Beautiful Horizons

The Kids Just Keep on Coming?

Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo's paternity issues have become the talk of the landlocked country, leading to this funny, but snarky video:

Lugo was the best hope of so many:

But Mr. Lugo was seen as a departure from the politics of patronage that characterized the Colorado Party, even after its longtime leader, the dictator Alfredo Stroessner, was ousted in 1989. Now the disenchanted voters who elected Mr. Lugo worry that the scandal will scuttle their chance for change.

“For the foreigners, this will be just a story about a bishop having children,” said Gustavo Arzamendia, 35, a hotel clerk here. “But for the Paraguayans, it is much more than that. He was our last hope, the person people really believed could make a real break from the past.”

It would be a shame if this damaged the possibility of genuine change in Paraguay. It would be even worse if it returned the Colorado Party to power.

Really Ministering to His Flock

It appears that Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo may have another child in his past. I'm not particularly bothered, but it will be interesting to see what fallout, if any, results from this.

Ministering to His Flock

I'm glad to see to Fernando Lugo is president of Paraguay, breaking the Colorado Party's stranglehold on his nation's politics. Here's why I'm dedicating the following tune to him, notwithstanding the fact that I can't stand the Beach Boys:

Hey,a man of God is still a man . . .

It's Official: Lugo Wins

The long-awaited end to the corrupt, elitist, sometime authoritarian sixty-one (61) year rule of the Colorado Party in Paraguay has ended today with the election of former bishop, Fernando Lugo today. It appears that the Colorado Party did not go down without a fight:

International Transparency, an organisation monitoring for voter fraud, reported some cases of corruption.

"We've seen voting cards being bought and money going around in some polling booths," one of the group's observers, Pilar Callizo, told Channel 4.

"We also saw Colorado Party teams inside and outside some polling stations creating an atmosphere of intimidation," she added.

This leads me to the tendentious comments by Alexei Barrionuevo in this article about Lugo in Sunday's New York Times:

During the interview, Mr. Lugo wore his trademark Roman sandals and sipped maté. Sitting on a bookshelf was a small plaque commemorating the revolutionary Che Guevara.

The above must be the reason for this, the first paragraph:

A former Roman Catholic bishop who regularly wears sandals and admires Che Guevara has a historic chance to break the ruling party’s 62-year grip on power in Paraguay.

It kind of flies in the face of this:

But while he shares some of their Socialist ideas, Mr. Lugo shrugs off easy comparisons to populists like Mr. [Hugo] Chávez or Evo Morales of Bolivia and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa.

“Chávez is a soldier, I am holy man,” he said in an interview Thursday at his home. “Evo is an Indian, I am not an Indian. Correa is an intellectual, I am not an intellectual. I am simply an individual that feels for the people, that feels their pain, their hopes.”

Something that is certainly easy to do when a third of the population lives below the poverty line and tens of thousands have left to seek better lives abroad. I happen to think he is right about this:

He has become controversial in Brazil for his plan to renegotiate contracts for the Itaipú hydroelectric dam on the Brazil-Paraguay border, the world’s largest. Paraguay and Brazil split the electricity generated 50-50, but Paraguay uses only 7 percent of its share. The rest it can sell to Brazil at a price fixed years ago — a price that today is some 20 times less than the market rate. Renegotiating the contract could “substantially change” Paraguay’s economy, he said.

While I don't agree on his interest in export tariffs, I do believe that his most important job will be fighting corruption. It will also be his greatest challenge: corruption is deeply entrenched in Paraguay and those who benefit it from it will not be easily weaned off it.

Good News from Paraguay

Boz has news that the stranglehold the Colorado Party has had on Paraguay may be coming to an end. While there's a long time between now and the election (April of next year), this is encouraging.

Good News...

Last night I was privileged to attend a screening of some Frontline World short documentaries that deal with "social entrepeneurs" around the world. Two of the highlights among the stories: a South African former ad exec, Trevor Field, who's devised the "play pump", combining a children's merry-go-round with a well and pump to vastly improve and simplify access to fresh water in remote villages - and Luis Sarazan, conductor of the Paraguay National Symphony, who has set up a "network for social change", organizing orphans, street children and other poor kids into music schools that are at least as much about bringing hope into their lives as teaching music.

You can access these stories and the videos at the Frontline World web site, which has a huge archive of excellent global journalism. The Play Pump is HERE and maestro Sarazan and his kids are HERE. Check them out. They'll brighten your day.

Needed: One Stake and One Hammer

That's what it will take to make sure that the brutal Paraguayan dictator, Alfredo Stroessner remains dead. Stroessner, one of the longest serving dictators in Latin American history (1954-1989) died today of stroke at the age of 93. He died in exile in Brazil where he lived after he was deposed in a coup in 1989.

Stroessner exemplified the cult of the personality:

John Vinocur, writing in The New York Times Magazine in 1984, offered this snapshot of Paraguay as its army goosestepped down the boulevards to celebrate General Stroessner’s 30 years in power:

“A continual state of siege over the entire period that literally places the president above the law; people with occasionally uncontrollable urges to fall into rivers or jump from planes with their arms and legs bound; serenades in front of the presidential palace featuring the ever-popular ‘Forward, My General’ and ‘Congratulations, My Great Friend’; foreign thieves, brutes and madmen hidden at a price; an economy administered so corruptly it is officially explained away as the ‘cost of peace’; a United Nations voting record on so-called key issues more favorable to the United States than any other ‘ally;’ a party newspaper that prints six front-page color pictures of the general every day.”

He also knew the value of the phrase "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

One former American ambassador to Asunción, Robert E. White, remembered General Stroessner as darkly brilliant at profiting from the mistakes others made. Once, Mr. White recalled, the Paraguayan ambassador to Buenos Aires had gambled away the embassy’s entire budget. Immediately, the ambassador was summoned to Asunción and handed a confession to sign. Then General Stroessner promoted him to foreign minister.

“He could never have an independent thought or deed after that,” Mr. White explained.

He was truly a vile man and kept his country in a state of fear. Open dissent resulted in torture or worse. He played a significant role in the development and implentation of Operation Condor. He shielded fugitive Nazis such as Josef Mengele.

He will not be missed.

Was the FARC Involved in the Kidnapping of Cecilia Cubas?

Cecilia Cubas, the daughter of former Paraguayan President Raúl Cubas was kidnapped on September 21, 2004 in Asuncion and her body was found there earlier this month. Now there appears to be a connection with Rodrigo Granda, the FARC's "Foreign Minister" who was spirited away from Venezuela in December and is under arrest in Colombia:

The code for the abducted daughter of a former Paraguayan president was "fruit." The "farmers" were her abductors. And the "big farm" was Colombia, home to the leftist guerrillas who advised the kidnappers.

The coded e-mails are part of strong evidence that a top Colombian FARC rebel who lived in Venezuela advised the leftists in Paraguay who kidnapped the daughter of former President Raul Cubas, officials in Paraguay, Colombia and the U.S. told The Miami Herald.

The link has prompted strong concerns because it is the first known case of the FARC exporting to other parts of Latin America its vast expertise in kidnapping for ransom--a crime that the rebel group has turned into a virtual industry in Colombia to fill its war coffers.

This is indeed disturbing. It certainly appears that if this is correct that Granda's involvement in the FARC was not merely political, but operational. I know that the FARC has been suspected  of trading drugs for weapons with Fernandinho Beira-Mar, the onetime leader of one of the most brutal drug gangs in Rio de Janeiro's favelas, but I wonder what other countries they have been meddling in in South America.

Meanwhile heads are rolling in Paraguay:

Paraguayan president Nicanor Duarte Frutos sacked Interior Minister, Nelson Mora, and at least 55 Police officers, the greatest security forces purge ever, in the framework of the investigation on the abduction and killing of a former president’s daughter.

“Mora resigned early afternoon and I’ve named a new Interior Minister, Rogelio Benitez”, said President Duarte Flores during a press conference.
Mr. Benitez is a close political associate of President Duarte Flores and mayor of the city of Encarnación where apparently he has been quite successful in combating organized crime.

The sacked officers held the top jobs in the different Police Departments including the elite Anti kidnap Unit; Intelligence and Special Crimes. However the Commander of the Police Forces, Carlos Zelaya was confirmed in his post.

“Commander Zelaya continues as head of National Police but the whole of the 1975 promotion has been relieved of responsibilities”, reported the president.

It should be noted that Benitez is now the fourth Interior Minister in the less than two years that Duarte has been president. Indeed, there are many problems with corruption and malfeasance in Paraguay's government over the years:

It was the last of the continent's military regimes to begin the transition to democracy. So perhaps it's no surprise that the presence of former President Alfredo Stroessner continues to hover over this country 15 years after his own tanks turned against him and forced him into exile after nearly 35 years in power. He has been living quietly in Brazil since then.

Unlike in Chile, where the opposition has governed since Gen. Augusto Pinochet stepped down in 1990, Stroessner's Colorado Party has continued to govern Paraguay since the onset of democracy.

The tradition of top officials being on the take -- which was institutionalized during Stroessner's reign -- has continued.

Andrés Rodríguez, the general who deposed Stroessner in 1989 and was elected as president later that year, was alleged to have made so much money from smuggling drugs that the United States canceled his visa in 1994 after he left office.

Rodríguez's successors are all believed to have fattened their bank accounts while in office. One president was even discovered to be driving an armor-plated BMW that had been stolen from a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary in Sao Paulo, Brazil

As that article indicates, kidnapping is on the rise in Paraguay. The nation has an unusual history, having had one leader in the 19th century who had all dogs killed and insisted that everyone tip their hat to him 0n the street (leading the Guarani, who did not wear hats to wear a brim just for this purpose). The nation lost a war and most of its male population in that war with Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina and fought a war with Bolivia over the Chaco desert in the 1930's. If you want to find out more about Paraguay, I urge you to read John Gimlette's terrific book At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig : Travels Through Paraguay .

While I have no respect for Raúl Cubas presidency in Paraguay, I feel nothing but sympathy for him and for his daughter. It will be interesting to see where this story goes.

A Monstrous Act

As a reader noted in the previous post about the horrific fire in Paraguay yesterday, it appears the doors were chained shut. Now there are additional witnesses making this claim:

Esther Benitez, a 30-year-old cashier who suffered burns, said she at first found her way blocked as she tried to escape. "I ran toward the main door but it was locked," she told The Associated Press from her hospital bed Monday.

Some neighbors said they were forced to break windows to enter the supermarket because the doors wouldn't open.

"There were people crowded outside the main entrance using sticks and poles trying to open the door," said Raul Tamay, who rushed to the supermarket and found his brother, Hernan, who had been shopping inside.

"We couldn't get inside and the people couldn't get out," said Liliana Hernandez, 33, who lives next door to the Ycua Bolanos supermarket.

She said even firefighters, frustrated in their efforts to get inside, resorted to battering holes through a wall of her house to reach the supermarket. "They broke two giant holes in the wall to carry bodies out," she said.

If this is true, there is probably not an appropriate fate in a decent person's mind for those responsible.

Paraguay Fire

One of my constant complaints about media coverage of Latin America is the focus - perceived or actual - on disasters: bus plunges, earthquakes, coups, etc. Some things are just so horrible that you cannot ignore, so I hope that no one regards me as a hypocrite by pointing out this tragedy near Asuncion, Paraguay:

A fire swept through a supermarket packed with shoppers on the Paraguayan capital's outskirts on Sunday and killed at least 215 people, police said.

Hundreds more were injured in an inferno that firefighters said was probably caused by the accidental explosion of gas canisters near the food court of the huge Ycua Bolanos supermarket. Flames then engulfed an underground parking lot.

This is heartbreaking:

Some of the burned bodies were found inside the supermarket hugging each other, including a woman with a small child in her arms, a firefighter told local radio.

[...]

The disaster appeared to have stretched the emergency services of one of South America's poorest nations.

Local television showed firefighters trying to plug holes in leaking water hoses with the soles of their boots. Local media called on citizens to donate basic supplies, like gloves, to hospitals.

The report also says that Argentina is sending aid. If anyone has any recommendations or ideeas on how to get help there, please put it in the comments.