Paraguay Tri-Border Area Is Terror Haven

[Judi Lynn]

Paraguay Tri-Border Area Is Terror Haven
AP Finds Tri-Border Area in Paraguay Serves As Meeting Point for Islamic Terrorist Fund Raising

The Associated Press



CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay Oct. 3, 2004 — In this gritty border town known as a haven for drug smugglers, arms dealers and counterfeiters, stacks of money change hands in the open on every corner and thousands of people each day stream across Friendship Bridge into Ciudad del Este. They carry packages on their backs, in wheelbarrows or on carts, and border police stop few.
Such chaotic scenes give life to the city's reputation of lawlessness and U.S. officials' description of the tri-border area where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet as a key South American point for Islamic terrorist fund raising to the tune of $100 million a year. Yet few arrests have been made or assets frozen, and local officials told The Associated Press they are ill-prepared to fully track financial movements and they discount terror links.

"We need more resources and greater controls," said Juan Carlos Duarte, a district attorney in Ciudad del Este who recently carried out several raids on currency exchange houses. "Frequently, it's difficult for even the Paraguayan Central Bank to track these movements. To get to bottom of this we need more staff. We won't be able to solve anything without more help."
(snip)

Meanwhile, street vendors and middlemen shout into cell phones and walkie-talkies. Private security officers, some clutching rifles, stand alongside armored trucks. It all is testament to this region's reputation as South America's contraband and smuggling capital a place where anything from drugs to arms to pirated software reputedly can be had.

That reputation brought U.S. scrutiny in the post-Sept. 11 era. Much of the focus has fallen on the 25,000-strong Muslim community in the area built up by former Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner during the 1970s as a trading hub for his iron-fisted regime.
(snip/...)

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20041003_529.html?INTERNATIONALad=true

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More on Paraguay's value to certain U.S. Presidents:


Stroessner also benefited from the 1950s and 1960s Cold War ideology in the United States, which favored authoritarian, anticommunist regimes. Upon reaching Asunción during his 1958 tour of Latin America, Vice President Richard M. Nixon praised Stroessner's Paraguay for opposing communism more strongly than any other nation in the world. The main strategic concern of the United States at that time was to avoid at all costs the emergence in Paraguay of a left-wing regime, which would be ideally situated at the heart of the South American continent to provide a haven for radicals and a base for revolutionary activities around the hemisphere. From 1947 until 1977, the United States supplied about US$750,000 worth of military hardware each year and trained more than 2,000 Paraguayan military officers in counterintelligence and counterinsurgency. In 1977 the United States Congress sharply cut military assistance to Paraguay.
(snip)

Relations between Paraguay and the United States changed substantially after the election of President Jimmy Carter in 1976. The appointment of Robert White as United States ambassador in 1977 and the congressional cut-off of military hardware deliveries in the same year reflected increasing concern about the absence of democracy and the presence of human rights violations in Paraguay
(snip)

http://workmall.com/wfb2001/paraguay/paraguay_history_international_factors_and_the_economy.html

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Since 1940 Paraguay has been mostly under the control of military governments led by strong, autocratic leaders. Gen Morínigo was president 1940–48 and Gen Alfredo Stroessner 1954–89. During the US presidency of Jimmy Carter the Stroessner regime came under strong criticism for its violation of human rights, resulting in a tempering of the general’s iron rule.
(snip)

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0019839.html

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Knowing this about Stroessner makes ABC's claim about _Bush's interest in Paraguay look bogus.

[starroute]

1. The Moonies have also been buying up land around there

There's lots of strange stuff going on down there. It's a weird area and one that I think is going to be significant in the future.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Bizarre and fascinating country

As a linguist, I'm intrigued by the fact that it's the only country in the world that gives a Native American language (Guarani) official status and that most people of whatever race are bilingual in Guarani and Spanish.

Otherwise, it's been under one appalling and often crazy dictator after another, and has provided havens for Nazi war criminals and other undesirables.

[juajen]

3. Sounds as if it is more like "Hell" on earth

What a chain, BFEE to Moonies to Nazis, or the reverse; guess that tri-border area could be named New Germany.

[Bo]

4. Been there... its not a hell.

You can walk over any border in south america with anything strapped to you.Done it hundreds of times. Police dont care.