The US Military Descends on Paraguay

[donsu]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060717/dangl


-snip-

On May 26, 2005, the Paraguayan Senate allowed US troops to train their Paraguayan counterparts until December 2006, when the Paraguayan Senate can vote to extend the troops' stay. The United States had threatened to cut off millions in aid to the country if Paraguay did not grant the troops entry. In July 2005 hundreds of US soldiers arrived with planes, weapons and ammunition. Washington's funding for counterterrorism efforts in Paraguay soon doubled, and protests against the military presence hit the streets.

Some activists, military analysts and politicians in the region believe the operations could be part of a plan to overthrow the left-leaning government of Evo Morales in neighboring Bolivia and take control of the area's vast gas and water reserves. Human rights reports from Paraguay suggest the US military presence is, at the very least, heightening tensions in the country.

Paraguay is the fourth-largest producer of soy in the world. As this industry has expanded, an estimated 90,000 poor families have been forced off their land. Campesinos have organized protests, road blockades and land occupations against displacement and have faced subsequent repression from military and paramilitary forces. According to Grupo de Reflexion Rural (GRR), an Argentina-based organization that documents violence against farmers, on June 24, 2005, in Tekojoja, Paraguay, hired policemen and soy producers kicked 270 people off their land, burned down fifty-four homes, arrested 130 people and killed two.

-snip-

"The US military is advising the Paraguayan police and military about how to deal with these farmer groups.... They are teaching theory as well as technical skills to Paraguayan police and military. These new forms of combat have been used internally," Orlando Castillo of Serpaj told me over the phone. "The US troops talk with the farmers and get to know their leaders and which groups, organizations, are working there, then establish the plans and actions to control the farmer movement and advise the Paraguayan military and police on how to proceed.... The numbers from our study show what this US presence is doing. US troops form part of a security plan to repress the social movement in Paraguay. A lot of repression has happened in the name of security and against 'terrorism.' "
-snip-
-----------------------------------------


neo cons: bully, bribe, blackmail, threaten, torture, and murder to get whatever they want

gas oil gas oil gas oil gas oil gas oil

[LynnTheDem]

1. "US had threatened to cut off millions in aid to the country if

Paraguay did not grant the troops entry."

An example of why most the world detests us, and why the blowback called "911".

[dipsydoodle]

8. Blowback

I was mid Atlantic 9/11 and when the pilot told us what had happened , along the lines does any one remember the World Trade Centre well it isn't anymore and the Pentagon has got a dent in it, and my immediate thought was "oh well about time Guatemala got their own back"

I was wrong that time but maybe will be closer to the truth next time round.

[magellan]

2. K&R

What's the RW excuse for this, I wonder?

[donsu]

4. Chavez Chavez Chavez

just like it's Iran Iran Iran

for everything else

[magellan]

10. Yes, I also notice mention of Bolivia in your OP

I was just wondering what the excuse would be. You know, our government really shouldn't be sending troops around to stage coups and overthrow governments without informing the American people first? Of course they've been doing this for decades, with very bad results...so it makes me very cranky to read more of this sort of thing happening without the consent of the American people.

[blm]

11. BushInc is protecting its ally, RevMoon, who owns millions of acres there

And also owns all the land above the largest aquifer. The location is also key to the drug and arms trade that Poppy Bush has been involved with for 5 decades now.

This is also about the upcoming WATER WARS. The water wars will make the oil wars look like a game of cards.

10/14/2004
Paraguayans accuse Moon of carving out an empire of smack


Senator Domingo Laino (above), a former presidential candidate, is charging the Unification Church with mischief.

Moon's agenda in Paraguay: Ecological paradise without labor laws, or one-stop narcotics supershop twice the size of Luxembourg? The question is explored in today's article from the subscription-only Irish Times, by reporter Seamus Mirodan of the UK's Telegraph.

Reverend Sun Myung Moon, spiritual leader of the Unification Church, self-proclaimed Messiah, multimillionaire and a generous contributor to the US Republican Party, has been showing a strong interest over the last five years in little-known Paraguay at the centre of the South American continent.
Since 1999, Rev Moon has built his personal empire which begins on the marshy banks of the River Paraguay and stretches beyond the hazy, level horizon through 600,000 hectares of arid land - equivalent to more than two Luxembourgs - punctuated by solitary clusters of withered trees and sad bushes which struggle desperately for air.

The scorching sun beats relentlessly on one of Latin America's most desolate zones. It is here in the northern province of Chaco, directly above the GuaranI aquifer, the largest resource of fresh drinking water in the world, where Moon's associates claim he wishes to build an ecological paradise.

Nevertheless, national Senator Domingo Laino sees a different pattern in Moon's acquisitions. "There are two principal branches to Moon's interest in Paraguay," he said, "control of the largest fresh drinking water source in the world and control of the narcotics business", which is so prevalent in this area. "President Lula told me that Brazil took serious measures to curb Moon a few years back as it became evident that he was buying up the border between our two countries," said the senator.

Allegations from local law enforcement officials support this claim. The so-called Dr Montiel, Paraguay's drugs tsar from 1976-89, said: "The fact that they came and bought in Chaco and on both sides of the Brazilian border is very telling. It is an enormously strategic point in both the narcotics and arms trades and indeed the available intelligence clearly shows that the Moon sect is involved in both these enterprises."

Paraguay is the major drugs port through which virtually all the cocaine produced by Bolivia and Peru passes. In the world's second most corrupt country, "the ease of buying influence is second to none", said Montiel. "Corruption reaches dangerous levels and he who wants transparency in Paraguay is a dead man. Indeed the famous Iran contra affair was operated from Ciudad del Este" on the south-east Paraguayan border with Argentina and Brazil.


>>>>>>

http://www.iapprovethismessiah.com/2004/10/paraguayans-accuse-moon-of-carving-out.html



8/15/2005
Moon clashes with Paraguay

From a pay-only story in The Economist:
ONE day in 2000 the people of Puerto Casado, a small town in Paraguay's inhospitable Chaco region, were shocked to learn that the ground had been sold under their feet—and that their new lord and master was the Rev Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed messiah who leads the Unification cult, better known as the Moonies. Mr Moon's acolytes soothed locals' fears by promising all sorts of grand projects to make the town rich, from a meat-packing plant to an eco-tourism resort. …
Wire sources report that the Paraguayan government is seizing some of Moon's holdings after accusing the church of unchecked authority over the locals and ties to the drug trade. Twice the size of Luxembourg, Moon's land sits next to the Guarani Aquifer, a huge fresh water reserve that South Americans are accusing the Bush Administration of trying to control.

>>>>>>>

[magellan]

14. Oh, that bastard!

Thanks, blm, I wasn't aware of Moon's involvement at all.

I can only sit here and shake my head in disgust at the depravity this government of ours continues to engage in behind our backs. And we -- you, me, and every little guy (or gal) in the world -- pays for it, one way or another.

It's god-damned frustrating.

[Judi Lynn]

20. Thank you for your information on Moon/Paraguay

[LiberalEsto]

24. Saving the tofu

for us granola-breathed tree huggers?


:evilgrin:

[file83]

3. Smells like The New World Order to me.

[EFerrari]

5. The New World Order looks just like the Old World order to me. n/t

[blm]

23. New World is what RevMoon calls his operations.

.

[treestar]

6. Like the Nazis were are everywhere

With an all volunteer military it is amazing.

I never understood how the Nazis could do all they did. They only had so many people.

[BushOut06]

7. How many countries do we have Special Forces troops in?

I wonder how many countries we have Special Forces and other covert military units in, that we'll never know about?

[unhappycamper]

9. Let me see if I have this straight:

If these folks don't send their people to the School Of The Americas, we'll send the School Of The Americas to them.

Looks like dubya's brand of 'freedom' is on the march.

[donsu]

12. I had that very same thought

nt

[robinlynne]

13. I have been to Paraguay. It is the poorest country in Latin America.

the smallest country in Latin America. (Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay have all bitten off pieces of it.), had the oldest dictatorship in Latin America. The capital's downtown is 2 blocks long. There are mansions, including the American embassy, and poor people with no shoes. There is nothing in between, with the exception of the criminals who sell passports and every type of illegal thing you can imagine. None of that "aid" gets to the people of Paraguay. They barely have food. If the US ever sent "aid" it was money to the wealthy adn to the dictatorship to stay in power. The palace had a neon sign on the front that said work, peace, prosperity, reminded me of "arbeit macht frei".

[Judi Lynn]

15. This is an exceptional article: well worth the reading. It makes some

essential points I'm so glad to have seen:

The Association of Farmers of Alto Paraná (ASAGRAPA), a campesino group near the Triple Border, reported that a local politician offered one of the organization's leaders a sum of money equivalent to a monthly salary, in return for which the ASAGRAPA member was told to announce that other leaders in the organization were building a terrorist group and receiving training from the FARC. BASE-IS reports suggest that this type of bribery and disinformation is part of an effort to guarantee the "national security of the US" and "justify, continue and expand the North American military presence."
(snip)

Other claims about terrorist networks said to be operating in the Triple Border region include a poster of Iguaçu Falls, a tourist destination near Ciudad del Este, discovered by US troops on the wall of an Al Qaeda operative's home in Kabul, Afghanistan, shortly after 9/11. Aside from this, however, the US Southern Command and the State Department report that no "credible information" exists confirming that "Islamic terrorist cells are planning attacks in Latin America."

Luiz Moniz Bandeira, who holds a chair in history at the University of Brasília and writes about US-Brazilian relations, was quoted in the Washington Times as saying, "I wouldn't dismiss the hypothesis that US agents plant stories in the media about Arab terrorists in the Triple Frontier to provoke terrorism and justify their military presence."
(snip)

Various DU'ers have been watching this area for quite a while, and wondering about it. This is a important article to read at this very moment. I hope a ton of people will see it, too.

There have been grumblings about the area for years from the _Bush administration, as if they've been fishing for a reason to escalate efforts there. I hope fate will deprive them of their big chance to do far more damage. They've done quite enough already.



The current right-wing Paraguayan Presidential bastard, Nicanor Duarte and _Bush

Here's a thumbnail of the vicious a$$hole he followed:

12 ALFREDO STROESSNER
President-for-Life of Paraguay
Alfredo Stroessner came to power in 1954, but European correspondents who visited Paraguay during his rule used the term the "poor man's Nazi regime" to describe the Paraguayan government. The parallels may have been more than a coincidence, for many Nazi war criminals, such as Joseph Mengele, had settled there with Stroessner's blessing.
From the Nazis the Paraguayan military leamed the art of genocide. The native Ache Indians were in the way of progress, progress represented by American and European corporations who planned to exploit the nation's forests, mines, and grazing lands. The Indians were hunted down, parents killed, and children sold into slavery. Survivors were herded into reservations headed by American fundamentalist missionaries , some of whom had participated in the hunts.
Between 1962 and 1975, Paraguay received $146 million in U.S. aid. Paraguayan officials seemingly wanted more, however, for in 1971, high ranking members of the regime were implicated in the Marseilles drug ring, with Paraguay their transfer point for shipments from France to the U.S. In the 1980s America finally condemned Paraguayan civil rights abuses and drug trafficking. Stroessner still looked as if he'd be dictator for life but in 1988 one of his closest generals, Andres Rodriguez, a known drug dealer, took over after a coup. Rodriguez promised to restore democracy, and President Bush called the 1989 elections "a democratic opening," but opponents declared them "a massive fraud." Rodriguez's Colorado party won 74% of the vote.
(snip/)

http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/SouthAmerica.html



Alfredo Stroessner

Influence: The files concern the continent’s oldest and longest case of repressive, totalitarian dictatorship, which prompted other countries to create situations that led to totalitarian regimes.
President of the United States, Richard Nixon described Paraguay as a "model of democracy for Latin America".
(snip)

http://www.unesco.org/webworld/mdm/2001/nominations_2001/paraguay/terror_files_form.html

[blm]

25. Anyone really believe Poppy Bush ever stopped running drugs and arms

just because he was no longer in DC?

THAT is the story I am waiting to hear about from CIA operatives sick of being used by the Bushes.

[Judi Lynn]

16. Kick!

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[Laotra]

17. K&R

and sent the info about the Moon connection to Narconews.

[blm]

18. narconews already knows the Moon link - The Nation sure missed it BIG.

.

[Laotra]

19. Missed that on Narconews

Perhaps you have link?

[blm]

21. I remember seeing something a couple years ago from them

they have noted Moon's involvement with the RW - something you rarely see from mainstream and most left press.

[Laotra]

22. OK

But the Moon-Drugs-Paraguay connection may have lost their attention, it certainly was news to me, ardent follower of Narconews.