• President Lugo’s hands are barely on the wheel. State of Emergency Declared On April 26, 2010, Paraguay suspended due process and constitutional rights as a result of a State of Emergency (SOE) that was declared in five northern provinces: Concepción, San Pedro, Amambay, Presidente Hayes, and Alto. The official purpose of this action was to apprehend some of the officers as well as members of the elusive Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP), a newly...
• Reforma agraria paralizada mientras que el sucio expediente del presidente Lugo se sigue ensuciando, particularmente al fallar en su compromiso de dar tierra a los que no la tienen. • La lucha campesina por tierra y el esfuerzo a medias de Lugo de adoptar una postura ante la omnipresencia de las agroindustrias en la sociedad y economía paraguayas. Después de 35 años de la brutal dictadura de Alfredo Stroessner’s (1954-1989) y seis décadas...
• Land reform put on hold as President Lugo’s already mixed record becomes even more muddy, particularly when it comes to honoring his pledge to give land to the landless. • The campesino struggle for land and Lugo’s halfhearted effort to take a stand as a handful of omnipresent agroindustries make their mark on Paraguayan society and its economy. After 35 years of Alfredo Stroessner’s brutal dictatorship (1954-1989) and six decades of wasted opportunity...
Over the past several months, a number of reports have circulated that address the subject of drug trafficking ties between South American narcotics trafficking interests and terrorist organizations, principally Al Qaeda and its smaller affiliates now known to be based in Northern Africa. These assessments have cited evidence pointing to a disturbing ring, an “unholy alliance,” which reflects alarming links between FARC exporters and Al Qaeda distributors according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s...
July 25, 2009 marked the passage of a landmark piece of reform that was brokered between Brazil and Paraguay. The agreement, signed in Asunción, finally resolved a decade long disagreement between the two governments regarding the Itaipú dam. The revisions in the Itaipú treaty had far reaching implications for the national standing of Paraguay’s President Fernando Lugo and Brazil’s President Luíz Inacio Lula da Silva as well for Brazil’s leadership role in Latin America....
