[News] Paraguay: Watch out! coup in sight

[Anti-Imperialist News]

GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
Havana. January 5, 2010

PARAGUAY
Watch out! 
coup in sight
Nidia Diaz

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