PARAGUAY | New EPP videos surface. Two videos were distributed by the guerrillas of the Ejército del Pueblo Paraguayo (EPP) on 20 January. In one an armed man identified by the media as Osvaldo Villalba calls on workers, peasants and indigenous groups to join the ‘struggle for liberation [against] the narco-government of Horacio Cartes, which like its predecessors is a puppet government, servile and antipatriotic, in the service of the rich and Yankee imperialism.’ Another video shows 18 armed people, some of them women, eating in a camp against the background of a pro-guerrilla song. Media reports say both videos…

The security forces had warned as early as November 2013 that the Mapuche heartland in Araucanía faced the prospect of another wave of militant actions similar to that of a year earlier. By early December a communiqué had begun to circulate in social networks calling for the staging of a protest campaign between 30 December and 5 January, commemorating the 6th anniversary of the death of Matías Catrileo, a Mapuche militant killed by Carabineros during a land invasion. Plans began to be drawn up to strengthen the police presence in Araucanía and step up intelligence gathering — but the violence…