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| Winds of Change in Paraguay (feature) |
01/09/2007 
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The probable presidential candidacy of a former Catholic bishop in Paraguay’s 2008 elections has sparked renewed interest in a geo-politically strategic area of South America.
Fernando Lugo, 52, the popular bishop of San Pedro, the country’s poorest department, made public his decision to renounce his church ministry last December to collaborate in “the search for solutions to the country’s problems.”
That constituted a political hurricane in a country dominated for the past 60 years by dictator Alfredo Stroessner’s “Partido Colorado.”
For their part, conservative Church leaders accused Lugo of betraying the Church’s supposed non-political role in Paraguayan society, although more moderate and progressive churchmen rapidly rallied to his support.
Paraguay is increasingly considered of great geo-political importance in the United States due to its borders with Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay, whose left of centre governments are frequently critical of some aspects of U.S. foreign policy.
Significantly also, Paraguay shares part of the so-called “Triple Frontier” with Argentina and Brazil—eyed suspiciously by U.S. anti-terrorist experts—and part of one of the world’s biggest water reserves flows under its territory. The area is also being eyed for possible involvement in drug traffiking.
Lugo is a progressive minded Catholic who worked with indigenous communities in Ecuador, where recently elected president, Rafael Correa, maintained close contacts with the Church’s progressive inclined “Theology of Liberation” tendency.
Lugo’s election would not only add yet another link in the series of Latin American countries with policies independent of the traditional pro U.S. stance; it could also complicate the present government’s intention to work out a free trade agreement with the United States.
The former bishop told ABC, a daily newspaper in Asunción, that he decided to give up his ministry for politics not just to defeat the “Partido Colorado,” but because “I want to be more ambitious. We have to change the country.”
Data seem to back up his concerns, at least in terms of the country’s economic perspectives. According to Paraguay’s Secretary of Technical Planning, 38% of the population is unemployed or sub-employed and half of the country lives in poverty.
A survey puts Lugo in first place in terms of voter preference, constituting a clear sign of alert for the “Partido Colorado,” the Church hierarchy and other conservative forces.
Three of Lugo’s brothers and an uncle were forced into exile under the anti-communist Stroessner dictatorship. Subsequent to the dictator’s death, the “Partido Colorado” continued providing the country’s presidents and dominated successive constitutionally elected governments.
Lugo’s calls for “unity in diversity,” and for a “clean up” of the political system, rapidly rallied the support of the numerous opposition groups in the country. Lugo’s nonconformist proposals echo popular demands and include an agricultural reform, reassertion of national sovereignty in the utilization of energy, opposition to the immunity of U.S. troops in Paraguay and the possible naming of a woman as vice presidential candidate.
Urged on by President Nicanor Duarte Frutos, the Paraguayan Congress authorised immunity to U.S. troops operating in the county, as part of joint military exercises. The granting of immunity was strongly opposed by Mercosur members Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.
Aside from sending several hundred troops, the Argentine daily “Clarín” reported that the Mariscal Estigarriba airport—built with the help of U.S. technicians during the Stroessner regime—has been refurbished to allow landings of B-52 and Hercules C-130 aircraft.
The U.S. military presence in the area has been interpreted as a manoeuvre to monitor the Triple Frontier area, often accused by Washington of housing suspected Islamic terrorists. Likewise, the U.S. presence close to Bolivia’s border could serve to keep tabs on the policies of Bolivian President Evo Morales, strongly critical of Washington’s politics in the area.
Due in part to popular opposition, the military immunity agreement, slated to end last month, will probably not be renewed.
Those who opposed the U.S. military presence in the country raised their eye brows last August in the wake of the sudden visit to Asuncion of then U.S. Secretary of Defense Ronald Rumsfeld who, alongside President George Bush, subsequently received the Paraguayan president in the White House, according to a report in the September 11, 2006 “Clarín.”
The president of the Paraguayan Congress, Carlos Filizzola, of the opposition “País Solidario” party, asserted ironically that “this cooperation marks a turning point because they (the U.S.) were never interested in Paraguay. Now they seek to control the zone. Thus, Paraguay gives way to U.S. interests and distances itself from the Mercosur.”
Numerous other opposition voices have charged that the intention of the U.S. in the area is to monitor a zone of great political and strategic interest.
Less commonly mentioned but likewise of key geo-political significance for the U.S. is the “Acuífero Guaraní,” one of the world’s largest underground sources of water, equal in area to France, Spain and Portugal. Of this subterranean reserve, 70% is in Brazil, 19% in Argentina, 6% in Paraguay and 5% in Uruguay.
The U.S. geo-political concern for the area was expressed clearly in the Republican party’s Santa Fe IV document, drafted in 2000, which asserted that efforts should be made to assure that the hemisphere’s countries not be hostile to Washington’s national security concerns and that the region’s resources be available to respond to U.S. priorities.
Growing numbers of experts believe that one of the world’s future struggles will centre around the provision of fresh drinking water. In that context the Guaraní and Latin American water reserves may be essential: the continent has 12% of the world’s population but 47% of it’s potential fresh water.
Although the Paraguayan elections are more than a year away, the appearance of a popular and progressive minded candidate such as Lugo will certainly place it on Washington’s geo-political check list. A centre left Paraguay would add yet another knot to the political, economic and cultural tug-of-war now taking place throughout Latin America between moderate leftist governments seeking continental unity and conservative forces aligned with the traditional power structures and the United States.
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| Toil and Chat... |
01/06/2007 
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Toil and chat
Dog and cat,
Ball and bat...
The rat
Morphed the cat,
The cat,
The bat
So cats and rats and bats
Make dog-gone fat cats!
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| Soybean and the Future (news feature) |
01/06/2007
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Have you ever tried a nice soybean cutlet and imagined, just for a fleeting instant, that you had had a relapse to your meat eating youth?
Well, the little bean has not yet become a big deal on the menu in Argentina or in most of what used to be euphemistically called the West. But there are millions in Asia that gobble up the beans--after transformation into many different nutritional products.
And if you are an Argentine you most certainly are happy that a fast moving market does exist for the not-so-tasty but highly nutricious bean......because soybean production is rapidly becoming one of the country's leading export items.
According to the Buenos Aires "Bolsa de Cereales" (Clarín, Jan. 4,2007) more than 16 million hectares have been planted for this harvest season and those in the know are talking about reaping some 43 or 44 million tons of soybean.
There's a good reason why farmers have gone flip-flop over soybeans: prices over the past year have zoomed ahead by 20%.
Just a word of caution for those who tend to look a little bit further into the future or who still have a soft spot somewhere for good old Mother Nature.
º Most of the new areas under cultivation have been snatched from regions housing valuable native species or wilderness areas that will now go under extensive cultivation. What effect will this have on the soil and the climate?
º Lot's of multinational firms, though still questioning the not-so-orthodox economic policies of President Néstor Kirschner, have begun to grab up cheap and rich agricultural lands.
º Oddities of the market. China is perhaps the world's biggest consumer of soybeans but prefers to manufacture its own
products. Argentina also has many factories dedicated to manufacturing soybean oils, crushed soybeans, soybean flower, etc. so...it is having a bit of difficulty providing China with the raw materials it seeks. Solution? Argentina imports soybeans from neighboring countries, such as Paraguay, and re-exports to China.
º Oh, now that we are on the subject of cereals, what about corn? Due to the fuel crisis, a number of alternative energy possibilities have emerged. One is the use of corn to produce a less contaminating fuel. That means that corn farmers in the U.S. are literally speaking having a "hey day." But it also means that the price of corn is going up and up. Well....might not some wise investors also cast their eyes on Argentina, where land is, well, dirt cheap.
Once again, progress and the preservation of good old Mother Nature's natural reserves seem to be on the rocks.
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| Words on May First |
05/05/2007
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Words dangle on our tongues as if they were innocent bystanders to our deeds. Long words, short words, foreign words, new words, hash words, musical words, words of love, words of hate, words as weapons, words, words, words and more words.
Words like peace, words like war, words like justice, words like democracy, liberty, words like dream sequences, fantasy worlds of words bouncing upon our consciousness, digging into the depts of our souls.
Words like May First. Workers day. Ready, aim...fire! Then the shouts, the blood spattering the textile factory, women's breasts torn open by men's bullets. Order has been restored. The dead are piled up and removed. Tomorrow in Chicago's newspapers there will be a lot to write about.
Strange though: outside Chicago, outside the United States of (north) America almost every country celebrates Worker's Day. In Chicago and Washington and New York it is as if what happened on that bloody May First, never happened.
What strange bedfellows words are!
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| 24 de narzo |
25/03/2007 
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Not everyone agreed: Buenos Aires, March 24, 2007. Except on one point: the absolute repudiation of the blood bath initiated on that same day, but in 1976, by the Argentine Armed Forces.
Human rights organizations marched to Plaza de Mayo square in Buenos Aires to express concern
in the slow moving judicial processes against military officers accused of rights violations; the non appearance of Julio Lopez, who was kidnapped following testimony against rights abusers; they also demanded the non-payment of the country's foreign debt, considered illegitimate, so as to help the country solve its still serious social and economic difficulties.
Leftist marchers showed a more critical attitude concerning government policies. They charged that the non-appearance of Lopez indicated a continuation of "impunity;" that most of those accused of repressive acts during the Military Dictatorship have not been brought to justice; and the much talked about economic boom in the country, they said, has done little for the poorest sectors of the population.
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