Ex-bishop takes Paraguay's helm

[formercia]

Source: BBC




Ex-bishop takes Paraguay's helm

Fernando Lugo has been sworn in as Paraguay's president, ending more than 60 years of the Colorado Party's grip on power in the South American nation.

Mr Lugo addressed tens of thousands of Paraguayans, promising to tackle corruption and deliver land reform.

The former bishop, who was elected in April, said the task of transforming Paraguay was not "impossible".

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7559053.stm

---

A great victory for Liberation Theology and Democracy.

[eleny]

1. The right wing grip on South America is being pried off one finger at a time

:thumbsup: :kick:

[formercia]

6. The main problem is they come here to escape prosecution

for their crimes under right wing dictatorships. First comes their ill-gotten gains, then when things get to hot for them at home, their network of 'friends' gets them established in the US.

[alfredo]

15. Kick out the IMF and World Bank. Don't accept their blood money.

[Judi Lynn]

28. Excellent image. Hope it will continue. God knows it should never have had to be necessary. n/t

[CatholicEdHead]

2. Good for the people, but expect the RCC to not be as helpful in the future

I have to look down there but the overall trend is to not appoint any new bishops with any preference towards Liberation Theology. The current idea is one with better loyalties to Rome than to the people in each diocese. The trend will continue to be a bigger focus on what happens in a church building than outside it in this neo-retro movement. The people are supposed to serve the church, not the church serve the people.

[formercia]

5. Ratzinger was instrumental in the attempt to kill Liberation Theology

in the 80's and I doubt if much has changed since.

[laureloak]

3. Will land reform impact Bush's 100,000+ acres in Paraguay? n /t

[formercia]

4. Or 'True Parent' Moon's?

Good question.

[otherlander]

22. Let's hope.

:evilgrin:

[Judi Lynn]

7. 'Bishop of the poor' takes oath as president of Paraguay

'Bishop of the poor' takes oath as president of Paraguay
By Alexei Barrionuevo Published: August 15, 2008



Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo waving to the crowd after his swearing-in
ceremony in front of the cathedral in Asuncion on Friday.
(Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay: Fernando Lugo, "the bishop of the poor" as he is known here, was sworn in as president of Paraguay on Friday, ending six decades of one-party rule and promising to give land to the landless and to end the nation's entrenched corruption.

But despite his remarkable victory in April, Lugo, a 57-year old former Roman Catholic bishop, faces a challenging road in pursuing his agenda, knowing that the Colorado Party, which ruled Paraguay for 61 years, is still very much ingrained in politics here.

For 35 of those years, the party was dominated by one man, General Alfredo Stroessner, a dictator known for many human rights atrocities. For the past five years it was controlled by the departing president, Nicanor Duarte Frutos, who expanded an already bloated and inefficient government bureaucracy.

The election of Lugo, the ultimate outsider who spent 11 years as a priest living in the countryside and working with peasant movements seeking land reform, was a dramatic break with the past for this landlocked country of six million hamstrung by massive inequality and rural poverty.

More:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/15/america/paraguay.php

[enid602]

8. Lugo

Maybe the new President is willing to sign an extradition agreement with the US to show good faith. Yeah, right.

[Peace Patriot]

33. Paraguay got rid of its non-extradition law--also its immunity law for the U.S. military--

prior to Lugo's election, as conditions for Paraguay's becoming a partner in the Bank of the South and Mercosur (S/A trade group), both of which are dominated by leftist countries. The handwriting was on the wall. To get anywhere in South America these days, you have to play by leftist (good government) rules. Paraguay is one of the poorest countries in South America. It doesn't have oil/gas reserves (the profits from which are driving social justice policy in countries like Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia). It's only resource is hydroelectric power, and Paraguay got fleeced in those old contracts by its customers in Brazil. However, the leftist president of Brazil is now jawboning those hydroelectric interests to re-negotiate the contracts to give Paraguay a fairer deal. Also, Venezuela has pledged "all the oil it needs" to Paraguay--along with some new manufacturing installations--on the occasion of Lugo's inauguration. It is that kind of leftist clout that is now the pervasive influence in South America. Its goals are regional COOPERATION and self-determination, and social justice, and it is all coming together in the recently formed South American "Common Market" (UNASUR).

[Judi Lynn]

9. Ex-bishop assumes the presidency in Paraguay; offers his salary to the poor

Ex-bishop assumes the presidency in Paraguay; offers his salary to the poor
By: Alan Clendenning, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ASUNCION, Paraguay - Leftist ex-bishop Fernando Lugo became Paraguay's president Friday, ending six decades of one-party rule in a key step in the poor South American country's democratic transformation.

Tens of thousands of Paraguayans cheered as Lugo raised his hand in the air and was sworn in, wearing sandals and his trademark white mandarin-collared shirt to set himself apart from the suit-wearing politicians.

Speaking in both Spanish and the Guarani indigenous language, Lugo pledged to end the misery and corruption that has defined Paraguay under the Colorado Party, which supported the brutal 1954-1989 dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner and has ruled ever since.

"Today Paraguay breaks with its notoriety for corruption, breaks with the few feudal lords of the past," said Lugo, who neatly trimmed his beard for the ceremony.

He also challenged Paraguay's political establishment to start working for the people instead of themselves, saying he would donate his monthly salary of $6,000 to the poor "because I don't need it to live modestly."

More:
http://www.am1150.ca/news/56/772256

[Judi Lynn]

10. Latin America's leftwing swells with new Paraguay president

Latin America's leftwing swells with new Paraguay president
7 hours ago

ASUNCION (AFP) — An ex-bishop who ended 61 years of one-party conservative rule in Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, was sworn in Friday as his nation's president, further swelling the ranks of leftwing leaders in South America.

Ideologically aligned leaders, including Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Argentina's Cristina Kirchner, Chile's Michelle Bachelet, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Ecuador's Rafael Correa attended the ceremony in Asuncion.

"I am a layman thankful to his church, anchored by his faith and his humble background," a teary-eyed Lugo, wearing sandals and a simple white shirt, said as he took over from outgoing president Nicanor Duarte.

Lugo in an April election bested Duarte's Colorado Party, which had held power since 1947. He has sworn to combat the poverty that afflicts nearly half of Paraguay's six-million strong population.

More:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hqFLYrBs7ry_miqB_KSjyiqy2J_Q

[David__77]

11. He's choosing his words very, very carefully right now.

There is a real danger of a fascist coup that cannot be underestimated. Even without US support, such a thing could come to pass. Lugo is a progressive of the Chavez/Morales/Correa type, but he must first consolidate his power base and loyalties of key personnel.

[Judi Lynn]

12. Fascissts are deeply embedded in that country, aren't they? Paraguay was a true sanctuary to people

like Mengele, and Klaus Barbie, and so many others immediately after the Second World War, not to mention the deviant human Alfredo Stroessner who ruled over 35 years, and incorporated torture and disappearances within his regime.

We never heard a word of disapproval here. Most people never have even heard his name mentioned. Our own right-wingers apparently loved him.

Just the country where the Rev. Sun Myung Moon would choose to base his ugly empire, immediately above the Western Hemisphere's largest body of underground water, the Guarani Aquifer, and the U.S. chose to plant a humongous airstrip, right out in the middle of a jungle, with no towns anywhere close around, the Mariscal Estigarribia air base.





Paraguay info.:

http://www.cco.net/~trufax/general/bush_family_paraguay_hideaway_up.html

[Peace Patriot]

14. Lugo's swearing in and Evo's huge victory on Sunday (latest count-67% of the vote!)

are bellweathers for this amazing, peaceful, democratic, leftist revolution that has swept South American (and is on the move in Central America as well--El Salvador will be next; leftist Daniel Ortega was elected in Nicaragua; Guatemala just elected its first progressive government, ever; and Mexico came within 0.05% of having a leftist president a year or two ago).

Look at that map for a minute, all ye who fret about the danger of a rightwing coup against Lugo Paraguay is surrounded by leftist countries--Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil, with Uruguay (also leftist) not quite a neighbor but very close. And these and other leftist countries are not standing still. They are swiftly moving toward a South American Common Market (and, proposed by Brazil, a common defense). They are into cooperation, mutual aid, and regional self-determination, as well as social justice. Brazil and Venezuela, for instance, just loaned Bolivia billion of dollars to build a road from the Atlantic to the Pacific, through Bolivia. Chile--under Michele Batchelet--just ended a 130 year old conflict with Bolivia, by granting Bolivia access to the sea. Venezuela is helping Bolivia get out of World Bank debt (as it did Argentina). And Brazil's president, Lulu, is jawboning hydroelectric interests to re-negotiate their contracts with Paraguay--whose major resource is hydroelectric power--to give Paraguay a better deal. (Paraguay got fleeced in the old contracts.)

Fernando Lugo is not alone. He is surrounded by friends--many of whom came to his inauguration. They are a powerful leftist coalition. And Evo Morales' big win in the referendum on his presidency last Sunday strengthens all of these leftist leaders' hands in the region. He may hit 70%--an absolutely overwhelming win against Bush-backed white separatists who want to start a civil war, and break away from Morales' government, and take Bolivia's gas/oil resources with them. I believe that Paraguay was to be the staging area for U.S. military support of the Bolivian separatists. Lugo's election was a real monkey wrench in that scheme*. He wants the U.S. military out of his country--a sentiment shared by many others South America.

The trend in South America is overwhelmingly leftist, and overwhelmingly toward integration and unity. They said that Lugo couldn't pull the fractious non-Colorado political parties together to win the election. Some months before the election, they said that he had failed. But he didn't--and he won. And he just got the third highest candidate on the ballot to join his coalition. The left is the future. Paraguay's ruling party knew this even before Lugo got elected. They had already joined the Bank of the South (one of Chavez's most important initiatives), and they rescinded both Paraguay's non-extradition law and its immunity law for the U.S. military. (Paraguay is no longer usable as a standing joke for the Bushites' escape country.) (I have not seen confirmation of the Bush Cartel land purchase--still just a rumor.)

Integration and mutual aid are pretty much essential. The two countries that are going it alone--or rather, going it U.S.A./Bush--are not doing well (Peru, with a corrupt "free trade" government, has an approval rating in the teens like Bush's; and Colombia, propped up by $6 BILLION in U.S./Bush military aid, has the one of the worst human rights records on earth, and vast poverty, as well as a 40+ year civil war with leftist guerillas, and hundreds of thousands of Colombian refugees into Venezuela, mostly fleeting the Colombian military and associated death squads). MOST South American countries--Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile and now Paraguay (also Nicaragua to the north, a Bolivarian ally)--have good leftist governments, transparent vote counting, and strong social movements, and also have good solidarity with each other. Paraguay's joins this vibrant democratic revolution. And they won't be alone in the struggles ahead to achieve social justice, at long last.

----------


*(The U.S./Bush is maneuvering with the 4th Fleet off the coast of Venezuela, in the Caribbean, very possibly part of a similar (to Bolivia) separatist scheme--for the oil rich state of Zulia to break away from the Chavez government. Zulia (where most of the oil is) has a long coast on the Caribbean, and is adjacent to fascist/Bush-backed Colombia). The recently reconstituted U.S. Fleet could be used to interfere on the side of the separatists in Zulia (--the Bushites would claim that it is an "independence" movement, a strategy they have used elsewhere, including, currently in Russia/Georgia). They can't win--or fiddle--elections in most of South America, and all of their coups and dirty tricks (and dirty funding) have failed, so their plan is to split off the oil-rich provinces into fascist mini-states, to restore global corporate predator control of the oil and other resources. That's what they're trying in Bolivia. (Evo's big electoral win--and Lugo's win--slow that plan down; maybe kill it, don't know yet. Argentina and Brazil won't buy gas from the separatists, and that may be that.) Ecuador's president says that it is a three-country Bushite strategy including Ecuador (also rich in oil, and, like Venezuela, a member of OPEC). I think the Bushites will fail, and the Corporate Rulers will have to go back to square one: Obama's plan to flood South America with Peace Corps volunteers and provide South America with what Obama apparently thinks they are badly in need of--U.S. leadership. (!!??)

[Judi Lynn]

16. They've seen ENOUGH U.S. leadership in Latin America to last them. That's why it's important to them

to build that solidarity which they've needed so badly, so long.

Washington's going to have to stop viewing Latin American countries as a bunch of silly children in need of their Uncle. One only has to look through google images of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Guatemala, Colombia, etc. using "Fuera Bush" and "Fora Bush" (get out, Bush) to see how they view continued butting in from the North. (These were the countries _Bush "blessed" with his presence on his Latin America tour a year ago or so.)

Thank you for illuminating what has happened with the extradition treaty in Paraguay. Someone upthread asked about it earlier. It seems the last Paraguayan President started trying to pull away from the hard right nearer the end of his term, and getting his country aligned far more with the actual direction the rest of South America was choosing, voting to take.

[Judi Lynn]

18. Chilean President vows to enhance cooperation with Paraguay

Chilean President vows to enhance cooperation with Paraguay
www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-16 10:55:21

ASUNCION, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chile is to develop cooperation with Paraguay, said Chilean president Michelle Bachelet Friday after attending the inauguration ceremony of Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo.

"We will work and define a cooperation agenda linked to the challenges that the President (Lugo) has said," Bachelet said.

"The modernization of the State is one of those tasks and another is to support the production development," said Bachelet after Lugo made his inaugural address.

Chile is the main importer of Paraguay's meat. Trade between the two countries has been brisk and is expected to increase, according to Bachelet.

More:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/16/content_9374060.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Curious about their standard of living, looked it up. You may find these numbers interesting:

~snip~
Number of radios per 1,000 people 182 (1997)

Number of telephones per 1,000 people 54 (2005)

Number of televisions per 1,000 people 215 (2000 estimate)

Number of Internet hosts per 10,000 people 16 (2003)

Daily newspaper circulation per 1,000 people 43 (1996)

Number of motor vehicles per 1,000 people 88 (1999)

Paved road as a share of total roads 51 percent (1999)

http://encarta.msn.com/fact_631504839/paraguay_facts_and_figures.html

There's room for improvement, wouldn't you say? During Stroessner's time, Paraguay had the FEWEST number of phones and paved roads per capita in South America. Someone was hiding the money which should have been used on the people!

[formercia]

13. I'm sure Bush Gang would be involved if it did happen

just like this country was involved in the overthrow and murder of Allende in Chile.

The same right wing reactionary elements that were involved then have great influence in the current Administration.

[Judi Lynn]

17. Paraguayans cheer as ex-bishop takes office

Paraguayans cheer as ex-bishop takes office
Anti-corruption president vows to end poverty
By ALAN CLENDENNING Associated Press
Aug. 15, 2008, 11:20PM

ASUNCION, PARAGUAY — Leftist former bishop Fernando Lugo shoved aside Paraguay's infamous 61-year history of one-party rule as he took office Friday with promises to end to corruption and hunger in the poor South American nation.

Almost shouting to swear that he would uphold the constitution, the typically mild-mannered Lugo was met with thundering cheers from more than 50,000 Paraguayans crowded around a stage outside Congress.

Lugo spoke in Spanish and the indigenous Guarani language, pledging to end the extreme poverty, institutional political corruption and trade in black market goods that defined Paraguay under the Colorado Party, which supported the brutal 1954-1989 dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner and has ruled ever since.

"Today Paraguay breaks with its reputation for corruption, breaks with the few feudal lords of the past," said Lugo, dressed in sandals and his trademark white, mandarin-collared shirt to set himself apart from the nation's traditional politicians.

After the inauguration, he bear-hugged to the continent's three most prominent leftists, Bolivia's Evo Morales, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.

More:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/5946949.html

On edit, adding photo:



2 months ago: Paraguay's elected President Fernando Lugo (C) chats with Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa (L) as sister Graciela tries on him the ceremonial sash the Carmelite nuns have made for his inauguration, at the Carmelite convent in the Andean locality of Guaranda, during an official visit to Ecuador, on June 16, 2008. Lugo, who will take on on August 15, worked as a priest in the area some 30 years ago.

[formercia]

19. "the few feudal lords of the past"

while we battle the many feudal lord wannabes here in the US.

The US has become the Paraguay of the past. The evil spirits have migrated here.

[Peace Patriot]

21. A great phrase, eh? "...the few feudal lords of the past..."!!! I noticed it, too.

And I think you're right. We're being turned into the biggest "banana republic" of all--what an irony!--while South America rids itself of the Dark Lords. It has almost a "Lord of the Rings" ambience to it.

[Peace Patriot]

20. Yup, these leaders (and their allies) are going to see that Lugo has every chance of success!

"After the inauguration, he bear-hugged to the continent's three most prominent leftists, Bolivia's Evo Morales, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa."

Other important allies include Brazil's Lula da Silva, Argentina's Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Chile's Michele Batchelet--all identified as present for Lugo's celebration--and also Tabare Vasquez of Uruguay (don't know if he was present). Lulu holds the keys to the hydroelectric contracts, which will be an important factor in Paraguay's climb out of dire poverty, since hydroelectric power is just about their only resource.

Lugo is surrounded with friends on every side, and all the way up the continent to Venezuela. Like Bolivia, Paraguay is landlocked. (Bolivia was, until the Batchelet government ended that long dispute over Bolivia's access to the Pacific.) But Paraguay now has a big friend to the east--Brazil--on the Atlantic, and friends to the west (Bolivia, Argentina, Chile) on the Pacific. The humungous road that Brazil and Venezuela are funding, to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, through Bolivia, will aid Paraguay as well. In fact, Bolivia's economic/political health is critically important to Paraguay--which is why Morales' near 70% (utterly overwhelming) mandate from Bolivian voters last Sunday is such a good omen for Lugo--as well as the entire region. These Bush-backed fascist separatists in Bolivia border Paraguay. Trouble in those Bolivian provinces (civil war, slavery, oppression of the poor and the brown, U.S. interference) IS trouble for Paraguay.

----------------------

The Photo

Thank you for this photo, Judi! Apparently, Fernando Lugo and Rafael Correa have a friendship of long standing. Lugo may have met Correa back when Correa was doing social work among the indigenous population in Ecuador (teaching in a mountainous community, learning the indigenous language). Lugo, of course, has long lived with the indigenous poor in Paraguay, eschewing the monarchical pomp and circumstance that Catholic bishops often display, and actually living with, and in the circumstances of, the poor--just as U.S. educated economist Correa did in Ecuador. There is a spiritual connection, I think--a spiritual mandate or knighthood of some kind, that is being manifested all over the continent, but especially in the poorest countries, where the indigenous population is largest, and where, historically, the Catholic Church aligned with the rich white Europeans who conquered (slaughtered and oppressed) the indians. But that is not all they did. They also assaulted and nearly destroyed indigenous culture, which holds reverence for Mother Earth as its fundamental principle. The Catholic Church has, of course, been at war with the Mother Goddess for two millennia, and are really more responsible than anyone else for the anti-Nature attitude of modern corporate/capitalist culture which is literally killing the planet. Destruction of reverence for Nature is the foundation upon which this very un-Jesus-like Church institution has been built.

In Latin America, however, two things occurred: The indigenous reverence for Nature never died (despite every effort to exterminate it), and the natives embraced the Blessed Mother Mary of the Catholic Church with a passion seen nowhere else. I would venture to say that she IS Mother Nature--the chief deity of the most ancient cultures--with a new name: Our Lady of Guadalupe (who appeared to a poor indian in Mexico, and was adopted by the Church as the symbol for the Church throughout Latin America).

It was fascinating to me, then, when Evo Morales was inaugurated--the first indigenous president of Bolivia--that the tribes in the Andes came down out of the mountains (10,000 people including ceremonial leaders) to invest him as their leader, in their own special ceremony. Clearly what we are seeing in South America--especially in the Bolivarian countries--is a RE-MIX of the indigenous and the Christian philosophies and social trends, in a more balanced way than before. It is a very different kind of leftist movement than we are familiar with in the north, which--with some exceptions (for instance, the activism of the Jesuit Berrigan brothers against the Vietnam War, and the long standing Catholic Worker movement)--has been atheistic and materialist (along traditional communist lines). Latin America has a unique culture, and one that we in the north don't understand very well. We tend to see things in strictly political and economic terms. But I really do think that something deeper is happening in South America. And this photo speaks of it.

At first I was startled--taken aback, uncomfortable--seeing a women kneel beside (and almost to) the two men (who are ignoring her): one who looks like a young god (my goodness, what a looker Rafael Correa is!), and the other a sort of kindly old father god, with his presidential (monarchical) sash--but with an open-necked shirt, a big smile and (unseen in the photo) sandals on his feet! And this woman--in the dress required by the Church, which most represents their anti-female, anti-nature attitudes (a nun--non-sexual, obedient, covered up like an Arab women--which is where that tradition came from--the East). She is so sweet looking--a quiet, obedient servant. (I don't really know if she is quiet and obedient--but this photo makes her look that way.) While the men do their brotherhood thing, she kneels and sews. Where is the Goddess in this picture? The saucy woman, the fertile woman, the giver of life, or the woman with stars around her head, worshiped by all--the compassionate one?

Well, the picture is just a casual snap. It wasn't set up to mean anything in particular. And I don't want to read too much into it. But I would say that somehow--as in the Arthurian legends--the Goddess is within. She is inside of these two compassionate male leaders (and their allies)--she has been internalized--and the nun kneeling is an artifact of the whole Catholic paradigm in South America, which is not quite ready yet for women's rights. In Venezuela, the whole 69-amendment socialist proposal went down to defeat (very narrowly), in my opinion because one of the amendments proposed equal rights for gays and women (and Venezuela has a particularly rightwing clergy; the right really hammered on that issue). Although two of the new leftist leaders are women--Batchelet in Chile, and Fernandez de Kirchner in Argentina--it's interesting how Fernandez had to assure voters that she is a strong and independent leader. In her inaugural speech, she in effect apologized for being a woman--or at least acknowledged that that was an issue to many Argentinians (how can a woman govern)? She is a very accomplished and experienced leader, but her sex was still an issue. It may have been partly because she succeeded her husband (Nestor Kirchner) in the presidency (Batchelet did not), but still, Fernandez's speech gave me pause. (And I don't know if Batchelet has had any problems along this line.)

The new leftist leaders are obviously an enlightened crew--but they are addressing issues of fairness, justice, poverty and prosperity (and who benefits from prosperity)--in a social matrix (ahem) that many of us northerners don't understand and should not assess superficially, in strictly political/economic terms. Those terms are not adequate to the situation. And that a Catholic bishop could get elected president of Paraguay--and a leftist, no less--points to the mysterious, unfathomable nature (to northerners) of a culture that is now far to the left of the U.S., while not enshrining the separation of church and state (the way our revolutionary founders did, and the way typical socialists and communists do). The Catholic church and the indigenous tribes are both profoundly influencing developments in South America. And the politics of this revolution is coming out of those influences, not the other way around. Here, our politicians mouth religious pablum in the most hypocritical way imaginable (and then go off and slaughter a million people to get their oil). In South America, the new leaders take what Jesus said seriously and understand that past treatment of the indigenous has been appalling and un-Christian, and they actually listen to the indigenous on environmental matters, such as mining, deforestation, and pesticide use and other bad, planet-killing corporate practices.

Pesticide use and its impacts on poor indigenous workers is a huge issue in Paraguay (corporate ag soy farming and export for biofuels). You could almost say that that is the issue that got Lugo elected. He is acutely aware of it. His parishioners are the poisoned. Indigenous farming is different. It is small-scale, wholistic, and reverential toward nature. And here we have a former bishop--representative of the anti-Nature Catholic Church--strongly aligned with the indigenous, who are appalled at corporate rape of Mother Nature. And that is a political/economic development that we cannot fully understand, unless we happen to be Latino, or are steeped in Latin American culture. The fascist minority are "westernized" (corporatized) colluders in the rape of the land, and are, well, the minority--mostly the rich, urbanized elite and big landowers. What is happening is the majority is taking power, and the majority are indigenous (or mixed race), who are steeped in this mysterious mix of "Pagan" and Christian beliefs.

[otherlander]

23. My opinion of this guy

-and of the many other Christians dedicated to fighting poverty in Latin America- is kind of split. On the one hand, left-leaning, progressive Christians have always stood up against capitalist tyrants and wanted to distribute wealth fairly. They've organized campaigns such as SOA-Watch to expose murder and torture by U.S. puppet regimes. On the other hand, Christians, even leftist ones, haven't traditionally been very supportive of indigenous religions and beliefs. But overall, I'm very happy that he won.

[Peace Patriot]

24. I think we're seeing a major shift toward the indigenous view of Nature in the

Bolivarian democracies (Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela), especially in the new political power of the campesino movement (pro-organic, small ag; anti-big corporate ag)--but even there--and certainly in leftist governments like those of Brazil and Chile--the need for "jobs, jobs, jobs" and development trumps the environment. But indigenous tribes and environmental groups have more of a chance to be heard in these leftist democracies, than ever they had before. In Colombia, the rightwing death squads just kill you. In the rest of South America, you have the right to speak, organize and protest--and if you are harmed, you have a chance in the justice system. (Environmental groups need to be wary, though, of co-optation--the favorite corporate ruler strategy here. Even groups like Greenpeace have been compromised by corporate-run bullshit artists like the Forest Stewardship Council, and the latter, the FSC, is busy "certifying" completely unsustainable logging in the Amazon. Environmentalists and the indigenous also need to be vigilant about leftist governments backing down, in the end--in their perennial dilemma of solving poverty vs. preserving the environment. One good trend in these countries is re-assertion of sovereignty over their resources, so that control and regulation is closer to the people--and not decided in Washington DC or Dubai.)

Examples of indigenous/government interaction in the Bolivarian democracies:

Chavez stopped mining operations in the Imataca forest in response to indigenous protest
"Venezuela Halts Mining in Forest Preserve, but Renews Permit Discussions"
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3593
Additional mining issues:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1044
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/1377

Correa (Ecuador) - supports indigenous lawsuit against Chevron's horrid pollution

Correa has threatened to set up an international tribunal to ensure Chevron pays up if required.// According to a July 26 Newsweek article, one of Chevron’s lobbyists in Washington put the company’s position point blank: “We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this.”// However, the “little country” of Ecuador is refusing to lie down before one of the world’s biggest companies.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/762/39356

Morales has been the most supportive of indigenous rights and truly sustainable environmental policies. For instance, he adamantly opposes pesticide spraying in the failed U.S. "war on drugs." He was a coca leaf farmer himself, and remains head of the coca leaf farmers union. The issue is small holdings mostly for organic food production, with coca leaves as one of the crops. The coca leaf is high in nutrition, and has been chewed or made into tea traditionally, for survival. In understanding the difference between coca leaves and cocaine, you keep Monsanto out--cuz that's what this rotten U.S. policy is really all about--pushing small farmers off the land in favor of big ag/GMO/pesticide-using operations. There is nothing more devastating to the environment (or to poor people) than corporate agriculture.

[Judi Lynn]

25. "We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this." That's classic, isn't it?

It's ugly to the core, a bitter, bitter truth people have had to die disputing. How could anyone let his/her conscience be sold like this?

Your Chevron link is something I had to save for future reference immediately. Here's a photo of Rafael Correa at one of the sites Chevron destroyed:



Dolores Ochoa / AP
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa surveys oil-saturated soil
in the Amazon on Thursday, as workers from the state-owned
company Petroecuador clean up the area.

updated 6:31 p.m. CT, Wed., April. 2, 2008

QUITO, Ecuador - A court-appointed expert said Wednesday that Chevron Corp. should pay up to $16 billion for allegedly polluting an Amazon area that is home to 30,000 natives and settlers.

The San Ramon, California-based company is being sued over billions of gallons of toxic wastewater left as muck over three decades.

The damage total was added up geological engineer Richard Cabrera. The court confirmed to The Associated Press that he turned in his report, which has not yet been approved by a judge.

Plaintiffs lawyer Pablo Fajardo said Cabrera recommends that Chevron pay at least $8 billion in damages, and possibly another $8 billion representing company savings by operating recklessly.

The oil was extracted by Texaco, which ended its operations there in 1992, and merged with Chevron in 2001.

~snip~
Correa is the first Ecuadorean president to support the plaintiffs in their long legal battle.

He accused the company of causing 30 times more damage than the 11-million gallon Exxon Valdez spill off the Alaskan coast in 1989. “But it would seem that what happens in the Third World doesn’t matter,” the president said.

Cancers, illnesses alleged
Farmers say the oily muck keeps them from cultivating their land and has caused stomach and skin ailments among the area’s residents.

Plaintiffs' lawyers have presented studies showing elevated cancer rates in the area.

Chevron says there is no proof oil contamination caused the cancers and that Texaco met Ecuadorean environmental laws in a $40 million cleanup that began in 1995.

“There was no cleanup here,” Correa countered, alleging that the damage was simply covered up with dirt dumped over contaminated soil and wastewater ponds.

More:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23923994/

~~~~~~~~~~
War Paint and Lawyers
November 28, 2007

War Paint and Lawyers:
Rainforest Indians versus Big Oil
Published <!– by Greg Palast –> November 26th, 2007

Greg Palast investigates for BBC Newsnight

Chevron: “Nobody has proved that crude causes cancer.”

Tuesday, November 27, 10:30pm GMT

BBC Television Newsnight has been able to get close-in film of a new Cofan Indian ritual deep in the heart of the Amazonian rainforest. Known as “The Filing of the Law Suit,” natives of Ecuador’s jungle, decked in feathers and war paint and heavily armed with lawyers, are filmed presenting a new complaint in their litigation seeking $12 billion from Chevron Inc., the international oil goliath.

It would all be a poignant joke - except that the indigenous tribe is suddenly the odds-on favorite to defeat the oil company known for naming its largest tanker, “Condoleezza,” after former Chevron director, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

For Newsnight, reporter Greg Palast, steps (somewhat inelegantly) into a dug-out log canoe to seek out the Cofan in their rainforest village to investigate their allegations. Palast discovers stinking pits of old oil drilling residue leaking into drinking water - and meets farmers whose limbs are covered in pustules.

The Cofan’s leader, Emergildo Criollo, tells Palast that when Texaco Oil, now part of Chevron, came to the village in 1972, it obtained permission to drill by offering the Indians candy and cheese. The indigenous folk threw the funny-selling cheese into the jungle.

Criollo says his three-year son died from oil contamination after, “He went swimming, then began vomiting blood.”



Ecuador sludge

More:
http://dzarkhan.wordpress.com/category/oil/

[Peace Patriot]

34. "...it would seem that what happens in the Third World doesn’t matter."--Rafael Correa

Well, it doesn't matter much in the First World either. Native Alaskans and others decimated by the Exxon-Valdez massive oil spill have yet to see the money from that settlement!

-----------------------

Silly sidelight: Can Rafael Correa ever take a bad photo?! Heavens, what a looker he is! (Sir Lancelot is my secret name for him.) (--and this time he better not mess with Guenevere!) (Lamentable, how some people hunger for "knights in shining armor," isn't it?)

[Judi Lynn]

26. Woman once sold into servitude now Paraguay cabinet member

Woman once sold into servitude now Paraguay cabinet member
Posted on Mon, Aug. 18, 2008

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- An Indian woman who says she was captured in the jungle and sold into forced labor as a girl became a member of Paraguay's Cabinet on Monday, pledging to improve life for the South American nation's indigenous population.

Path-breaking President Fernando Lugo formally named Margarita Mbywangi minister of indigenous affairs as the former Roman Catholic bishop began setting up his government following his inauguration on Friday, which ended 61 years of rule by the Colorado Party.

The 46-year-old Ache chief, a mother of three who is studying for her high school diploma, becomes the first indigenous person to oversee Indian affairs in Paraguay following a career as an activist defending the lands of her people, a group of several hundred who until recently were nearly all hunter-gatherers.

''We are immediately going to help colleagues from different communities who are experiencing a difficult situation due to lack of potable water, food and clothing,'' she told the Channel 2 television.

Mbywangi said when she was 4 years old, ``the whites kidnapped me in the jungle and I was sold several times to families of hacienda owners.''

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/647013.html

[Judi Lynn]

27. More information added in another article:

Paraguay: Former slave gets cabinet position
Margarita Mbywangi becomes first indigenous person to oversee ethnic Indian affairs in the country
Lee Glendinning and agencies guardian.co.uk, Tuesday August 19 2008 09:49 BST

~snip~
She said her masters told her she was an Indian and began to seek her origins "until I found my people in the community of Chupapou".

The most vocal opposition to Mbywangi's appointment has come from other Indian leaders, who fear she will side with her own people in disputes over land, but she has promised to meet with those who opposed her appointment to ease their concerns.

"We are immediately going to help colleagues from different communities who are experiencing a difficult situation due to lack of potable water, food and clothing," she told the television station.

She said she would begin to work on legalising Indian titles to lands that sometimes have been claimed by outsiders, as well as to conserve the forests.

"For the Indian, the forest is his mother, his life, his present and future," she said.

According to government figures, about 90,000 Paraguayans say they belong to one of the country's 400 Indian communities.



Margarita Mbywangi

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/19/paraguay?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

[dailykoff]

29. Another pic:

Margarita Mbywangi pledged to serve all indigenous communities

from: Paraguayan Indian named minister
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7569410.stm

[Judi Lynn]

30. My God, this article mentions it, as well. Taken at four years, forced into slavery.

You hear of this again and again when you start looking into it, yet it doesn't seem possible, since we've been trained to think it happened "way back then," and "far away."

From the article:

The new minister said that as a four-year-old girl she was captured in the jungle and was sold several times into forced labour with the families of large land owners.

One wouldn't want this happening to anyone.

Exciting seeing the step forward into human decency, breaking through barriers, accomplished by this new Paraguayan President. It must be getting the racist conservatives whipped up into a wild fury. Maybe it's time they learned to raise their threshhold for frustration, just like any more complete people do, early in life, a stage of maturation skipped altogether by idiots!

Hope she has toughened herself to the point she understands racism, and isn't likely to be undone by it. She can help create the New World finally in Latin America as they pull themselves out of the hell they've been living in at the hands of fascist monsters.

On edit: forgot to thank you for providing that new photo.

[dailykoff]

31. It's a pretty astonishing turn of events isn't it?

I suspect those "large land owners" have ties to the U.S. I'm glad Lugo has powerful friend because he's really going to need them when he starts trying to implement his planned land reforms.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

38. I can't help but to really be worried about Father Lugo's well being.

It's hard for me to think that after so many decades of control these pieces of shit are going to just let go.

[Judi Lynn]

39. You've got that right. It's been also stressed by John Perkins, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman,"

that this is a fairly easy operation for the "jackals" to pull off, once they've decided to terminate a Latin American leader, if everything goes according to their plans, his having known two of the assassinated guys personally.

Agree with you wholeheartedly.

Hope he has a way to surround himself with good security. He'll need it.

[roody]

32. k

[Judi Lynn]

35. Paraguay's new president replaces military command

Paraguay's new president replaces military command
August 21st, 2008 @ 10:11am

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) - Paraguay's new president is replacing most of the country's top military leaders.

Presidential spokesman Augusto Dos Santos says newly inaugurated President Fernando Lugo has signed 30 decrees naming new heads of the impoverished country's army, air force and navy.

~snip~
The left-leaning leader pledged last week to reform the nation's military, saying soldiers would now perform humanitarian tasks for the poor.

In a speech, Lugo said the military will "never again ... be used to repress or harass" the people.

More:
http://www.620ktar.com/?nid=46&sid=940892

[Odin2005]

36. Viva la Paraguay!!! Viva el Lugo!!! Viva la Revolucion!!!

Looks like Dumb-Ass and Darth Cheney lost thier escape route!

[Judi Lynn]

37. PARAGUAY: Lugo promises to rebuild country

PARAGUAY: Lugo promises to rebuild country
Written by David Vargas
Thursday, 21 August 2008

ASUNCION (IPS) – Fernando Lugo was recently sworn in as president of Paraguay in a ceremony charged with emotion that broke with protocol, as the ex-Catholic bishop promised to rebuild the impoverished landlocked South American nation after 61 years of rule by the Colorado Party.

“We are putting an end to the elitist and secretive Paraguay, notorious for its corruption. Today a new country is born, where the authorities will be relentless with those who steal from the people,” a visibly moved Lugo said during the ceremony, held in Asuncion, the Paraguayan capital.

For the ceremony, the new president wore a simple white shirt made of “ao po’i,” the Guarani name for a traditional Paraguayan cotton fabric, and his trademark Franciscan sandals, underscoring the image of austerity he has said would characterize his five-year term.

Lugo supports liberation theology, a Catholic philosophy that emerged during the 1960s in Latin America, based on a “preferential option for the poor” and a commitment to fighting social injustice. In Paraguay, 87,000 indigenous people live in extreme poverty, according to the last census.
Political analysts and everyday Paraguayans have expressed optimism about Lugo’s presidency. Roberto Paredes, author of the book “¿Adonde va Paraguay?” (“Where Is Paraguay Headed?”), told IPS that Lugo has outlined the major historical challenges faced by the country: “democratizing national politics, developing local industry and putting an end to the structurally unfair agricultural system.”

More:
http://dosmundos.com/welcome/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2190&Itemid=69