PARAGUAY | Congress wants to use army against EPP. On 19 September a passing motorcyclist hurled an explosive device at the office of the public prosecutor in Horqueta, Concepción. There were no casualties. The government concluded that the attack had been carried out by the Ejército del Pueblo Paraguayo (EPP), on the grounds that the elements of the device that survived the blast were much like those collected from the scene of the attack on a police car in Horqueta in January which injured five police officers and that a paper seized at the house of an EPP member showed details of the prosecutor’s office that led investigators to believe it had been chosen as a target.
Interior Minister Carlos Filizzola immediately ordered the entire field personnel of the Fuerza de Operaciones de la Policía Especializada (Fope, the national police’s special forces unit) to ‘lay siege’ to Horqueta. On 21 September another attack, on a police station 15 kilometres outside Horqueta, was attacked with gunfire and grenades. Two police officers were killed and one was injured.
Within a week the senate rapidly approved the imposition of a 60-day state of exception in the departments of Concepción and San Pedro. On 20 September, however, the lower chamber of congress decided to postpone indefinitely the debate on declaring a state of exception — largely because there was not conviction that it would be any more effective than the one declared in April 2010, which failed to achieve its aim of capturing the leaders of the EPP.
On 22 September a group of about 80 self-proclaimed landless peasants, heavily armed, raided a farm in Potrero Báez, Canindeyú, stripped its installations of whatever was portable, slaughtered cattle, and set fire to the buildings. This was not attributed to the EPP. Two other incidents were reported elsewhere in Canindeyú. A mob of about 200 raided a farm in Yasy Kañy, looted it and departed. In Yvy Pytã a farm was invaded by about 150 people who appeared determined to settle there.
CHILE | Two strands of violence. At a ceremony commemorating the 11 September 1973 coup that inaugurated the Pinochet dictatorship in Santiago’s main cemetery, a group of hooded individuals clashed violently with the Carabineros (militarised police), injuring 40 officers, six of them seriously and three, critically. According to Rodrigo Ubilla, undersecretary of the interior, in incidents across the country there were also five civilians injured and the police made 280 arrests.
This moved President Sebastián Piñera to urge congress to approve legislation stiffening the penalties for assaults on members of the Carabineros. Piñera said, ‘In this battle against crime, against the violent, against “hoodies” [encapuchados], there can be no consideration: we will apply the full rigour of the law, always within the boundaries of the law.’
A separate series of events involved the use of explosives. In the Vitacura district of Santiago a low-powered explosive device was found by police on 10 September next to a statue of the founder of Opus Dei. Another similar device had been detonated at the same site in August. On 20 September a bomb was set off in front of an Agrosuper food store in Santiago, causing some damage but claiming no casualties.
On 22 September a unit of the Grupo de Operaciones Policiales Especiales (Gope, the Carabineros special operations force) was sent to the central building of the Universidad Técnológica Metropolitana (Utem), to examine what appeared to be a bomb factory. Police had followed a group of hooded individuals into those premises, where they were attacked with Molotov cocktails. Materials similar to black gunpowder and fire extinguisher casings were seized.
