months.
Andes
- Venezuelan Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said that former Supreme Court judge Eladio Aponte had received money from drug traffickers and that the U.S. is now harboring a Venezuelan fugitive.
- Miners at a two-day march organized by the Bolivian Workers Central to secure higher pay exploded dynamite in an effort to break through a police cordon, reportedly wounding four officers.
Southern Cone
- Brazilian journalist Decio Sa, who reported for the northeastern newspaper O Estado do Maranhao, became the fourth Brazilian journalist killed this year when he was shot as he ate in a restaurant Monday night.
- U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that three U.S. Marines were “severely punished” for allegedly breaking the collarbone of a prostitute in Brasilia.
- Intense storms killed at least 17 people in Argentina early this month and were reportedly caused by increased heat and humidity.
Image: gerardo_chinchorro @ Flickr.
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