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In September, the lower house of Paraguay’s congress passed a law to strengthen mineral claims in a country that has no history of large-scale mining. Juan Antonio Denis, head of the mining and energy committee in the Chamber of Deputies, said in an interview that Lowell requested the legislation.
Lowell “told us we had to adjust our legislation to regional standards, and that’s what we set out to do,” Denis said. “We want David Lowell to come work in Paraguay.”
The legislation is now before the senate.
“There will be a time lag inevitably to get the mine constructed, at least three to five years,” said Reg Adams, a titanium analyst at Artikol N.L. in London. “In a place like Paraguay, they may be into making infrastructure improvements as well.” He described Lowell’s discovery as “huge.” --from the OP
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Unfortunately, this is how it works in U.S. colonies. Multinational corporate billionaires gobble up land and resources and then dictate the laws and terms of exploitation, which generally go like this: The billionaires get 90% or more of the profit from a resource that rightfully belongs to the extremely poor people who live in the target country (with the other 10% or less stuffing the pockets of local fascists, thus inflicting dire long term social/economic impacts); Mother Earth gets raped, with no environmental restoration, of course, and often including toxic pollution of local residents (high cancer rates, spontaneous abortions, etc.) and destruction of fisheries, water sources and other natural riches; and exploited labor works for shit wages in extremely dangerous conditions and in peril of their lives if they dare to organize a union.
If it's mining, when a cave collapses trapping or killing workers, the corporation declares bankruptcy and absconds. If it's oil pollution (say, over an area the size of Rhode Island, as with Chevron-Texaco in Ecuador), the corporation drops loads of dirt on the oil lakes and absconds. That is the tenor of things in virtually every U.S. multinational corporate 'investment' (rape) in Latin America--whether it's corporate mining, corporate farming, corporate clothing retailers running sweatshops, or corporate anything. And if, by some miracle of grass roots organization, the people elect a leader and a government to act in their interest, the retaliation is brutal--assassination, coup d'etat and destabilization attempts, often funded and organized right out of the U.S. embassy, and relentless demonization of said leaders.
Paraguay has been more of a U.S. lapdog than a full-blown colony, over the last 60 years of U.S.-supported fascist dictatorship and rightwing rule, because Paraguay has had almost NOTHING that billionaires and multinational corporations want*. Paraguay became a standing joke around the world as the haven for dictators and war criminals, and the fascists and wingers invited the U.S. military in, so Paraguay had some minimal value to our war profiteers. The Bushwhacks very much wanted to make it an "Axis of Evil" dagger in the heart of South America, by trumping up Islamic "terrorists" in the tri-border region on top of the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs" excuse, but Paraguay had to rescind its immunity for U.S. soldiers, as well as its non-extradition law for international criminals, to join the Mercosur trade group (as the rest of South America went leftist and those new leaders set the trade rules).
Then Paraguay elected its first leftist leader, ever, in summer '08--Fernando Lugo, the beloved "bishop of the poor (one of whose recent acts was to refuse an Obama/Clinton/Pentagon offer of corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs" money and U.S. troops). But, as I recall, the voters didn't really have a chance to elect a congress that would be supportive of Lugo. The situation was this: Lugo was the only figure capable of pulling Paraguay's fractious leftist parties and other political elements together in a coalition capable of winning the presidency. He had no political party and no political organization to start with--just a coalition of various forces who wanted progress and change--whereas the Colorado party had been in power for 60 years and was thoroughly and very corruptly entrenched. Lugo's new coalition concentrated whatever resources and grass roots power they had on winning the presidency and was unable to field congressional candidates in that election. I can't recall the stats right now but it was basically either a weak congressional majority supporting Lugo, or perhaps divided houses (one with a weak majority, the other still dominated by Coloradans). Just looked it up (see below). It's a
rightwing majority in both houses, dominated by the Colorado Party!
(Excellent summary of the political situation in Paraguay:
http://links.org.au/node/1226)
(Other info:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.laprensa.com.py/v1/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26view%3Darticle%26id%3D4674:diputado-juan-antonio-denis-fue-electo-presidente-de-comision%26catid%3D37:politica%26Itemid%3D71&ei=k8fSTMrxH4vAsAP7io3mCg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result=4=0CCUQ7gEwAw&prev=/search%3Fq%3DJuan%2BAntonio%2BDenis,%2BParaguay%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26prmd%3Do and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamber_of_Deputies_of_Paraguay )
And the Deputy (Juan Antonio Denis) who says he wants Lowell/CIC in Paraguay is a rightwinger from a rightwing party, the PLRA (not the Colorado Party), that supported Lugo but does not likely share Lugo's goals of social justice, environmental protection and Paraguayan sovereignty.
This and Lugo's recently announced illness (probably fatal cancer) may account for Lowell and CIC Resources Inc. just walking over Paraguay's legislature, in a situation where the president may want to set better terms for Paraguay, as other leftist presidents have done (in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and other countries) but doesn't have the political strength in the legislature or the health to do so.
I suspect that CIC operations in Paraguay will be very bad deal for Paraguay's poor majority, for social justice, for the environment and for Paraguay's sovereign control of its resources and laws. Typically, corporations like CIC buy off people like Deputy Denis and enrich a small elite who become dependent on exploitation of the given resource and develop a corrupt urban culture dependent on imported goods (as happened most notably in Venezuela but is a very common long term impact of such exploitation in Latin America. However, I will never write off the potential power of grass roots democracy in Latin America).
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*(Paraguay's main resource has been hydroelectric power. Brazil's leftist president, Lula da Silva, helped Paraguay renegotiate what had been very unfair (to Paraguay) hydroelectric contracts with Brazilian companies. The rumored Bush Cartel purchase of some 100,000 acres of land in Paraguay involved the main aquifer that feeds Paraguay's hydroelectric power installations. I have not seen confirmation of that purchase (lands that also abutted Rev. Moon's properties in Paraguay). Paraguay's other resource is large-scale soy farming, with the pollution of farm workers by toxic pesticides as one of the main reasons that Bishop Lugo got involved in politics. Titanium mining
could be good for Paraguay's poor majority IF Paraguay retains majority control of the resource--as Lula da Silva has done with Brazil's new oil find, as Chavez did as to Venezuela's oil, as Evo Morales has done as to gas and lithium in Bolivia, and so forth--but this doesn't appear to be in the cards for Paraguay.)
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