Chile, Latin America: Week in Review, Southern Cone
Chile: Ex-Colonels Charged For Torturing Michelle Bachelet’s Father
July 18, 2012 By Staff
Top Story — Two retired Chilean colonels were charged Tuesday with torturing to death the father of former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, General Alberto Bachelet. General Bachelet, loyal to then-President Salvador Allende, was arrested during the Pinochet coup and died in 1974 at age 51 in the custody of the Air Force War Academy. During a brief return to his home for house arrest, he told his family that some of his torturers were students he had taught and others were long-time military comrades. In a letter from prison, General Bachelet described his experiences and said “they broke me from the inside”. A recent forensic study reported that the elder Bachelet probably died of heart-related problems caused by his torturers. Ex-colonels Ramon Caceres Jorquera and Edgar Benjamin Cevallos Jones, both of whom allegedly presided over Bachelet’s interrogation, are accused of killing him. Cevallos, 82, is being held in a hospital due to Alzheimer’s disease. Michelle Bachelet and her mother Angela Jeria were also detained and tortured during the dictatorship, and returned from exile in 1979.
Read more from the Washington Post.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that it would grant a number of states access to an immigration database to turn away potential noncitizens at the polls.
- Mexican police detained 226 minors on Monday when a youth flash mob turned violent due to overcrowding at a popular concert.
Caribbean
- A Puerto Rican policeman opened fire on an 85-year old woman who crashed into his car while driving. She was not hit, but was injured by broken glass.
- Jamaican soldiers will be charged for shooting an accounting while they pursued drug kingpin Christopher “Dudus” Coke.
- Dominican priest Alberto Zacarias Cordero Liriano was ordered detained after authorities accused him of repeatedly raping a 15 year-old girl.
Central America
- A California fugitive was arrested by Guatemalan authorities after he spent 18 years on the run from charges that he molested a four year-old.
- A Mexican court sentenced two Guatemalan women for child trafficking in Chiapas.
- A Nicaraguan zoo is seeking private funding so that it can purchase a lion that the state won’t pay for.
Andes
- Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe met with Venezuelan opposition leaders on the Colombia-Venezuela border, where he called the Hugo Chávez government a dictatorship.
- Peruvian President Ollanta Humala may be searching for a new prime minister as a response to violence surrounding anti-mining protests in Cajamarca where five people died this month.
- A crowd of Nasa Indians in Colombia staged an attack on six Colombian soldiers guarding a hilltop in their village on Tuesday. The Nasa have loudly protested both military and FARC presence on their territory.
Southern Cone
- Chevron may soon resume production at an oil well off the coast of Rio de Janeiro that was shut down in the wake of a November oil spill.
- An Argentine judge told Facebook that it must delete a profile that allegedly defames an Argentine bookstore.
Image: Carolonline @ Flickr.
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