FÉLIX LÓPEZ
PARAGUAYANS would seem to be under the influence of a historical curse: more than two centuries beset by coups. In a strange coincidence, the first and the latest are related to the Church and empires. In 1767, the Company of Jesus was expelled from the land, when the Spanish crown discovered that the Jesuits were sowing the first seeds of an ideal which we now call socialism. In 2012, an oligarchic coup has deposed a former left-wing bishop, President Fernando Lugo, who did not suit imperial interests in South America. The President was well aware that he could suffer the same fate as the Jesuits. Distance in time apart, he was repeating the same formula of reductions: stimulating a sense of independence in the people, and placing work, solidarity and equality at the center of life. That was how the town of San Ignacio Guasú was born in 1609, to be followed by another 40 settlements around the Paraná, Uruguay and Tape rivers. In a cold political calculation, King Carlos III organized the coup against the Jesuits, expelling those who taught the people the right to insurrection. THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE COUP (1865-1870) The War of the Triple Alliance in Paraguay was so excessive that the countries involved in it prefer not to discuss it. Theories abound as to the motives, but the majority point to the interests of the British empire in the region. Warfare between Brazil and Paraguay began at the end of 1864. In early 1865, Argentina and Uruguay entered the conflict, hence the War of the Triple Alliance. At that time, Paraguay was rising as an exception in Latin America: the only nation which foreign capital had not deformed. There were no large personal fortunes, hungry people or beggars. The economy grew during the governments of Carlos Antonio López and his son Francisco Solano López. In 1865, when the drums of war could be heard, Paraguay had a telegraphic line, a railroad and a large number of factories manufacturing construction materials, fabric, cloth, ponchos, paper and ink, tiles and gunpowder. The Ybycuí foundry produced cannons, mortars and multi-caliber bullets. Despite lacking a sea exit, the country had a merchant fleet, which flew the Paraguayan flag all along the River Paraná and beyond. For the imperialists, that was heresy. They were also annoyed by the zealous protectionism of national industry and the domestic market. The inland rivers were not open to the British vessels which bombarded the rest of Latin America with manufactured goods from Manchester and Liverpool. British traders did not disguise their concern. The solid experience of Paraguayan national resistance could spread to its neighbors. It is not by chance that the Argentine press, then in the hands of the oligarchy, openly called for the assassination of Solano López. In April of 1865, the Standard, a Buenos Aires English newspaper, celebrated Argentina’s declaration of war against Paraguay. For the British, the alliance armies would take Asunción in three months, but the war lasted five years and, more than a war, it was a massacre. They never imagined that Solano López would heroically embody the national will to survive and far less that the Paraguayan people would immolate themselves at his side. What was the balance of losses? Just 250,000 Paraguayans, less than a sixth of the population, survived the war. The winners, ruined by the high cost of the crime, were left in the hands of British bankers who financed the adventure. Brazil annexed more than 60,000 square kilometers of Paraguayan land and Argentina was left with 94,000 square kilometers. Uruguay took part in the war as a junior partner and received no recompense. OIL COMPANIES COUP IN CHACO (1932) Another story of how transnational interests took Paraguay to war: in 1932 Standard Oil of New Jersey (based in Bolivia) and the Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell (in Paraguayan territory) promoted the bloody conflict known as the Chaco War. For three years, Bolivia and Paraguay fought for control of an extensive, arid and uninhabited area. Its strategic value? A sea exit to the Atlantic. Bolivia had already lost its sea access during the War of the Pacific (1879). Now it wanted to gain control over the River Paraguay, which flows into the Atlantic. The discovery of oilfields in the Andean pre-cordillera encouraged the hypothesis that the Chaco also possessed significant reserves. Thus began the first modern war in Latin American history: an enormous deployment of military equipment and munitions, which cannot be compared with any other conflict in the region, not even with the Malvinas War in 1982. Approximately 250,000 Bolivian and 150,000 Paraguayan soldiers fought for control of the Chaco. Malaria and other diseases were more deadly than their bullets. The two countries were ruined by the war. An end to hostilities was declared in June of 1935, but the battle for the control of oil wells continued until July 21, 1938, when Argentine Foreign Minister Carlos Saavedra Lamas, 1936 Nobel Peace laureate, mediated brilliantly between the warring factions. Years after the Chaco War, the designs of behind the scenes manipulation on the part of U.S. diplomacy were confirmed. Argentine economist and historian Mario Rapoport states that Spruille Braden, the U.S. ambassador in Buenos Aires, was directly related to Standard Oil of Bolivia, given that part of the land owned by the company, founded in 1921, belonged to William Braden, his father. In summary: two sister peoples went to war, incited by an imperialist interest in appropriating oil which did not belong to it. THE ALFREDO STROESSNER COUP (1954) Have you heard of the dictator Alfredo Stroessner? In 1954 he was promoted to Divisional General and, in May of the same year, the U.S. government selected him to command the coup which deposed Federico Chávez. And then he remained comfortably in the presidency. He was "reelected" for eight terms in fraudulent elections in which he was the only candidate: 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983 and 1988. As payment to his U.S. mentors, in 1955 Stroessner passed a law which established even more privileged treatment for foreign capital. American companies drew the most benefit from the measure and began to almost completely control the country’s politics, agriculture and finances. The "president" took care of repression. To the surprise of many, in the early hours of February 3, 1989, Andrés Rodríguez Pedotti overthrew Alfredo Stroessner in a coup d’état, thus giving him a dose of his own medicine. Rodríguez formed a provisional government, with the backing of the Catholic Church and the U.S. government. The new President jailed the dictator, although a few days later dispatched him into a golden exile in Brasilia. After all, Stroessner was the father-in-law of one of his children and his commercial partner. Three months after the coup, Rodríguez convened general elections and won by a close margin. THE ANTICIPATED COUP AGAINST FERNANDO LUGO In 2008, just 18 days after assuming the presidency of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo publicly exposed a conspiracy plotted by former President Nicanor León Duarte and General (r) Lino Oviedo, to remove him from government by force. It was an early signal or warning of the existence of "gorillas" disposed to revive the experiences of the ‘60s and ‘70s. After four years of attempts, the Paraguay coup organizers – a concentrated expression of the oligarchy and the Stroessner system – consummated their plan. Lugo was expelled from the presidency via a lightning coup disguised as "constitutional." Under instructions from the gringos, who enjoyed a relative success in their Honduran rehearsal, the Paraguayan Parliament (plagued by characters of dubious capability and virtually no virtues) orchestrated the ridiculous political trial of President Lugo. Roy Chaderton, Venezuelan ambassador to the OAS, defined them appropriately as a herd of disorderly dinosaurs. Now, why the coup against Lugo? For Argentine intellectual Mempo Giardinelli, "Although timidly, and not without contradictions and setbacks, the Lugo government was coming to signify a more than interesting change for the Paraguayan people, subjected for years to atrocious dictatorships and a recalcitrant violence. And perhaps it is for that very reason, on account of the few and timid changes that he has undertaken, that they want to overthrow him. The coup plotters are seeking to bring down the democratic government on account of its virtues, not on account of its defects." Lugo, a man with his own voice, who did not conceal his sympathies for integration processes in the region and tried to govern with the people and not the political class, became a dangerous president. The coup, in essence, is not only against Lugo. It is also a coup against agrarian reform in a country where 2% of proprietors own 80% of the land. It is a coup against the campesino and popular masses who had placed their hopes in Lugo and are now trying to resist the announced return of the Stroessner system. What has taken place and what is to come in Paraguay is distressing for everyone. The pro-coup oligarchy is celebrating its booty. The Colorado Party, happily speculating with the memory of the heroes, displays at the foot of its foundational document the signature of 22 traitors of Marshall Solano López, "legionaries" in the service of foreign occupying forces. It is these same traitors to Paraguayan history who have returned to government. There are more than enough reasons for the Guaraní people to continue fighting. GRANMA
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