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Paraguay's president, former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo, greeting the crowd after his swearing-in ceremony in Asunción, in 2008. Photograph: Ivan Alvarado/Reuters |
The recent coup against Paraguay's democratically
elected president is not only a blow to democracy, but an attack against
the working and poor population that supported and elected President
Fernando Lugo, whom they see as a bulwark against the wealthy elite
who've dominated the country for decades.
The U.S. mainstream media and politicians are not
calling the events in Paraguay a coup, since the president is being
"legally impeached" by the elite-dominated Paraguayan Congress. But as
economist Mark Weisbrot explains in the Guardian:
"The Congress of Paraguay is trying to oust the
president, Fernando Lugo, by means of an impeachment proceeding for
which he was given less than 24 hours to prepare and only two hours to
present a defense. It appears that a decision to convict him has already
been written...The main trigger for the impeachment is an armed clash
between peasants fighting for land rights with police...But this violent
confrontation is merely a pretext, as it is clear that the president
had no responsibility for what happened. Nor have Lugo's opponents
presented any evidence for their charges in today's ‘trial.’ President
Lugo proposed an investigation into the incident; the opposition was not
interested, preferring their rigged judicial proceedings."
What was the real reason the right-wing Paraguay
Senate wanted to expel their democratically elected president? Another
article by the Guardian makes this clear:
"The president was also tried on four other charges:
that he improperly allowed leftist parties to hold a political meeting
in an army base in 2009; that he allowed about 3,000 squatters [landless
peasants] to illegally invade a large Brazilian-owned soybean farm;
that his government failed to capture members of a [leftist] guerrilla
group, the Paraguayan People's Army... and that he signed an
international [leftist] protocol without properly submitting it to
congress for approval."
The article adds that the president's former
political allies were "...upset after he gave a majority of cabinet
ministry posts to leftist allies, and handed a minority to the
moderates...The political split had become sharply clear as Lugo
publicly acknowledged recently that he would support leftist candidates
in future elections."
It's obvious that the President's real crimes are
that he chose to ally himself more closely with Paraguay's left, which
in reality means the working and poor masses of the country, who, like
other Latin American countries, choose socialism as their form of
political expression.
Although Paraguay's elite lost control of the
presidency when Lugo was elected, they used their stranglehold over the
Senate to reverse the gains made by Paraguay's poor. This is similar to
the situation in Egypt: when the old regime of the wealthy elite lost
their president/dictator, they used their control of the judiciary in an
attempt to reverse the gains of the revolution.
Is it fair to blame the Obama administration for the
recent coup in Paraguay? Yes, but it takes an introductory lesson on
U.S. - Latin American relations to understand why. Paraguay's right wing
- a tiny wealthy elite - has a long-standing relationship with the
United States, which has backed dictatorships for decades in the country
- a common pattern in most Latin American countries.
The United States promotes the interests of the
wealthy of these mostly-poor countries, and in turn, these elite-run
countries are obedient to the pro-corporate foreign policy of the United
States (The Open Veins of Latin America is an excellent book that
outlines the history).
Paraguay's elite is incapable of acting so boldly
without first consulting the United States, since neighboring countries
are overwhelmingly hostile to such an act because they fear a
U.S.-backed coup in their own countries.
Paraguay's elite has only the military for internal
support, which for decades has been funded and trained by the United
States. President Lugo did not fully sever the U.S. military's links to
his country. According to Wikipedia, "The U.S. Department of Defense
(DOD) provides technical assistance and training to help modernize and
professionalize the [Paraguay]military..."
In short, it is not remotely possible for Paraguay's
elite to act without assurance from the United States that it would
continue to receive U.S. political and financial support; the elite now
needs a steady flow of guns and tanks to defend itself from the poor of
Paraguay.
The Latin American countries surrounding Paraguay
denounced the events as they unfolded and made an emergency trip to the
country in an attempt to stop them. What was the Obama administration's
response? Business Week explains:
"As Paraguay’s Senate conducted the impeachment
trial, the U.S. State Department had said that it was watching the
situation closely."
“We understand that Paraguay’s Senate has voted to
impeach President Lugo,” said Darla Jordan, a spokeswoman for the U.S.
State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs...“We urge all
Paraguayans to act peacefully, with calm and responsibility, in the
spirit of Paraguay’s democratic principles.”
Obama might as well have said: "We support the
right-wing coup against the elected president of Paraguay.” Watching a
crime against democracy happen - even if it is "watched closely" - and
failing to denounce it makes one complicit in the act. The State
Department's carefully crafted words are meant to give implicit support
to the new illegal regime in Paraguay.
Obama acted as he did because Lugo turned left, away
from corporate interests, towards Paraguay's poor. Lugo had also more
closely aligned himself with regional governments which had worked
towards economic independence from the United States. Most importantly
perhaps is that, in 2009, President Lugo forbid the building of a
planned U.S. military base in Paraguay.
What was the response of Paraguay's working and poor
people to their new dictatorship? They amassed outside of the Congress
and were attacked by riot police and water cannons. It is unlikely that
they will sit on their hands during this episode, since President Lugo
had raised their hopes of having a more humane existence.
President Lugo has unfortunately given his opponents
an advantage by accepting the rulings that he himself called a coup,
allowing himself to be replaced by a Senate-appointed president. But
Paraguay's working and poor people will act with more boldness, in line
with the social movements across Latin America that have struck heavy
blows against the power of their wealthy elite.
President Obama's devious actions towards Paraguay
reaffirm which side of the wealth divide he stands on. His first coup in
Honduras sparked the outrage of the entire hemisphere; this one will
confirm to Latin Americans that neither Republicans nor Democrats care
anything about democracy.
Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade
unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org) He can
be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com
Source: Workers Action
The Open Veins of Latin America -- the entire book is available on line
here