Bolivia's President Evo Morales highlighted the importance of social movements in driving the changes and the economic growth experienced by the South American country in recent years.
Latin America & the Caribbean
Top generals in the Colombian army have been implicated in the long-running “false positives” military scandal, according to a new report Human Rights Watch (HRW) published on June 24.
Land rights activists in Honduras' north coast Aguan Valley have condemned what they call an ongoing “hunt” of campesinos (small farmers) in their communities.
The activists are calling for freedom for political prisoners and an end to repression of campesino movements.
Family members of jailed and persecuted rural workers have denounced the “dirty and malicious campaign” of criminalisation against campesino leaders and communities. They accuse the national police, and other state and private security forces, of operating as “a gang of hitmen”.
President Nicolas Maduro supported reparations for slavery after a ceremony that paid tribute to Afro-Venezuelan independence fighter Pedro Camejo.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro expressed support on June 24 for the Caribbean call for reparations from their former colonial powers.
President Rafael Correa speaks to thousands of supporters from the presidential palace in Quito's main square, June 15, 2015. Photo: EFE.
Chilean teachers strike against education bill
Thousands of Chilean teachers took to the streets of Santiago once again on June 17, TeleSUR English said that day.
The protest was part of the indefinite national strike to protest against an education reform bill proposed by the government of President Michelle Bachelet. There were marches in at least five other cities across the country.
On June 13 a demonstration supporting the government of Ecuador and its new inheritance tax was held in Sydney.
A group of Ecuadorians, members of the Chilean community and other Latin American sympathisers, gathered at the Addison Road Community Centre in Marrickville, Sydney, to show their support for the Ecuadorian president and the recently proposed inheritance taxation project. Wealth redistribution is one of the most important elements in the framework of La Revolucion Ciudadana (Citizen’s Revolution).
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called for an urgent meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to discuss tensions and possible coup plots against the government of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.
“It's time for us to activate all our solidarity with the people of Ecuador and with President Rafael Correa,” Maduro said on June 13 during an event in the Venezuelan state of Miranda. The call comes after Correa denounced a coup plot being hatched against him as he returned to the country on June 14 from the European Union-CELAC meeting in Brussels.
As opponents of Ecuador's President Rafael Correa made calls on social media for a military coup, a caravan of vehicles by right-wing protestors descended on the highway leading to Quito's international airport on June 14 in a bid to block Correa from being able to safely return to the country.
Social media posts called on those opposed to Correa's democratically-elected government to flood the highway and try to take the airport. Pro-opposition newspaper El Comercio said more than 200 cars participated in the convoy.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) being negotiated between the US and 11 other Pacific Rim nations — including Australia — is a treaty covering regulations and investments.
It is being negotiated in secret from the peoples of the affected nations, but not from the corporations that are set to benefit from the deal — as chapters leaked by WikiLeaks reveal. For the US side alone, about 600 corporate representatives are neck deep in the negotiations.
The leftist political party led by two-time former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will govern in areas representing more than 8 million people after Mexico's June 7 elections.
Lopez Obrador's National Regeneration Movement (Morena) took part for the first time in the mid-term elections. It won in six of the 16 districts of Mexico City, breaking the long-time hegemonic rule of the once popular Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) in the country's capital, which won five.
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa announced radical plans to support asylum-seekers and stateless people. Ecuador’s socialist government is proposing a new law to make all migrants legal in the country.
Correa said during his weekly address: “The right to migrate is guaranteed in the rules. No human being will be considered illegal.”
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