Church warns Bolivian conflict may end in violence

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Church warns Bolivian conflict may end in violence
Tue 8 Apr 2008, 19:03 GMT

By Carlos Quiroga

LA PAZ, April 8 (Reuters) - A bitter conflict between supporters of Bolivian President Evo Morales and his rightist rivals is at risk of spiraling into violence, Catholic Church leaders warned on Tuesday.

Morales and the opposition are locked in a standoff over a new draft constitution fiercely opposed by the leaders of four eastern provinces. They want greater autonomy from the central government in La Paz, a Morales stronghold.

The country's 40 Roman Catholic bishops, who have been mediating, urged both sides to cool the dispute that has raised fears of fresh political violence in the poor and historically unstable country.

"We're very worried by the growing distance between the regions, social classes and ethnic groups, and the ideological polarization that could end in confrontations with unpredictable consequences of pain and death," a Church statement said. "The situation is worsening dangerously."



Read more: http://africa.reuters.com/metals/news/usnN08434933.html?rpc=401&

[movonne]

1. My God!! what has happened to this world...it is like we want to

self destruct..

[EFerrari]

2. Well, duh.

And I wonder which side the Church is on? Do you have a take, Judi Lynn?

[Judi Lynn]

3. Not too clear, but I don't think they're on the side of the indigenous population these days, as

they were decades ago. I'm afraid they've gone the way the Church has gone in so many other countries which finally became dominated by right-wing juntas and dictators put into place through violence by certain U.S. Presidents.

You recall this information, I'm sure, from the days when the Church truly served the people of Bolivia:

COLONEL HUGO BANZER
President of Bolivia
In 1970, in Bolivia, when then-President Juan Jose Torres nationalized Gulf Oil properties and tin mines owned by US interests, and tried to establish friendly relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union, he was playing with fire. The coup to overthrow Torres, led by US-trained officer and Gulf Oil beneficiary Hugo Banzer, had direct support from Washington. When Banzer's forces had a breakdown in radio communications, US Air Force radio was placed at their disposal. Once in power, Banzer began a reign of terror. Schools were shut down as hotbeds of political subversive activity. Within two years, 2,000 people were arrested and tortured without trial. As in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, the native Indians were ordered off their land and deprived of tribal identity. Tens-of-thousands of white South Africans were enticed to immigrate with promises of the land stolen from the Indians, with a goal of creating a white Bolivia. When Catholic clergy tried to aid the Indians, the regime, with CIA help, launched terrorist attacks against them, and this "Banzer Plan" became a model for similar anti-Catholic actions throughout Latin America.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You probably remember reading that during the Dirty War in Argentina, some priests even went into the cells of the imprisoned leftists and tried to talk them into giving up their wills to the right-wing junta. Not all that long ago a priest was finally brought to trial:

Last Updated: Wednesday, 10 October 2007, 01:02 GMT 02:02 UK

'Dirty War' priest gets life term
A court in Argentina has convicted a former Roman Catholic police chaplain of collaborating in murders during the country's military rule.
Christian Von Wernich, 69, was convicted for involvement in seven murders, 42 abductions and 31 cases of torture during the 1976-83 "Dirty War".

Survivors say he passed information he obtained from prisoners to the police.

As he was sentenced, Father Von Wernich showed no emotion. Protesters torched his effigy outside the court.

The trial in the town of La Plata, 60km (35 miles) south of Buenos Aires, had lasted for three months.

Father Von Wernich initially avoided prosecution by moving to Chile, where he worked as a priest under a false name.

However, he was eventually tracked down by investigators and extradited to Argentina in 2003 when amnesty laws passed at the end of military rule were declared unconstitutional.

Participant

At the trial, several former prisoners said the former Roman Catholic priest used his office to win their trust before passing information to police torturers and killers in secret detention centres.

They say he attended several torture sessions and absolved the police of blame, telling them they were doing God's work.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7035294.stm

Another look:

Argentina's disappeared: Father Christian, the priest who did the devil's work
Christian Von Wernich's story is one of the darkest chapters of the 'Dirty War'. He was the priest who heard the confessions of political prisoners, passed them on to the police, and then stood by as the detainees were tortured. David Usborne reports on the day justice was done

Thursday, 11 October 2007


Outside the courthouse in La Plata, 50 miles south of Buenos Aires, late on Tuesday, the crowds were ready for what they were sure was coming. Finally, the word leaked that a verdict had been handed down – and it was the right one. They beat their drums, women undid white headscarves and raised them in the air, fireworks were lit and somewhere in the midst of the throng a human effigy was set alight.


It was an extraordinary explosion of emotion, replicated in cafes and homes across the land at the end of a televised trial that had lasted three months and gripped the entire population. But if there was joy, even relief in Argentina yesterday, its feelings remained far more complicated. This conviction was a moment of cleansing and resolution. But it also was a reminder of deep, incomprehensible pain.

The effigy of cardboard and cloth was in the likeness of the man convicted – in a dog collar of the Catholic Church. The Reverend Christian von Wernich, 69, a former police chaplain, was sentenced to life in prison for collaborating with the Buenos Aires police during the dark days of the country's "Dirty War", when, between 1976 and 1983, the military ran the country in a cruel and ruthless dictatorship.

Von Wernich, wearing a bullet-proof vest, who had compared himself to Jesus Christ in his testimony before a three-judge panel, was found guilty of involvement in seven murders, as well as 31 cases of torture and 42 kidnappings. He had participated, prosecutors said, in crimes that amounted to "genocide". Von Wernich told the court he had been doing "God's work".

Since the return of democracy in 1983, coming to terms with the horrors of the dictatorship has been a shared struggle in Argentina. So has the process of discovering exactly what happened. An explicit and shocking report issued in 1984 by the government-backed National Commission on Disappeared People, entitled Nunca Mas , found that 9,000 people had died or "disappeared", all perceived by the junta as communists or leftist sympathisers and therefore "subversive" and enemies of the state.

The document, which has recently been republished, opened with these words: "Many of the events described in this report will be hard to believe. This is because the men and women of our nation have only heard of such horror in reports from distant places."

Rights groups put the toll at close to 30,000. Victims were smuggled out of their homes at night with hoods over their heads and taken to police cells for interrogation and often torture. Usually their loved ones never saw them again and – in one of the more infamous symbols of the horror – many were taken in aircraft, drugged and dumped into the waters of the River Plate or the Atlantic.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/argentinas-disappeared-father-christian-the-priest-who-did-the-devils-work-396564.html?service=Print

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Brazil, the Church seemed to identify with the plight of the people being slaughtered, tortured, mutilated by the right-wing regime, in this article from Time in 1976:

The new era began in 1964 with the abrupt end of democracy in Brazil, the continent's largest nation. Around 1968 the Brazilian military regime grew nasty: priests were jailed and dissidents were tortured to death. Says one bishop: "The effect on the church leadership was swift and strong. It would have been impossible for us to concentrate only on pastoral work when we knew human beings were being tortured and mutilated." President Ernesto Geisel, who is a Lutheran, claims that he has ordered an end to political torture, but local police and military officials persist in the practice, as do right-wing vigilantes such as those who kidnaped Bishop Hypolito. After the murder of Father Burnier last month, a Mass was said by the Archbishop of Vitoria "in memory of all those persons who in our country and in all of Latin America suffer violence, torture and death solely because they demand respect for their rights and dignity."
(snip)

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,712313-2,00.html

Here's a Wiki on a Brazilian priest who made a HUGH!!!1!1!!11!! difference in his lifetime, directly affecting and altering the way history would have played out for leftists, suspected leftists, and people caught in the crossfire in Brazil:

On May 2, 1966, Arns was consecrated titular bishop of Respetta and then appointed to archbishop of São Paulo on October 22, 1970. In the consistory on March 5, 1973, Pope Paul VI made him a Cardinal-Priest of Sant'Antonio da Padova in Via Tuscolana. As Archbishop he sold the Pius XII episcopal palace, a mansion standing in its own park. Two things horrified him, one was the massive electricity bills, and the other was the staff - 25 sisters and brothers all to look after one man. Indeed, at the beginning of his term as archbishop he decided to take the unprecedented step and sell the Episcopal Palace, using the money to build a social station in the favelas.

Arns swiftly earned respect within Brazil because of his unwillingness to remain silent about his contempt for the dictatorship. Arns is known as a liberation theologian and became one of the most popular clergymen of Brazil because of his tireless campaigning for human rights. <3> Arns himself led many direct campaigns against the dictatorship in Brazil. Shortly after taking office he learnt that a young priest had been arrested and detained after his home was raided by secret police, the priest being arrested for having possession of documentation encouraging rebellion, Arns wrote to the Governor of São Paulo, then when he was denied entrance to the prison holding the detainee Arns used the Archdiocese's radio service and newspaper to denounce the events, also choosing to have a description of the arrest and torture nailed to the door of every church. One reporter for the National Catholic Reporter described the occurrence as the beginning of “an open war between the archdiocese and the military.” <4>

This event marked the beginning of Arns' campaigns against the use of torture, following this debacle Arns pursued the topic to the extent of forcing the Brazilian conference of bishops to make it a priority. Speaking out on the matter frequently, the New York Times described Arns' analysis of the affairs as "the strongest, most courageous affirmation ever made by a Brazilian prelate against the torture of prisoners". Arns had managed the project Tortura Nunca Mais (Never Again Torture) at the end of the 70's.

Arns himself cannot be dismissed as a significant cause of the military withdrawal and return of civilian government in Brazil. During the dictatorship he visited political prisoners speaking out against the abuses of the military. Prior to governmental change in 1985, Arns had, with the assistance of the Presbyterian minister Jaime Wright, photocopied the military government's records on torture, and then smuggled the copies out to have them published, the book Brazil Never Again which was based on this evidence became a bestseller and began the widespread move for change in Brazil.

Dr Arns had always encouraged a preferential option for the oppressed and poor within a society, encouraging religious orders in São Paulo to transfer their energies from middle class schools and hospitals in central areas of the city to the millions of marginalised people living on the periphery. It is this passion for the marginalised, perhaps even his lack of concern for other matters, that has caused Arns to receive bitter criticism from some Catholics, and having to an extent split the opinion of bishops in Brazil.

Testament to his commitment to the wellbeing of the impoverished, and also an example of an occasion when Arns had divided the Bishops Conference, Cardinal Arns has told the impoverished majorities of Brazil that on Ash Wednesday, "if they can find meat to eat, which is rare, they should eat it, and do some good work to mark the day, because not eating meat is not the point" He defended his position by saying that "Canon law gives me full power to dispense people from abstinence; there is no problem".

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Evaristo_Arns

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Also, remember Bishop Romero, assassinated by a School of the Americas grad as he gave mass, after his last sermon appealing to the military to stop slaughtering the poor of El Salvador.

There are so many servants of the Church, usually liberation theology people, apparently, who gave their lives the hard way trying to stop the right-wing machine as it crushed the people of Latin America.

Unfortunately, it appears that those times are long gone, doesn't it? Consider the vicious sniping leftist Presidents are getting from the most powerful men in the Catholic Church these days. They appear to be marching in complete lockstep with the fascists. Of course you recall seeing the images on the documentary, The Revolution Won't Be Televised, when they (Bishops, Cardinals, whatever) all piled in to join the party at Miraflores during the one day coup, to get busy sucking up to the right-wing dictator, Pedro Carmona Estanga. Like this winner, José Ignacio Cardenal. Pedro Carmona is the piece of crap sitting down:



So, whereas the Church championed the cause of the Bolivian people so well in the 1960's, I have a sinking feeling the people they've got running things now are only too happy to try to please the wealthy European descended monsters who have gobbled up the productive land down around Santa Cruz, the home of the filthy monster, Hugo Banzer. (You recall he gave the land the indigenous used to call their home to the imported "White Bolivians" he brought from South Africa, and Rhodesia. What a filthy shame.)

Everything I know about the Church I've heard, or read, since I'm not a Church person, but I have enormous respect for the sacrifices they made for a couple of decades, at least, in the Americas.

[David__77]

5. The hierarchy is almost always die-hard reactionary.

They stand with coup plotters and fascists at every turn. Their false concern for the poor is a smokescreen.

[Judi Lynn]

6. They helped the world so much during the 2nd World War, didn't they? <gag,choke> n/t

[happyslug]

8. I am sorry, but Pius XII saw Hitler as the lesser evil than Stalin

And given the situation in 1934 when Pius XI signed the Concordat with Hitler (at about the same time as Hitler, dropped his anti-jewish campaign while he tried to get an international loan) that was NOT a bad choice. In the late 1930s the Church increased its opposition to Hitler do more to Hitler's breaking of the Concordat than anything else. but also at the time Hitler re-started his anti-Jewish activities. Pius XI made the comment "We are all Semites" to show support for the Jews during the late 1930s, but he died in 1939 and Pius XII succeeded him. Pius XII had a greater fear of Communists than Pius XI ever had, so when the book attacking Hitler and his anti-Jewish policy authorized by Pius XI was finished when Pius XII was Pope it was suppressed (WWII had also started and Pius XII was trying to do what pope Benedict had tried during WWI, work out a compromise between the participates and the book would have been a problem, for the Church to act as a go between, if the book was published, so it was suppressed). Pius XII's two big concerns, stopping the spread of Communism and minimizing the human costs of WWII, prevented him from being active in any effort to help the Jews (and th fact he was BEHIND axis line did not give him to much freedom of Movement).

A lot of Catholics did help the Jews, but this assistance was from the local level NOT from the Vatican (Many citing Pius XI's statement to help the Jews). The extent of the Death Camps where kept Secret by the Nazis till the first camp was overrun by the Red Army, and even then people in the West dismissed the Soviet Report as Soviet propaganda till Western Troops ran across camps as the Western Allies entered Germany. No one believe anyone in the 20th century could kill like the Nazis could, it was a shock to everyone (even Stalin who was another butchers). By the time the story of the Camps came out (Not rumors or reports from escapee, actual reports by US Troops) the war was over and not much could be done then.

Blaming the pope for not doing more for the Jews during WWII, is like blaming the US for NOT bombing the same camps. The blame assumes the people at that time accepted what the camps really were, most people did not, and as such what was happening to the Jews was just part of the overall concern of the problem of the War in itself.

[darue]

10. 'the church' also ran a ratline for escaping nazi war criminals

the PURPOSE of the church should be to help people rise above our evil nature but rather they embrace top down authoritarianism and social control at every opportunity.

[happyslug]

11. The case against the Ratlines is thin, most involved Croats NOT Germans.

Most Germans seem to have used the ODESSA Ratline, run by ex-Nazis (And the Gehlen Organization which in turn was funded by the CIA, and hopelessly infiltrated by the NKVD). No connections with any ratline with the Vatican has been found, through the Ratline out of Croatia was run by a Vatican Bishop, apparently on his own. For more See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(history)

For more on Gehlen and his organization:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Gehlen#Gehlen_Organization

From what I have read, the Croats set up a ratline using their connections in Austria (Croatia had been part of the Austria-Hungary Empire from at least 1660 till 1918) and into Italy. In Italy, the Croatian, Odessa and Gehlen Ratlines all used the pre-existing Monasteries that exist up and down Italy. These Monasteries will provide housing and food to anyone who ask for it, this has been their tradition since Roman times (Several Jews used this system to avoid the Nazis during WWII). The rules of said Monasteries were a well known fact to all three Ratline networks. In addition this was known to the US Army and the OSS (and its successor the CIA). The US Army and the OSS/CIA also seems to have funded most of the Ratline (To get "Anti-Communists" out of Europe who were wanted for War Crimes by the Soviets, i.e. Nazis who had helped the OSS/CIA).

From the sources I have read the Vatican did nothing to stop the movement of people along these Ratlines but also nothing to help these people on the Ratline. Remember many of the people being helped were wanted by Soviet Authorities for war crimes, and most people in the WEst did NOT believe you could get a Fair Trial in the Soviet Union. Given this attitude and that the movement of people on the Ratlines seems to have been supported by both the OSS and its successor the CIA (As while as the US Army).

Thus, while the Vatican is not 100% lily white on this issue, we have more data on it then on the CIA, the other players in the Ratlines were as big if not bigger, especially on the German Ratline run through Spain.

[darue]

12. indeed

Anti-Communist excesses had a lot of negative consequences. I'll accept that they were minimal at most players in that.

[darue]

13. who's might have a problem with this is any VA hospitals in the state?

doesn't seem like a crazy law to me, just seems odd that it's even needed.

[happyslug]

7. May be the difference between Military and the church in Argentina and Brazil

For more see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/world/americas/17church.html

Basically, how close the Catholic Church and the Military has been since colonial days in Argentina, as compared to Chile and Brazil, is probably the best explanation of the difference between how this worked out in all three countries.

Please note Father Christian von Wernich was NOT convicted of participating in any torture “The witnesses did not say that he tortured, kidnapped or murdered,” ... “Nobody said he participated in any act of torture.”

The church is neither defending von Wernich nor prosecuting him even through he is alleged to have broken the "Seal of the Confessional" i.e. told the interrogators what people told him during confession (and that is a major crime under Catholic Church law, ground for automatic ex-communication). Like a lot of participates, the church was used by the dictatorship, the real question is how forces such co-operations was and how much was willful participation? and how far was this done by individuals as individuals who happen to be catholic priests and how far was this part of being a Priest in the Catholic Church (i.e. part of the hierarchy)?

For more on Wernich:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Von_Wernich

[Judi Lynn]

4. Bolivia Government, Santa Cruz State Urged To Cool Tensions

Bolivia Government, Santa Cruz State Urged To Cool Tensions - AFP

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AFP)--The government of Bolivia and the country's wealthiest state were urged Monday by South American neighbors and the Catholic Church to hold talks before a long running political dispute turns into open confrontation.

The separate appeals came less than a month before the province of Santa Cruz - the economic heart of Bolivia - is to hold a May 4 "referendum" on whether to become an autonomous territory, effectively splitting away from La Paz's control.

President Evo Morales's left-wing government has labeled the move "seditious" and threatened to take legal action against Santa Cruz Governor Ruben Costas and his allies.

Morales four months ago also warned he would send in soldiers to quash any attempt by the province to implement autonomy.

The escalating row has its roots in Morales's moves to to overhaul the constitution to give himself greater powers and to redistribute much of the wealth of the eastern provinces, including Santa Cruz, to the poor Andean highlands.

The conflict has taken on an ethnic context, pitting the poor indigenous majority against the richer, European descendants in Santa Cruz.

More:
~~~~ link ~~~~

Or:
https://www.osac.gov/News/

[Peace Patriot]

9. We can be sure that U.S.-Bush USAID-NED and other funds are being used to stoke up

this conflict. This is what the USAID-NED does under Bush. It pays, trains and equips rightwing groups to create civil unrest in countries with democratic leftist governments that the Bushites want to topple. They poured money (our money!) into Venezuela to fund the rightwing recall election against Hugo Chavez in 2004, for instance. We paid for that recall election (which Chavez won with 60% of the vote). We paid for Mark Penn's P.R. firm to go down there are and create a false poll saying Chavez didn't win, in order to stir up rightwing rioters and another coup attempt. (This is one of the reasons that Mark Penn should be evicted from U.S. politics, and should never have been hired by Hillary Clinton; another is that he is paid agent of the Colombian government--the South American dinosaur with one of the worst human rights records in the world.)

The Bushites have looked for every opportunity to "divide and conquer" in South America. They have tried everything--funding rightwing groups, stoking Colombia's civil war (with $5.5 BILLION in U.S.-Bush military aid--for a country with rampant rightwing death squads), "free trade" bribery, CIA dirty tricks, and more--and nothing has worked, so far. Country after country has gone democratic and leftist--Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Nicaragua. Paraguay will likely go leftist this year. And Peru next year (now run by corrupt 'free tradists').

So I think they now intend to use military means, and I think they are going to instigate Oil War II: South America in Bolivia, stoking this conflict between the white separatists--who want to secede and take the gas and oil reserves with them--to create political chaos in the region, and to create a Bushite/fascist enclave from which to cause major trouble. The Bushites' strategic ground is very limited. They need to increase it--especially in the southern end of the Boliviarian revolution. (In the north, they have well-armed, fascist Colombia, bordering Venezuela and Ecuador.) In the south, they have virtually no strategic ground. However, they do have a U.S. air base, which they have beefed up, in Paraguay--and that base, and the rumored Bush Cartel purchase of 100,000 acres in Paraguay, are adjacent to the eastern separatist provinces in Bolivia!

The political situation in Paraguay is this: The country is run by an entrenched center-right party, the Colorado Party, but is being strongly challenged this year (this April) by presidential candidate Fernando Lugo--the beloved "bishop of the poor," who resigned his church office to run for president and pull the fractured left together. He is ahead in the polls. He will very likely win (except for possible Bushite interference--Lugo has had death threats; Bushites use the USAID-NED and other funds and expertise to try to steal elections). If he does win and take office, Paraguay will not be even a potential ally of the white separatists in Bolivia. But even if he doesn't win (or his election is interfered with), Paraguay is not a sure thing as Bushite/fascist ally.

As a result of the pressure from the left--both within Paraguay, and from surrounding countries--the Colorado Party has done some interesting things. For instance, Paraguay joined the Bank of the South (--a Chavez-inspired project to keep development funding local, and in local regional control). And I believe that they rescinded their law which gave immunity to the U.S. military (--though I can't get that verified for certain). In any case, they've got the left breathing down their necks. Further, Paraguay is quite different from Bolivia, as to racial bigotry. There has been a lot more inter-marriage between the indigenous peoples and the Europeans in Paraguay--unlike Bolivia, where the great majority are indigenous and the minority Europeans hate them and have remained apart. So, there may not be much affinity between the ruling elite in Paraguay and the white separatists in eastern Bolivia, at least as to racism. (They might, however, have big landowner/rich elite affinities.)

Paraguay is an extremely poor country, with not much in the way of resources. (They have a lot of water, and export hydroelectric power, and some beef and soy. The rumored Bush Cartel land purchase sits on top of a major aquifer). The Bushites' interest in Paraguay is almost wholly as strategic military ground. Politically and economically, Paraguay is caught in the middle of these two great forces--the social justice and democracy revolution that is occurring all over the continent, and U.S.-Bush powers of economic bullying and violence. The Colorado Party could conceivably be bribed. Soy for biofuels might be the means. Military aid (with which to oppress the poor) might be another. It is truly difficult to know if the Colorado Party elite will permit Paraguay to be used as a fascist military base in alliance with the Bolivian separatists. They could claim that, if Lugo is elected, Paraguay will be more vulnerable to U.S.-Bush interference and to spillover from the Bolivian conflict. (That would be a clever political line--the Colorado Party = stability.) Thus far, they have walked a tightrope vis a vis the bigger conflict (between the South American left and the Bushites), seeking gain for Paraguay from both sides. But they are not especially trustworthy, having run Paraguay, essentially, as a fiefdom of the landowner/rich elite. They are not as bad as the fascists in Colombia, by any means, and my guess is that they are not as corrupt as the Peru 'free tradists' (--Alan Garcia in Peru has been spouting Bushite 'talking points' on Chavez/Venezuela recently).

Of one thing I'm certain, however: The Bushites consider South America to be a war zone. They have been frustrated, by democracy itself, as to taking what is not theirs. It is therefore their intention to destroy democracy in South America, which they have not been able to do by economic coercion, covert means and funding of fascists. That leaves their most preferred means, which is doubly profitable for them: war.

Chavez headed them off, on their effort to provoke a war between Colombia and Venezuelan ally Ecuador--for which he was recently praised by Brazil President Lula da Silva as "the great peacemaker." Chavez appears to have recognized it as a war trap, and apparently convinced Ecuador's president--who was extremely angry about the U.S.-Bush/Colombian bombing/incursion on Ecuadoran soil (in the Bushite effort to destroy hostage release negotiations with the FARC guerrillas)--not to retaliate, and to settle for a Colombian apology and an OAS resolution. But who will head off this potential disaster in Bolivia, that is so exploitable by the Bush Junta?

South America needs a "King Solomon" to solve the Bolivian separatist problem (given the fueling of that conflict by the Bushites). Are the Catholic bishops up to it? I don't know. They are a mixed bag as to fascist sympathizers vs. liberation theologians. I'm not familiar enough with their overall tenor to say. Venezuela has a particularly fascist Catholic Church hierarchy. But that may not be the case in Bolivia or other countries. (Note, re Paraguay: The Vatican opposed Fernando Lugo running for president, but they have so far not punished him for doing so.) The well meaning Catholic clergy (especially the lower ranks) can see well enough that the new leftist governments are doing what the Church has always preached--taking care of the poor, social justice. The great majority of the Catholic Church's membership in South America is poor to extremely poor. So, the Church, too, is walking a tightrope. Whatever some cardinals and bishops (and the Pope?) prefer, they don't want to alienate that vast membership. And this is probably why they have not 'excommunicated' Fernando Lugo for disobeying the Vatican and running for political office.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Peace Patriot, you're right, Paraguay did rescind the immunity.

Paraguay informed Washington on October 2 that it would not renew diplomatic immunity for its troops, a decision that was made in August.
(snip)

From:
Americas Program Report
Intense Dispute in the Heart of the Southern Cone
Raúl Zibechi | November 1, 2006

http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3663

(The author does mention it's always possible they could reinstate it, however, so it's never out of the question as long as we've got a power-mad chicken hawk living in the nation's White House.)

[Judi Lynn]

15. You may find this relative to your Paraguay comments! Just found it:

Rise of the red bishop
A priest inspired by Latin America's radical new politics is threatening Paraguay's dictatorship
Richard Gott The Guardian, Thursday April 10 2008

The radical tide sweeping Latin America is moving into the obscurer creeks and backwaters of the continent. The isolated and unnoticed country of Paraguay is about to elect a red bishop as president, bringing to an end the rule of the Colorado party and its six decades of dictatorship and corruption. Fernando Lugo, the bishop of the northern town of San Pedro, is well ahead in the opinion polls and should remain so on polling day, April 20. He abandoned the priesthood last year, at 57, to forge a progressive opposition movement - the Patriotic Alliance for Change.

The Colorado party has been in power since a brief civil war in 1948, while the Liberal party and assorted groupings further to the left have been in permanent opposition, active only in prison or in exile. For much of the past 60 years, the emblematic Colorado leader was General Alfredo Stroessner. He was dislodged by his generals in 1989, but his legacy remains largely intact. The current president, Nicanor Duarte Frutos, has achieved record unpopularity, and the woman he has promoted as candidate for president, Blanca Ovelar, has suffered by her association with him. Her apparently fraudulent defeat of a rival Colorado candidate has split the party, and she has been obliged to admit that her private polls indicate a dead heat with Lugo, not a Colorado victory.

The polls of the Lugo camp suggest a substantial majority for their man, and his cause recently won the support of ABC Color, the country's principal newspaper and a political weather vane. His promise to combat corruption and to persuade Paraguay's 2 million economic exiles to return have aroused fresh hope in an otherwise jaded electorate. The chances of the third candidate, the former general Lino Oviedo, have dwindled in recent months. He was regarded as a powerful populist outsider, but overt support from Brazilian landowners who control the eastern section of the country has been ill received by a strongly nationalist population.

Lugo's appeal, as with the other new leftist leaders in Latin America, comes partly from his emphasis on the needs of the rural poor and the indigenous population. The Brazilian landowners, and their rapacious replacement of forests with fields of soya, have inevitably come under attack. But as significant is Lugo's nationalist project to secure a proper price for natural resources. Paraguay sells its abundant hydro-electricity to Brazil and Argentina - at absurdly low prices, nationalists have always complained. Lugo's plans to require a more economic price are causing considerable alarm in Brasilia and Buenos Aires, which might otherwise be favourable to a progressive change in Asunción.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/10/1?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews

[Peace Patriot]

16. Thanks! Gott reminds us that Fernando Lugo himself is a "liberation theologist"

--as a bishop in Paraguay. Where there is one Fernando Lugo, there must be more. I would not at all dismiss the Catholic clergy and hierachy (bishops, cardinals) as fascists. That is not always the case in Latin America. And it is possible that they will head off a Bush Junta-instigated civil war in Bolivia.

Gott mentions rather severe political persecution in Paraguay, which I hadn't heard of, in recent years. It's true that the Colorado Party was connected to the heinous dictator Stroessner, but that was a while ago. Gott says that the Liberal opposition party can only be activist from exile or in jail! This may be why Lugo has had such a hard time pulling the fractured left together--because of current persecution. Here's Gott's paragraph on it:

"The Colorado party has been in power since a brief civil war in 1948, while the Liberal party and assorted groupings further to the left have been in permanent opposition, active only in prison or in exile. For much of the past 60 years, the emblematic Colorado leader was General Alfredo Stroessner. He was dislodged by his generals in 1989, but his legacy remains largely intact. The current president, Nicanor Duarte Frutos, has achieved record unpopularity, and the woman he has promoted as candidate for president, Blanca Ovelar, has suffered by her association with him. Her apparently fraudulent defeat of a rival Colorado candidate has split the party, and she has been obliged to admit that her private polls indicate a dead heat with Lugo, not a Colorado victory."

(Note: He goes on to say that Lugo's polls show him well ahead of Ovelar. I wonder if Mark Penn is doing Ovelar's polls--falsely showing a 'dead heat.')

In any case, this is new info to me--that leftist opposition leaders are in jail or in exile. This means that it is more likely than I had thought that the Paraguayan elite might form an alliance with the white separatist/fascists in eastern Bolivia (--organized, funded, armed and'trained' by the Bushites).