[A-List] PARAGUAY -- Watch out! …coup in sight

[james daly]

GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
Havana. January 5, 2010

De: laborexchange at aol.com
Fecha: 06/01/2010 11:59:29
Para: laborexchange-n at organizerweb.com
Asunto: PARAGUAY: Watch out! …coup in sight

PARAGUAY
Watch out! …coup in sight
Nidia Diaz

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2010/enero/mar5/Paraguay-2.html

• IT was to be expected that former bishop Fernando Lugo's real battle would
begin from the day that he assumed the Paraguayan presidency on August 15,
2008. The setback suffered by the Colorado Party forces in the elections
after more than 60 years in government did not make them a constructive
opposition; on the contrary, they dusted off their dirty arsenal of slander
campaigns — in which they are experts — and all kinds of tricks to remove
Lugo from power.

To do so, they would have had the support of the landowning oligarchy,
business owners grown rich off smuggling, and the old political practice of
selling votes to ensure their violent hold on corrupt power for decades.

We cannot forget that Lugo's candidacy was first opposed by high-ranking
religious officials; in fact, the Vatican suspended him a divinis, depriving
him of his right to celebrate mass and administer the sacraments, but the
impoverished majority clamored for their good shepherd, the "bishop of the
poor" as they call him, the only man who would then be able to free them
from so much injustice.

To fulfill that mandate, Lugo headed the Patriotic Alliance for Change
(APC), made up of a large number of movements and parties, including the
Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), the Christian Democrats, the
National Encounter, the País Solidario, the Movement Toward Socialism Party
(P-MAS), the Tekojoja Movement, the National and Popular Bloc, the National
Citizens' Resistance Movement, and the Republican Force Movement. He also
had to take as his vice president Federico Franco of the PLRA, the only
opposition party permitted during the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner.
Now, Franco has publicly stated that he is "prepared" to replace Lugo if the
corrupt right-wing's desire to remove him from power is fulfilled.

It is no coincidence that after the coup d'état perpetrated — with the
support and cynical complicity of the U.S. government — against Honduran
President José Manuel Zelaya, the right-wing oligarchic and corporate forces
of Paraguay are ready to reenact the same script written by Washington,
above all because the former bishop has expressed his intention of entering
the ALBA bloc (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America), a
mechanism of integration, solidarity and cooperation that has yanki
right-wing extremists losing sleep.

Outside of that, President Fernando Lugo's administration has focused on
guaranteeing free and high-quality public services such as health and
education; initiating a process of closing down and expelling U.S. military
bases from Paraguayan territory; and accepting popular demands to begin a
constitutional reform, in order to instigate its social project of change.

Let us not be fooled. Lugo's administration has not been characterized by
rapid decisions directed at dismantling the old and corrupt political
apparatus of the Paraguayan state, or by the radicalization of its campaign
platform.

As was the case in Honduras, a simple tweak of the establishment raises the
hackles of the oligarchy and traditional political parties, which are not
willing to cede one inch on their privileges and interests, and far less
anger their powerful northern neighbor by defending national sovereignty and
self-determination.

It is in that context that some of the measures passed by Lugo's
administration have irritated them. We are referring, for example, to the
registration of agricultural properties, which in Paraguay's case is
controlled at gunpoint by the hired thugs of Paraguayan and Brazilian
landowners who took over those lands through illegal means and forcible
eviction, in most cases.

Just this past September, the president canceled the military exercises
carried out by 500 U.S. soldiers and an equal number of Paraguayan ones,
under the euphemistic name of "New Horizons."

Lugo himself said at the time that it would not be prudent to engage in such
military exercises because they could be questioned by the "fraternal
countries of MERCOSUR," given that regional opposition to the expansion and
establishment of seven U.S. military bases in Colombia is reaching
confrontation point.

Rapidly, the U.S. ambassador in Asunción, Liliana Halladle, "regretted" the
Paraguayan administration's decision, and in a tone of warning, expressed
her "hope" that the measure would not affect other programs that the
powerful northern neighbor maintains with the country. Typical yanki
coercion.

Those events, however, were sufficient to have provoked diverse anti-Lugo
alternatives cooked up during the year by Paraguay's right-wing and fascist
forces, which were not buried with the dictator Stroessner. All of these
plots are aimed at overthrowing him, whether by force or by an
"institutional" coup via the legislative branch, currently controlled by the
Liberal, Colorado and "ethical" Colorado forces of retired General Lino
Oviedo.

These maneuvers have not gone unnoticed by the former bishop, who has
continually exposed them in the national and international media, and has
even informed the accredited diplomatic corps in the country: "There have
been numerous attempted coups d'état against me since I took office."

As the year ends, the anti-Lugo campaigns could be summed up into three, but
they all conceal the need of the right-wing forces to remove him from power
because they are afraid of him intensifying his government's program with
the support of the social movements. We are referring the kidnapping of
rancher Fidel Zavala, which was used as a pretext by the old civilian and
military oligarchy to blame a alleged guerrilla force known as "The
Paraguayan People's Army," and to claim that the government is doing nothing
to stop it.

In a similar sense, a supposed corruption case is being constructed within
the Legislature against Lugo for purchasing land to hand over to campesino
families, and also, there is a scandal over linked cases of paternity, with
the goal of discrediting him. It is worth remembering that in the Paraguayan
Senate, only two of the 45 senators would vote in favor of the president,
and a similar figure in the Chamber of Deputies, giving the rightists
sufficient votes to remove him from power via a political trial.

Nevertheless, given this scenario of confrontation, President Lugo has
called upon the parties of the left to coordinate a new political bloc not
only to support the government, but more importantly, to support its
programs benefiting the poor. According to national observers, this new
alliance has been joined by campesino organizations with the aim of closing
ranks and nipping in the bud plots to put the president on political trial.

It is a question of creating a resistance front, the only guarantee for
struggling against the de facto powers that have gone into operation,
encouraged by the impunity with which the same forces, with Washington's
support, acted and are acting in Honduras.

Next year will be a decisive one in Paraguay. There, the mists have cleared
and the rightists are disposed to removing Fernando Lugo from power, but not
just him: everything that represents a change from the old, corrupt
political model that guaranteed them their privileges and benefits for more
than six decades. •



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