In Paraguay, Fernando Lugo sworn in as president; Hugo Chavez basks in his glory

Former Roman Catholic Bishop Fernando Lugo, whose election broke a six-decade legacy of dictatorship and one-party rule, was sworn in Friday as president of this poor, landlocked nation in the heart of South America, Patrick J. McDonnell reports from Asuncion.

"Today a new Paraguay is born," Lugo told thousands of supporters and various heads of state assembled outside the congressional palace in the normally sleepy capital. "Today marks the end of an exclusive Paraguay, a secretive, notoriously corrupt Paraguay."

Sharing the stage with Lugo on Saturday, when he travelled to San Pedro, was a euphoric Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, clearly viewing the newly installed Paraguayan chief of state as his newest ally in the Caracas versus Washington political battle that has split Latin America.

"For the first time, I feel wanted in Paraguay," the animated Chavez declared, after repeating his habitual refrain that the United States, which he calls el imperio yanqui (the Yankee empire), was to blame for the region's chronic underdevelopment.

Read here about Lugo's signing in, and here about Chavez tagging along.

For more on Paraguay, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Comments

[Benigno Guerrero]

First off, I live in Paraguay. Sadly enough the Latin American political/historical memory is very short. Chavez (as well as Lugo) professes populist political strategies that have historically failed and had disastrous consequences for those they were supposed to benefit. However, where Chavez obviously has dictatorial tendencies and closely mirrors the definition of 'imperialism' (...Una ideología que pretende la expansión de un estado o potestad por encima de otros estados o comunidades a las que considera inferiores.) he attributes to the USA, Lugo actually appears to believe in his outdated principles.

CHAVEZ:

At present Chavez can be classified only as totalitarian; however, current legal reforms in Venezuela leave little doubt as to his desires to elevate himself to full dictatorship. While squandering billions of dollars for armaments and to project him into the politics of other Latin American countries, not only the "poor" but also the "middle class" in Venezuela are now suffering extreme shortages in food and medical supplies.

The obvious and very public intrusion into the politics of other nations clearly classifies him as an imperialist. He forcefully attempts to voice his personal politics at any upper hierarchy political reunion in the region (invited or not in some cases). The constant rhetoric about the USA being the 'imperialist enemy to the north' is simply the same old xenophobic political song and dance of blaming someone else for the fallacies of current and past governments to meet the needs of there own countrymen. While Lugo’s body language at their San Pedro press conference demonstrated ‘possible’ discontent with positions expressed by Chavez, he said nothing. What was most surprising is that Chavez’s new campaign to impose censorship of the Press went over quite well with Lugo and he has already made steps towards its implementation. (Chavez’s personal security force went so far as to physically abuse two reporters with the passive consent of Lugo’s Paraguayan staff.)

LUGO:

This passive consent or simulated inobservance (nembotavy in local terminology) appears to be a practiced political trait in Lugo’s repertoire. He has used it numerous times over the months leading to his inauguration when he publically appeared along side of and made political discourses jointly with “social reformers” professing that violence is the only means to achieve justice. Several of these had pending detention orders.

When questioned with respect to this, Lugo stated “Is that so? I was unaware. Why don’t the police do something?”

Lugo has made ample promises to redistribute land and his previous recognition of violent invasion as a legitimate form of ‘accelerating the legal’ process has lead to a state of anarchy in Paraguay. This appears to have been a clear strategy on his part given the amount of ‘invasion leaders’ he met with publically during the interim between election and being sworn in. Only a day before his inauguration did finally state that violent invasions should not be accepted. Lugo then touted that private property should be respected as well as the right for every Paraguayan to own land.

The simple constitutional guarantee over private property should be enough to understand that every Paraguayan has the right to own property. What is in question here is the implication that people have the right to obtain property from the government freely, without payment, and that such property can possibly be expropriated from others on a simple whim or demand from parties who perform illegal actions.

While there are substantial amounts of land “illegally acquired” by cronies of the previous governments, these are not the properties generally persecuted by the ‘labriegos’*. The most persecuted properties are those honestly paid for by foreign investors. This is well inline with the xenophobic political strategies utilized since God knows when. It is always easier to blame someone else….

*(This widely used term irks me because the majorities of these do not work and only look for public handouts of properties that they will then commercialize. Laborious persons have historically excelled and become at least modestly prosperous in Paraguay, which is a land of many unexplored opportunities. To benefit these particular persons is a slap in the face to the honest country folk that have prospered due to their hard work and also serves to increase apathy amongst those that have honest upbringings and intentions.)

THE FALLACY OF LUGO’S AGRARIAN REFORM MENTALITY - While President Lugo may firmly believe in his agrarian reform as a means to alleviate poverty, he is only looking at the present generation. He once publically stated that the previous regime’s political strategy was to maintain the largest part of the populace “poor and ignorant”.

That is exactly what will be achieved by focusing on land distribution as the most important economic factor. The majority of the small Paraguayan farmers address agriculture with techniques similar to those of the Dark Ages and under conditions that would have brought joy to the hearts of the feudal lords. Professing that giving each poor family a lot of approximately 40 acres will improve their economic conditions is completely absurd. Most likely it will destroy the future of their sons and grandchildren.

If you give a man this amount of land and insist that he work it without machinery, technical support (most of the populace has forgotten how to work the land) and a proper marketing strategy, he will simply resort to what he knows best; have his children help him. This implies that to make the land profitable and support the family’s nutritional needs, the children will not attend school. The lack of education or training in other skills will condemn them to working the land in the same manner in which there father did, and so forth with their children. Agriculture based on hand-planting, hoe cleaning and hand-harvesting will only provide that the Paraguayans remain poor and ignorant for generations to come (or until a government with a more intelligent economic activation mentality appears). In short, Mr. Lugo is simply following one of the previous regime’s political strategies albeit with apparently different intentions.

While agricultural cooperatives have had reasonable success in Latin America, the general Paraguayan has distinct difficulties in collaboratively working with his neighbors. Also, they have a small dislike in being employees (don’t we all). However, these cultural characteristics will almost assuredly hinder more comprehensive forms of support provided to the land distribution incentive. Numerous projects of international organizations have met with less than favorable results because of these traits.

While small agricultural projects can be very profitable when properly undertaken, at this point in global development they would not generally be thought of as an appropriate activity to be conducted by the majority of a nation’s populace.

Instead of spending extensive economic resources towards legally acquiring expropriated properties (not always the case), the new government would more wisely dedicate this money towards improved education and fomenting industry through both Paraguayan and foreign investment. Acquiring interested foreign investors as well as national is hard when judicial guarantees are publically disavowed by governing authorities. There are numerous extremely wealthy Paraguayans that prefer to invest in other countries.

As a developing country, Paraguay has a long way to go, but the insistence on ignoring the historical failures of certain strategies will almost certainly prolong the journey. As Mr. Lugo stated, “the struggle will be hard, but not impossible.” Why make it harder than necessary and insist on economic strategies that have a proven history of failure? The world continually changes. Failing to recognize those changes and the evolution of economic activities that will provide beneficial results now and for future generations will almost certainly increase or prolong poverty for those in need.