Paraguay: Obama's Second Latin American Coup
by Shamus Cooke
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Global Research, June 23, 2012
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The recent coup against Paraguay's democratically elected president is not only a blow to democracy, but an attack against
the working and poor population that supported and elected President
Fernando Lugo, whom they see as a bulwark against the wealthy elite
who've dominated the country for decades.
The U.S. mainstream media and politicians are not
calling the events in Paraguay a coup, since the president is being
"legally impeached" by the elite-dominated Paraguayan Congress. But as
economist Mark Weisbrot explains in the Guardian:
"The Congress of Paraguay is trying to oust the president, Fernando Lugo, by means of an impeachment proceeding for which he was given less than 24 hours to prepare and only two hours to present a defense. It appears that a decision to convict him has already
been written...The main trigger for the impeachment is an armed clash
between peasants fighting for land rights with police...But this violent
confrontation is merely a pretext, as it is clear that the president
had no responsibility for what happened. Nor have Lugo's opponents
presented any evidence for their charges in today's ‘trial.’ President Lugo proposed an investigation into the incident; the opposition was not interested, preferring their rigged judicial proceedings."
What was the real reason the right-wing Paraguay Senate wanted to expel their democratically elected president? Another article by the Guardian makes this clear:
The article adds that the president's former political allies were "...upset after he gave a majority of cabinet ministry posts to leftist allies, and handed a minority to the
moderates...The political split had become sharply clear as Lugo
publicly acknowledged recently that he would support leftist candidates
in future elections."
It's obvious that the President's real crimes are that he chose to ally
himself more closely with Paraguay's left, which in reality means the
working and poor masses of the country, who, like other Latin American
countries, choose socialism as their form of political expression.
Although Paraguay's elite lost control of the presidency when Lugo was elected, they used their stranglehold over the Senate to reverse the gains made by Paraguay's poor. This is similar to the situation in Egypt: when the old regime of the wealthy elite lost their president/dictator, they used their control of the judiciary in an attempt to reverse the gains of the revolution.
Is it fair to blame the Obama administration for the recent coup in Paraguay? Yes, but it takes an introductory lesson on U.S. - Latin American relations to understand why. Paraguay's right wing - a tiny wealthy elite - has a long-standing relationship with the United States, which has backed dictatorships for decades in the country - a common pattern in most Latin American countries.
The United States promotes the interests of the
wealthy of these mostly-poor countries, and in turn, these elite-run
countries are obedient to the
pro-corporate foreign policy of the United States (The Open Veins of
Latin America is an excellent book that outlines the history).
Paraguay's elite is incapable of acting so
boldly without first consulting the United States, since neighboring
countries are overwhelmingly hostile to such an act because they fear a U.S.-backed coup in their own countries.
Paraguay's elite has only the military for internal support, which for decades has been funded and trained by the United States. President Lugo did not fully sever the U.S. military's links to his country. According to Wikipedia, "The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) provides technical assistance and training to help modernize and professionalize the [Paraguay]military..."
In short, it is not remotely possible for Paraguay's elite to act without assurance from the United States that it would continue to receive U.S. political and financial support; the elite now needs a steady flow of guns and tanks to defend itself from the poor of Paraguay.
The Latin American countries surrounding Paraguay denounced the events as they unfolded and made an emergency trip to the country in an attempt to stop them. What was the Obama administration's response? Business Week explains:
"As Paraguay’s Senate conducted the impeachment
trial, the U.S. State Department had said that it was watching the
situation closely."
“We understand that Paraguay’s Senate has voted to impeach
President Lugo,” said Darla Jordan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State
Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs...“We urge all
Paraguayans to act peacefully, with calm and responsibility, in the spirit of Paraguay’s democratic principles.”
Obama might as well have said: "We support the
right-wing coup against the elected president of Paraguay.” Watching a
crime against democracy happen - even if it is "watched closely" - and
failing to denounce it makes one complicit in the act. The State Department's carefully crafted words are meant to give implicit support to the new illegal regime in Paraguay.
Obama acted as he did because Lugo turned left, away from corporate interests, towards Paraguay's poor. Lugo had also more closely aligned himself with regional governments which had worked towards
economic independence from the United States. Most importantly perhaps
is that, in 2009, President Lugo forbid the building of a planned U.S.
military base in Paraguay.
What was the response of Paraguay's working and poor people to their new dictatorship? They amassed outside of the Congress and were attacked
by riot police and water cannons. It is unlikely that they will sit on
their hands during this episode, since President Lugo had raised their
hopes of having a more humane existence.
President Lugo has unfortunately given his opponents an advantage by accepting the rulings that he himself called a coup, allowing himself to be
replaced by a Senate-appointed president. But Paraguay's working and
poor people will act with more boldness, in line with the social
movements across Latin America that have struck heavy blows against the
power of their wealthy elite.
President Obama's devious actions towards
Paraguay reaffirm which side of the wealth divide he stands on. His
first coup in Honduras sparked the outrage of the entire hemisphere;
this one will confirm to Latin Americans that neither Republicans nor Democrats care anything about democracy.
Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade
unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org) He can
be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com
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Shamus Cooke is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Shamus Cooke |
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