Chile, Latin America: Week in Review, Southern Cone
Chilean Protesters Clash At Pro-Pinochet Documentary Screening
June 11, 2012 By Staff
Top Story — Chilean police on Sunday used tear gas and water cannons to disperse a crowd of protesters gathered outside a screening of “Pinochet”, a documentary sympathetic to the deceased Chilean dictator who ruled the country from 1973-1990. Anti-Pinochet protesters clashed with Pinochet supporters outside Santiago’s Caupolicán Theater and tried to block theatergoers from entering to see the film, while different groups set up barricades and hurled insults and and eggs. At least ten people were reported arrested. Demonstrators opposed to the film said that the government should have banned the event, which was sponsored by a group of retired military officers and the September 11 Corporation, named for the date of Chile’s 1973 military coup. Some 3,000 Chileans were killed during the military dictatorship, and tens of thousands were tortured, according to official human rights reports. Chilean President Sebastián Piñera’s government said it had to permit the event due to the organizers’ rights to free assembly and expression, a decision upheld by the Court of Appeals.
Read more from the New York Times.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- Gunmen gunned down seven people in the community of Guatenipa in Sinaloa, Mexico on Saturday.
- William White, a convicted white supremacist from Virginia, was arrested Friday in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and has been returned to U.S. custody.
- Eight Cuban migrants escaped from a detention camp in Veracruz, Mexico on Friday.
Caribbean
- The U.S. government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are trying to convince Haitians to adopt the use of cell phones to make money transfers, but the idea is taking time to catch on.
- Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt is unharmed after crashing his BMW in Kingston on Sunday.
Central America
- Researchers reported Sunday that they may have discovered the lost ancient city known as “Ciudad Blanca” in Honduras after flying over a jungle region with laser mappers.
- Nicaragua is planning to build a $30 billion canal to rival the Panama Canal and open access between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
- The U.S. and Honduran governments have sought to minimize public outrage in the shooting of four Honduran civilians on a river while assisting Honduran security forces in a drug raid last month.
Andes
- Venezuelan presidential candidate Henrique Capriles led a march of thousands through Caracas on Sunday to formally launch his candidacy against ailing Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
- Rescue teams have recovered 14 bodies from an explosive helicopter crash over the Peruvian Andes last Wednesday.
- 18 people were killed Thursday when a bus crashed 395 feet off a cliff in Bolivia. Many aboard were students between 15 and 17 years old.
- Colombia’s Caracol television is broadcasting a controversial telenovela featuring Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. The series is expected to air in the U.S. later this year.
Southern Cone
- Investigators from Brazil’s Araguaia Working Group have traveled to northern Pará state to investigate the disappearance of 70 leftist guerrillas murdered during Brazil’s 1964-85 dictatorship.
- The murder of indigenous activists in Brazil is rising as disputes between tribes and cattle farmers have led to at least 24 killings last year.
Image: chilephotojp @ Flickr.
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