by the El Reportero’s staff
President Sebastián Piñera announced on July 25, that he would not issue a general pardon to retired members of the military convicted for violating human rights during the dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
That decision again demonstrated that Piñera is in no way a prisoner of the Right. Subsequent decisions (to restore diplomatic relations with Honduras and then to allow Ecuador to impose new terms on local oil concessions operated by Chile’s state-owned Enap)mark Piñera as a pragmatist with principles.
Santos moves quickly to improve ties with Chávez and Colombian courts Within two working days of his inauguration on August 7, Juan Manuel Santos had addressed three of the most rancorous disputes that dogged the government of his predecessor Alvaro Uribe: institutional relations with the judiciary and ties with Colombia’s neighbors, Ecuador and Venezuela.
Santos met 78 senior magistrates on August 9 in a bid to mend ties with the country’s top courts; he made an immediate, and important, gesture to Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, by handing over the entire contents of the laptop of Raúl Reyes, the guerrilla leader killed during a cross-border raid by the Colombian military in March 2008; and then he entertained Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez on 10 August in Colombia’s Caribbean town of Santa Marta, where diplomatic relations were restored.
