Paraguay ready to contribute reserves to Bank of the South

[Judi Lynn]

Source: El Universal

Caracas, Wednesday March 21 , 2007

Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte said he is willing to devote a part of international reserves to the Bank of the South, a project propelled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and his Argentinean counterpart Néstor Kirchner.

Duarte said that Paraguay's USD 1.6 billion international reserves "rather than being deposited in US banks could be transferred to the Bank of the South," a project Chávez launched in November 25 and which was recently joined by Argentina, Efe reported.

The Paraguayan ruler told local media that the head of Paraguay's state Financial Agency for Development, César Barreto, is visiting Buenos Aires next Friday to join a group of experts conducting feasibility surveys on the projected bank.
(snip)

Duarte added that the Bank of the South could replace the Inter American Development Bank and the World Bank's International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.




Read more: http://english.eluniversal.com/2007/03/21/en_eco_art_paraguay-ready-to-co_21A847181.shtml

[Peace Patriot]

1. This is momentous news. That a centrist leader (more rightwing than not)--and one

that Bush may have been counting on for deliverables to his corporate masters, in a country where a big leftist movement is in-progress (led by the highly popular bishop of Paraguay, an advocate for the poor, who recently resigned his priestly office to run for president), would, a) see the benefits of South American self-determination and regional cooperation (part of the Bolivarian revolution), and b) have the moxy to break from US domination (which uses tools like the World Bank to bleed the poor of Latin America), really demonstrates the power of what Hugo Chavez's government has done. The benefits of Bolivarianism in Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador are obvious. All three have elected leftist (majorityist) governments that represent the true interests of the people. Argentina is on a fast track to recovery--from devastation by the World Bank/IMF--because of Venezuela's aid in easy term loans. Venezuela thus helps to create a healthy trading partner for Brazil, Venezuela and others, and promotes social programs, stability and prosperity in the region. This, in turn, has inspired the populations of Bolivia and Ecuador to also elect leftist (majorityist) governments--with socialist Evo Morales already re-negotiating corporate use of Bolivia's oil, gas and other resources, to benefit Bolivians--and Ecuador heading that way with the more recently elected, leftist economist Rafael Correa.

Against these developments, Bush offered dreadful "free trade" (global corporate piracy) agreements, and billions in military aid to a country like Colombia (where rightwing paramilitary groups--one of the big beneficiaries of US military aid--were plotting to assassinate Chavez, and engaged in other bloody schemes and drug trafficking). He also tried his best to break up Mercosur, the South American trade group that is the likely precursor to a South American "Common Market." The Bushite "Plan" for killing and plundering in South America had some tentative success in Peru, but then quickly suffered catastrophes in the election of Correa in Ecuador and Uruguay's recent rejection of Bush's "divide and conquer" tactics on Mercosur. It also appears that Latin American leaders placed a condition on Bush's visit that there would be no trashing of Hugo Chavez. From Brazil to Mexico, he was greeted with lectures on Latin American sovereignty. Mexico's rightwing president Felipe Calderon even mentioned Venezuela in this context. I was amazed by this. I doubt think Calderon is sincere--in fact, I suspect he was colluding with Bush to privatize Mexico's oil--but still, that he felt obliged to say it is remarkable.

Which brings me to Paraguay, and Duarte's more concrete action in support of the new fund. He must really be running scared of the enormous leftist movement in South America--or maybe even is inspired by it, to act in his peoples' interest. I don't know much about him. I've heard his government described as a "weak rightwing government"--in the context of the Bush Cartel's rumored purchase of 300,000 acres in Paraguay--a possible launching pad for a paramilitary war against the Andean democracies (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador). Now it appears that he is not so weak after all, and is JOINING the Boliviarian revolution. Perhaps the Bush Cartel purchase, and their dark schemes, pissed him off. Hard to say. In Colombia, there is evidence that even Colombian President Uribe feels compelled to distance himself from the rightwing paramilitary assassination plot against Chavez, and their other dirty dealings (no known connection to the Bush Junta, but it wouldn't surprise me at all; where there are dirty dealings against leftists in South America, there are bound to be Bushites). This seems to be the new paradigm: Killing peasants and leftists, and allying yourself with the hated Bush regime, is UN-South American!

And, of course, it isn't just a feeling--a wave of regional patriotism. There are huge benefits to Latin American self-determination. And it is there, in South America, that the dream of independence, of self-determination, of democracy and of social justice--once the dream of our own country--is being reborn.

Viva la revolución!

[Peace Patriot]

2. Also see the Paraguay-Bolivia security/defense agreement...

(posted by Judi Lynn here)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2776527

So we have the Paraguayan government, supposedly the tool of the Bush Cartel, cooperating on mutual defense with one of the most revolutionary of the new Andean presidents, Evo Morales--the first indigenous president of Bolivia, who campaigned with a wreath of coca leaves around this neck (to point out his opposition to the murderous US "war on drugs," and his respect for small-scale, peasant coca growers, a sacred plant to the indigenous, essential to survival in the thin cold air of the Andes. (Note: Morales is FROM a small-scale, peasant coca growing family.) The chief danger to the Andean countries is NOT coca growing of this kind--but rather the militaristic and hypocritical "war" on peasants and leftists that it has spawned. Think of Prohibition in the US. Prohibition of a substance that people are going to use anyway--a traditional substance, whether coca leaves or alcohol, with a lineage that goes back ten thousand years--and you create a criminal industry in which both traffickers and cops become corrupt. And this is just what has happened. The out-of-control rightwing paramilitaries are a direct product of the US "war on drugs." Our money is funding fascists, murderers and large-scale drug traffickers, and it is also feeding a "prison-industrial" culture at home, with billions of dollars wasted on putting people in jail for drugs, and the military/police establishment that is thus created becomes self-perpetuating, much like our "military-industrial complex," which now manufactures unnecessary war to feed the beast. The billion dollar US "war on drugs" industry probably was never intended to stop dangerous drug traffic--but just imagine what it has become under the Bush Junta, which corrupts everything it touches.

In any case, it appears that the South Americans are finally seeing through it. And if Evo Morales is signing a defense pact with Paraguay, we can be sure that it is NOT to join this militaristic rightwing enterprise (the "war on drugs"), but rather to defend their countries against the worst elements in that war, who were plotting to assassinate Hugo Chavez, and no doubt to assassinate other democratically elected Andean leaders and destabilize their countries (preliminary to rightwing military coups). Most remarkable of all, that Paraguay is aligning itself with the Bolivarians.

[Vidar]

3. Ahhh, there goes Bush's home-in-exile, pig ranch #2.

[Shoelace]

4. he can't run, he can't hide - not in Paraguay anyway

I had a feeling all along that So. America would not be a good hideout for the Bushistas. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men!:hide: