As world leaders from 34 nations gathered in Chile for the Summit of the Americas, rebels threw a grenade at a car sales office in the capital, Santiago, early yesterday.
The rebels drove up to a Chrysler showroom, about a mile from the summit venue, burned a US flag and then threw the grenade, which damaged six cars. They fired about 50 automatic rounds in the air and drove off, police said. No one was hurt.
In Valparaiso, 88 miles away, President Clinton, in an address to a special joint gathering of the summit delegations and the Chilean National Congress, spoke of the triumph of democracy in Latin America. "Freedom's victory now has been won throughout the Americas," Mr Clinton said at the National Congress, accompanied by President Eduardo Frei of Chile.
"With a single exception, the day of the dictators is over," he said in reference to Cuba, which has been excluded from the Summit of the Americas opening today.
Another notable absence from the proceedings was that of Chile's former dictator, Gen Augusto Pinochet. He stayed away from the Clinton address citing health concerns.
More than 150 heavily armed police raided an enclave of about 400 Germans in southern Chile yesterday searching for its fugitive leader, Mr Paul Schafer, accused of sexually abusing about 20 local boys. Schafer (77), a captain in Hitler's army, has been hiding from authorities since August 1996 when the first sexual abuse charges were filed against him in the town of Parral, 217 miles south of Santiago.