[NYTr] Paraguay's Hour of Change

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

CIP/IRC Americas Program - Sep 24, 2007
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4572


Paraguay's Hour of Change

by Raúl Zibechi
English translation by Patricia Black

April 2008 brings presidential elections for Paraguay. For the first
time in 60 years the Red Party may find itself thrown out of the
presidential palace. Thus will begin the long-desired and long-delayed
transition to democracy in Paraguay.

The 17 years of democracy since the 1989 coup that overthrew dictator
Alfredo Stroessner haven't been very different from the 35 previous
years. The dictator who had governed the country since 1954 was
supported by the same party that still governs the country by means of
clientelism, corruption, and a large dose of repression. But on March
29, 2006, the history of this suffering country appeared to undergo a
drastic change: more than 40,000 people poured into the streets of the
capital, Asunción, to prevent President Nicanor Duarte Frutos from
running for re-election, which is prohibited by the Constitution.

The spokesperson of this enormous mobilization was the bishop of San
Pedro, an area where farmers have carried on a long struggle against
the landowners. Fernando Lugo quickly became the hope of a society
tired of corruption and bad governments. All the polls consider him the
favorite and the only one able to replace the Red Party which controls
all the sources of power: the state bureaucracy, the armed forces, the
mafia, and big business.

A Worn-out Model

The country's social and economic situation is disastrous. Of its six
million inhabitants, 63% are poor (according to the government, poverty
is at 48%) and 26% indigent. Around 80%, 4.5 million, do not have
access to basic medical attention; 600,000 landless farmers wander
about the country since corporations turned Paraguay into one of the
largest soybean exporting nations in the world. Every year 100,000
Paraguayans move from the countryside to the city or leave the country
completely for Spain or Argentina: remittances are the second largest
source of revenue in the country, exceeded only by soybean exports.

The Paraguayan government is one of the most inefficient and corrupt in
the world. It has 200,000 public employees of whom 95% belong to the
Red Party. In spite of the limited population, every day 10 children
die of malnutrition and illness. The Red Party, a State party, is the
principal source of social control and clientelism which assured it of
60 years of almost absolute power whether under dictatorship or
"democracy." In 2006 soybean producers had exports of $450 million
dollars and the cattle oligarchy some $430 million, but they pay
miserably low taxes: the first pay 3% and the cattle industry 1.8%. The
banks pay even less.1

The sociologist Tomas Palau of the Research Center Base-Is maintains
that the exhaustion of the political and economic model goes hand in
hand with the institutional disintegration of an oligarchic power. "The
people have the perception that the Paraguayan state exists less and
less for them, but nevertheless exists and is very strong when it comes
to defending the interests of the cattle oligarchy and of the
transnational oligarchy linked to soy, sugarcane, cotton, in other
words the agricultural export model."2

What from Washington appears to be a failed state is for the people of
Paraguay, and above all for the poor, a genuine nightmare. A Paraguayan
journalist maintains that having been in power for 60 years caused the
Red Party to fray and wear out, bringing the state to a situation of
uselessness which manifests itself in "almost complete disorder, where
the administrators of power, the Colorados (Red Party members), can no
longer be in control nor control themselves in the management of public
affairs: its bosses no longer answer to the dictator or the chief but
directly to the mafia boss in the region."3

A state infiltrated by corruption, where legislative power is composed
of corrupt politicians and the judicial power is incapable of
administering justice, leads to the mafia-based interest groups
possessing uncontrolled power. There are four power groups, according
to Palau: the cattle barons with $6 billion dollars, who rely on
protection from paramilitary commandos; the drug dealers, that
cultivate marijuana, traffic cocaine, launder money and have the
capacity to buy politicians; the multinational companies that export
soy, cotton, and sugarcane; and, finally, the "pseudo-businesspeople"
linked to both legal and illegal deals with the government and to the
contraband trade of electro domestic products and cigarettes. In
politics, this institutional and economic crisis manifests itself in
that "vote-buying can come to include a third of the voters and in the
last electoral contest a vote was valued at 100 or even 200 thousand
guaraníes per capita (US$20-40)."4 According to the regional survey
Latinobarómetro, in Paraguay only 4% (as opposed to 40% in Bolivia)
consider the government's battle against corruption to be effective.
Forty percent (as opposed to 7% in Bolivia) believe that the government
of Paraguay instigates corruption.

The Rise of Civil Society

The combination of several factors has created the "exhaustion of the
corrupted state at the service of the Colorado Party and the
agro-export economic model." Since the 90's the end of this period
opened a "dispute over the political hegemony of the process, shown by
successive crises, attempted coups, assassinations, fraudulent
elections, and not just a few popular movements."5 Civil society is
showing itself to be very active, since it is the only way to make
oneself heard and to enforce rights which the State does not respect.

Institutional and social disintegration has resulted in increased
protests by farmer groups as well as land occupations. The response by
the authorities has been to file charges against more than 2,000
leaders. But it is also reflected in a drop in electoral participation,
since in the last municipal elections 65% of the voters did not go to
the ballotbox. On several occasions, the people had to take to the
streets to prevent violations of the law.

This struggle has its landmarks and its martyrs. March 1999 marked the
assassination of Vice President José María Argaña, the most critical
moment in this crisis. General Lino Oviedo, a messianic and
authoritarian military man that collaborated with the dictator, played
an important role in the 1989 coup that put an end to the dictatorship.
They say that he forced the surrender of the all-powerful Stroessner
when he pulled the pin on a grenade and held him at gunpoint. He
expected to benefit from the fall of the dictator and in the bid for
power he could have been the brain behind of the assassination of
Argaña. In reaction to the crime, the Paraguayans organized a popular
uprising known as "Paraguayan March," where dozens of young people were
murdered by Oviedo's snipers. The general had to go into exile, first
in Argentina where he had the protection of then-President Carlos
Menem, and later in Brazil. Upon returning to his country he was
prosecuted, found guilty, and put in jail, but Parliament later debated
an amnesty, and Oviedo was freed, which could benefit the Colorado
Party in its dispute with Fernando Lugo, since they would compete for
similar social support.6

In 2002 the popular sectors again went to the streets to prevent
privatization of state companies and the approval of an Antiterrorism
Law made without consulting the public. The government had to take a
step back when a broad social movement, in particular farmers, blocked
main highways and paralyzed the country.

The third outbreak of the social movements took place in March of last
year when the president (with the complicity of the Supreme Court)
tried to violate the Constitution in order to run for re-election. On
that occasion, the organization Resistencia Ciudadana (Citizen
Resistance) was formed as a confluence of all the political and social
opposition sectors, and it convoked the largest protest of the last few
years. The spokesperson for this act was Bishop Fernando Lugo, who
emerged as an alternative to the party crisis. According to some
surveys, Lugo has up to 70% of popular support.

Bishop of the Poor

In an interview given to the newspaper Brasil de Fato, Lugo recalled
that he was born in 1952 in a small rural village of 60 families, San
Solano, and is the youngest of six siblings in a family that was
harshly persecuted by the Stroessner dictatorship. His father was in
jail 20 times. As a child, he sold turnovers and coffee in the streets
of Encarnación, the city to which his family immigrated. Three of his
siblings were arrested, tortured, and exiled from the country over the
course of 23 years.

He studied to be a teacher and taught in a classroom packed full with
100 pupils, until at age 19 he decided to enter the seminary of the
Congregación del Verbo Divino (Congregation of the Divine Word).7 "It
was the townspeople of Hohenau, where I taught primary school, that
motivated me to become ordained. The people were very religious and
there was no priest, but even so they got together every Sunday and I
participated in the worship, in the reading of the word of God, in the
lectures, prayers, and hymns. In Hohenau God came into my life."8

In 1977 he was ordained as a priest and traveled to Ecuador where he
became acquainted with liberation theology and the church of the poor.
In 1982 he returned to Paraguay and the following year was expelled
from the country for his "subversive" sermons and for speaking ill of
the government. He lived in Rome and returned in 1987. In 1994 he was
ordained bishop of the diocese of San Pedro, the poorest in the
country: "In 1994, when I took over the diocese, there were 112 land
occupations. Of these, 52 were in San Pedro. When I arrived there were
650 Christian communities, when I left there were a thousand." In the
province with the most large estates, the social pastoral ministries
began organizing the landless rural poor just as had happened years
before in Brazil, a process that gave birth to the landless movement.

Lugo made the leap into politics in a very short time. He recalls the
change: "I leave the diocese in 2005 and I am left thinking that the
huge efforts that are made through the church did not obtain the
desired success, and I realized that the real changes in the economy,
in the social arena, come from politics. So, Jan. 3, 2006 I began to
meet with a group of 12 friends—a group for study and analysis with
artists, intellectuals, farmers, students, in order to imagine the
country—that kept growing and on Dec. 17 became the Movimiento Popular
[Popular Movement] Tekojoja (equality in the regional Guaraní language)
that soon became the fastest growing popular movement."9

Tekojoja collected 100,000 signatures so that Lugo could run as a
presidential candidate. On Dec. 22 he renounced his priestly orders; on
Jan. 4, 2007 the Vatican declined his renunciation and then suspended
him as a priest. This issue is not a small one. The Constitution of
Paraguay says that no priest of any sect can aspire to the presidency.
Upon having renounced his status as a priest, Lugo considers that he is
in a position to be president. But Duarte Frutos denies it, which is
creating a serious confrontation between the government and the
Catholic Church. It is possible that in the next few months the Supreme
Court will annul his candidacy, with an argument that is not legal but
theological. In effect, for the church a priest will always be a priest
even if he renounces his position. Like the majority of Paraguayans,
Lugo does not trust his country's judicial system. The court is
composed of nine members: five Colorados and four opposition members.
The problem is that if Lugo's candidacy is stopped, a large part of the
population would consider it a coup, and the popular reaction would be
unforeseeable.

Toward a Second Transition?

The political parties are going through an acute crisis of
representation as well as legitimacy. The Parliamentary opposition is
united in what it calls the Concertación Democrática (Democratic
Consensus) composed of the Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (Authentic
Radical Liberal Party), Unión Nacional de Ciudadanos Eticos (National
Union of Ethical Citizens), Patria Querida (Beloved Homeland),
Encuentro Nacional (National Meeting), and País Solidario (Country of
Solidarity). The majority are neoliberal and are what could be called
"old school politics" and the PLRA is the only party that has a
significant structure throughout the country capable of competing with
the Red Party.

On the other hand, there are the social and political movements.
Throughout 2006, in order to promote and support Lugo's candidacy,
which has no structure, at least three great segments were created. The
Bloque Social y Popular (Social and Popular Block) is composed of the
three main union groups, a sector of the farmworker movement, Christian
democracy, the Febrerista Party, and the Partido de los Trabajadores
(Workers' Party). The second group is País Posible (Possible Country),
led by Lugo's brother, that has taken the path of resistance from
within the Colorado Party and hopes to capture this vote. And, lastly,
the Movimiento Popular Tekojoja, which is closest to Lugo and also
participates in the Bloque Social y Popular.

The groups on the left, closely linked with the farmers' movement,
created a Coordinadora de Movimientos Independientes (Coordinator of
Independent Movements) that managed to run candidates in 10 of the 221
municipalities in the country. It was the first time that a significant
part of the farmers' movement promoted electoral participation, which
presupposes a change as opposed to earlier times. This confluence
formed the Frente Social y Popular, which since the end of 2006 has
been trying to form a broad alliance with Tekojoja and the Bloque
Social y Popular in order to offset the Concertación's weight in Lugo's
plan.10

Lugo had to choose between the traditional and the new, between the
Block and the social movements and the Concertación. It was a choice
between the social left and organization, between a program for change
and the security that the strategy for overthrowing the Red Party gave
him. In the end, he will run as a Concertación candidate, with his vice
president a member of PLRA. Shortly before making his decision, he
explained clearly what was involved: "The united Concertación Nacional
would be able to assure electoral control. They are parties with
parliamentary representation that can offer two things: guarantee of
both a proper electoral process and the ability to govern because they
have many legislators. The Bloque Popular group is irreconcilable with
the Concertación Nacional."11

According to Orlando Castillo, a member of Serpaj, the Peace and
Justice Service, the step Lugo has taken may guarantee him an electoral
win but tie his hands when it is time for change: "Lugo is looking for
a foundation that can sustain his candidacy, because other than having
a good reputation he has no structure, experience, or money for a
campaign. But the Concertación is getting into trouble. If it gains
control of the government, it runs the risk of not being able to
govern. The Red Party as the opposition could be very dangerous since
it will have a majority in Parliament and the second largest will be
the liberals. The left will have almost no representatives."12

According to this analysis, once in government the liberals will be
able to join with the Colorados to bring a political legal action
against Lugo and remove him from power. We must remember that the
liberals have always lived with the Red Party, even with the
dictatorship, and they are a neoliberal party that practices the same
corrupt politics that is the standard in Paraguay. The only difference
is that they have never been in power and they intend to use Lugo to
get to the presidential palace.

The political climate is tense and confused. The hunger for power is
great. Since Lugo decided to run as a Concertación candidate with a
liberal vice president, various movements aimed toward rupturing this
alliance have arisen. Patria Querida left the Concertación because it
wants its own presidential candidate. UNACE sought amnesty for Lino
Oviedo, the leader of the military coup, in order to run him as their
candidate, which now seems likely.

Within the Red Party, there are two very strong movements that are
constantly clashing. May 3, the house of representatives passed an
Anti-terrorism bill being pushed by Washington. According to the
opposition and human rights organizations, it does not clearly
establish the limits of what is considered terrorism, violates human
rights, and criminalizes public protest.13

On Aug. 9 the Senate rejected the law even though they decided to
introduce some modifications to the Penal Code that benefited large
landholders and had negative consequences for small farmers' movements.
The Red Party voted against it as a way of warning the government of
George W. Bush to support the re-election of Duarte Frutos and to quit
encouraging the vice-presidential candidacy of Luis Castiglioni, a
personal friend of Donald Rumsfeld.

For the social movements, excited about Lugo because he promotes
agrarian reform and the country's autonomy, the panorama is even more
complex. According to Castillo, "The movements continue hoping that
Lugo will lean back toward them. On the one hand, he's the only
alternative. On the other, they run a very great risk. Fourteen parties
have been formed to support Lugo, but, in reality, they all want a seat
in parliament. They run the risk of losing the credibility that they
have gained through so many years of resistance."14

End Notes 

[as published; very odd: no links in text or end notes; ibids and op
cits without first reference. The original Spanish version is the same.
But see the Sources list following the End Notes. -NYTr]

   1. Aristides Ortiz, ob. cit.

   2. Idem.

   3. Idem.

   4. ALOP, ob. cit. p.7.

   5. Hugo Richter, ob. cit. p.60.

   6. Pablo Stefanoni, ob. cit. p. 8.

   7. Interview in Brasil de Fato.

   8. Idem.

   9. Idem.

  10. ALOP, ob. cit. p. 21.

  11. Entrevista Brasil de Fato.

  12. Entrevista a Orlando Castillo.

  13. Orlando Castillo ob. cit. p. 2.

  14. Entrevista a Orlando Castillo.


Sources/For More Information

Ortiz, Arístides, "A las puertas de una segunda transición," [At the
gates of a second transition], Brecha, Montevideo, March 9, 2007.

Asociación Latinoamericana de Organismos de Promoción (ALOP), "Informe
Democracia y Desarrollo 2006-2007," [Report on Democracy and
Development], Asunción, June 2007.

Brasil de Fato, "O Paraguai subsidia as indústrias de São
Paulo," [Paraguay subsidizes the industries of São Paulo], interview
with Fernando Lugo, May 30, 2007.

Richter, Hugo, "Paraguay: crisis y espectativa de cambio", [Paraguay:
crisis and expectations of change], OSAL No. 21, Buenos Aires,
September 2006.

Vera, José Antonio, "Hacia una verdadera transición
democrática," [Toward a true democratic transition], Brecha,
Montevideo, March 9, 2007.

Castillo, Orlando, "Otro revés a la Ley Terroista de
Washington," [Another setback to Washington's Terrorist Law], August
2007, www.serpajamericalatina.org.

Stefanoni, Pablo, "¿Fin de época en Paraguay?" [End of an era in
Paraguay?], Le Monde Diplomatique, Buenos Aires, July 2007.

Canese, Ricardo, "Itaipú, conflicto o equidad entre Paraguay y
Brasil" [Itaipú, conflict or equity between Paraguay and Brazil],
Movimiento Popular Tekojoja.

Zibechi, Raúl, interview with Orlando Castillo, August 17, 2007.


[Raúl Zibechi is an international analyst at Brecha, a weekly journal in
Montevideo, Uruguay, professor and researcher on social movements at
the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and adviser to
grassroots organizations. He writes the monthly "Zibechi Report" for
the CIP Americas Policy Program (www.americaspolicy.org) ]