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Judi Lynn

(160,219 posts)
Fri Sep 12, 2014, 07:32 PM Sep 2014

Paraguay: the return of social conflict

Paraguay: the return of social conflict
By Raúl Zibechi | 2 / September / 2014

Two years after the fall of the Fernando Lugo government and one year after the rise of Horacio Cartes of the Colorado party, social movements show signs of rebuilding, with remarkable leadership of the campesino movement facing agribusiness and repression.

“How do you say ‘walking stick’ in Guaraní?” A smile is painted across an austere face, some 60 years old, with a thin beard and gentle and serene countenance. “Symbol,” he says, lifting a 50-centimeter cane, polished, on which the acronym FNC can be read. It’s similar to the one raised by almost all the campesinos and campesinas who form the procession in front of the Ministry of Hacienda, a half block from Asunción’s most centric street corner. “Symbol of struggle and power,” a female voice jumps in. The man smiles, nodding, looks at his symbol with care, and–like a mantra–repeats the word “power.” They reflect the self-esteem of a movement born under the dictatorship, (a movement) that did not stop fighting under any government, whether of the Colorado Party or Lugo’s progressive government, (a movement) taking the streets back from the Hugo Cartes government’s criminalization of social movements.

It’s August 14th, the second of three days of protests for the Paraguayan campesino movement, with roadblocks, gatherings in various parts of the country, and marches in cities. Among the mobilized groups, the National Campesino Federation (FNC, Federación Nacional de Campesinos), the National Coordinator of Rural and Indigenous Women (Conamuri, Coordinadora Nacional de Mujeres Rurales e Indígenas), the Struggle for Land Organization (OLT, Organización de Lucha por la Tierra) and several trade union sections and political parties stand out. Among their stances: opposition to the Public-Private Partnership law, which plans the privatization of public services, health, and education; opposition to state violence and the criminalization of protest; and the demand for agrarian reform–in the country that boasts the highest concentration of land in the world. The central theme of the conference says it all: “Paraguay is not for sale.”

More soy, more repression

Adela and Adelaida, six months and three years old from the Húber Duré settlement, died on July 21st, probably contaminated by agro-toxins. The settlement–330 kilometers from Asunción in the Canindeyú department– is inhabited by 260 FNC families that won five thousand hectares in 2000. They are coping with four deaths in their ranks, among them 22 year old Húber Duré.

At the same time, a group of 18 children and 19 adults were treated for having the same symptoms: vomiting, back pain, nausea, fever, and respiratory insufficiency. Although health officials denied the possibility of pesticide contamination, community members claimed soy plantations near the settlement were sprayed two days before the girls’ deaths. The settlement is surrounded by GM monocultures. Nimia Galeano, in charge of settlement health, says that whenever there are soy fumigations, the same symptoms are recorded among residents. A month later, William, a 10 month old child born with deformities, died, and the community registered the deaths of 43 cows, 30 pigs, a goat, and 319 chickens within a few days. “Not even the crows eat the hundreds dead animals, and a dog that presumably ate the body of a cow died a few meters away.”

The death of children is one of the most terrible faces of the soy model implanted in Paraguay in recent years. But the model comes with two conditions that make it possible: repression and land concentration. The data says that Paraguay has ​​40 million hectares of land, of which 24 million are arable. Nearly 8 million are tierras malhabidas, irregularly adjudicated by the state since 1954. Or rather, since the beginning of the Stroessner dictatorship.

More:
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12841

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