Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05ASUNCION1181
2005-09-20 11:41:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Asuncion
Cable title:  

PARAGUAY'S RURAL UNREST: A RELATIVE CALM

Tags:  PINR PGOV PREL PHUM ECON EAGR ELAB KDEM PA 
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ASUNCION 001181 

SIPDIS

STATE PASS TO USAID (LAC/AA)
SECDEF FOR OSD/ISA/IAA
NSC FOR SUE CRONIN
SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD DAN JOHNSON

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/19/2015
TAGS: PINR PGOV PREL PHUM ECON EAGR ELAB KDEM PA
SUBJECT: PARAGUAY'S RURAL UNREST: A RELATIVE CALM
(C-AL5-00699)

REF: A. STATE 114965

B. ASUNCION 01449

C. ASUNCION 01119 AND PRECEDING

D. ASUNCION 01101

E. ASUNCION 01047

F. ASUNCION 00200

Classified By: PolOff Mark Stamilio, reason 1.4(d).

Summary and Introduction
------------------------
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ASUNCION 001181

SIPDIS

STATE PASS TO USAID (LAC/AA)
SECDEF FOR OSD/ISA/IAA
NSC FOR SUE CRONIN
SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD DAN JOHNSON

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/19/2015
TAGS: PINR PGOV PREL PHUM ECON EAGR ELAB KDEM PA
SUBJECT: PARAGUAY'S RURAL UNREST: A RELATIVE CALM
(C-AL5-00699)

REF: A. STATE 114965

B. ASUNCION 01449

C. ASUNCION 01119 AND PRECEDING

D. ASUNCION 01101

E. ASUNCION 01047

F. ASUNCION 00200

Classified By: PolOff Mark Stamilio, reason 1.4(d).

Summary and Introduction
--------------

1. (SBU) President Duarte's about-face and clear message that
he would not tolerate road closures or land invasions served
the useful purpose of dampening the rural unrest that
captured continuous media attention and occasionally
disrupted transportation and agricultural operations last
year (ref B). Campesinos continue to invade and occupy
private land, which occasionally leads to violence; but the
widespread lawlessness has subsided. The government is
taking steps to obtain land for campesinos in several
interior departments, but has yet to find a comprehensive
solution to the long-standing and deep-rooted problems that
persist. Until it finds such a solution, the potential for
future unrest will remain.


2. (SBU) Since the end of widespread unrest last year,
campesino groups have shown somewhat waning levels of
organization. They enjoy the political support of some
opposition parties, but their agenda does not take center
stage and their supporters are too few in number to win them
many concessions in Congress. The military currently is not
deployed to rural areas, and there has not been any recent
campesino violence targeting the military or police, or vice
versa. The newly appointed Agriculture Minister has been
fairly invisible since his appointment, and appears to be on
the sidelines with respect to the rural crisis. End Summary
and Introduction.

A Relative Calm
--------------

3. (SBU) President Duarte's about-face and clear message that

he would not tolerate road blocks or land invasions ended a
spate of fairly continuous protests, road closures and land
invasions that plagued Paraguay's interior from March through
November of 2004. The administration's lurching initial
response revealed that it did not have a coherent plan and
created the impression that fomenting unrest would bring
campesinos rewards. The President's decision in November to
redouble its efforts to enforce the law by evicting squatters
and deploying police and military personnel to prevent future
invasions turned the tide.


4. (SBU) Problems persist, from protests and threats of
large-scale campesino uprisings, to land invasions, death
threats and fatal clashes between armed campesinos and
landowners (examples follow); but, for the moment at least,
the widespread lawlessness has subsided.

-- In June, two campesinos were killed and one was seriously
wounded in an armed clash with Brazilian immigrant landowners
in Tekojoja, Caaguazu Department. A group of 47 campesino
families reportedly invaded a plot of land, the ownership of
which remains in dispute. According to the campesinos, the
landowner arrived at their squatter settlement and attempted
to destroy shacks they had built and crops they had planted.
When they resisted, the landowner fired at them with a
shotgun. According to the police, the landowner and his
employees approached the squatter settlement in a truck, the
campesinos blocked the road and fired shots at the truck, and
the landowner returned fire. The police arrested 90
campesinos in connection with the incident.

-- In June, Odilon Espinola, the leader of one of the major
campesino organizations, the National Campesino Federation
(FNC),announced that 5,000 campesinos would demonstrate in
front of the Congress and 50,000 campesinos would mobilize
across the country over the course of two days to protest
plans to privatize state entities. According to press
reports, approximately 200 campesinos showed up to
demonstrate in front of the Congress. The nation-wide
mobilization never materialized.

-- In July, an estimated 400 campesinos made a six-day,
400-mile march to Asuncion to demand that the Congress
expropriate 52,000 hectares (128,494 acres) of land owned by
Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Korea-based Unification Church in
Puerto Casado, in Paraguay's northern Chaco region (ref E).
(Note: In August, the Senate passed a bill calling for the
expropriation. The bill must get through the Chamber of
Deputies and President Duarte before it becomes law. End
Note.)

-- In August, a group of 470 campesino families associated
with the National Coordinating Board of Campesino
Organizations (MCNOC) threatened to burn farm equipment that
belonged to five Brazilian immigrant farmers renting private
land in Canindeyu Department, and to expel the farmers from
the land. The farmers reportedly have invested USD 1 million
in the property, a 2,300-hectare (5,683-acre) parcel of land.
Police arrested 15 campesinos in connection with the
incident and dismantled 100 shacks they had erected. There
were no reports of injuries.

-- In August, two nuns in Naranjito, San Pedro Department,
and a representative of the campesino organization the
National Front for the Struggle for Sovereignty and Life
(FNLSV) received death threats in the form of notes
accompanied by shotgun cartridges. The notes warned that
they would be shot if they did not leave the community or
stop supporting the FNLSV. The notes presumably came from
local landowners.


5. (SBU) In addition to the President's clear message that
his government would enforce the law, many local observers
believe that the distractions of the December-January holiday
season and the planting and harvesting seasons that followed
helped to calm the storm. The discovery of the body of
Cecilia Cubas, the victim of a brutal kidnapping/murder at
the hands of left-wing extremists (ref C),further deflated
the more radical campesino movements. When authorities
blamed a militant faction of the left-wing Patria Libre Party
(PPL) party for the kidnapping, several campesino groups,
including the FNLSV and MCNOC, reacted with quick,
politically motivated expressions of solidarity with the PPL
(ref F). Subsequent revelations that the PPL had sought
advice and assistance from the FARC, however, stifled
campesino organizations' cries that the GOP was persecuting
the PPL. Since then, there has been less evidence of direct
collaboration between campesino groups and the PPL, who, many
believe, seek to organize a radical opposition movement in
the countryside.


6. (SBU) The PPL continues to fuel unrest in rural areas.
The recent murder of a police officer in the Department of
Canindeyu by heavily armed assailants with ties to the PPL
(ref D) is a prime example. However, the PPL may now enjoy
less support among rural populations. A local resident
reportedly reported the armed gang's presence in the area;
and though campesinos associated with the FNC initially
blocked a road to prevent authorities from entering their
nearby settlement to investigate the crime, their resistance
may have been an effort to conceal marijuana plantations or
other criminal activity, as opposed to protecting the
assailants. Additionally, local residents seemed eager to
provide information on the gang, identifying several of them
as PPL members from police sketches and photographs, and
cooperating with police in the search to locate and capture
them. (Note: The assailants reportedly fled through the
woods in the direction of San Pedro Department, and have not
been captured. The authorities conducting the search
complained about a lack of helicopter air support from the
military, and abandoned the search after following the
assailants' trail for a week. End Note.)

Government Response
--------------

7. (SBU) The Duarte administration is taking steps to obtain
land for campesinos in several interior departments. It set
a target of acquiring 25,000 hectares (61,776 acres) of land
per year for redistribution to campesinos for the duration of
the administration (2003-2008),but funding is a major
challenge. This year it acquired 50,000 hectares (123,552
acres) of land for redistribution, but was able to do so only
because Taiwan donated USD $5 million to fund the purchases.


8. (SBU) In addition to redistributing land, the government
must address a host of social issues if it hopes to find a
lasting, comprehensive solution to the rural crisis. Many
campesino settlements established on land the government
acquired for them over the years still lack basic services
such as water, electricity, schools, and roads to transport
goods to market. Calls for technical assistance also
persist. The same lack of funding that hampers land
redistribution impedes the government's efforts to implement
serious agrarian reform. In addition, many rural poor have
neither the skills nor interest to become productive farmers.
Their "farming experience" may be limited to cutting down
and selling trees or burning scrub to produce charcoal.
After squeezing this value from the land, they move on and
are again "landless."


9. (SBU) Part of the government's response to growing unrest
last year was a pledge to transform the Rural Welfare
Institute (IBR) into an effective rural development agency
renamed the Institute for Rural Development and Land (INDERT)
(ref B). A new law, Law Number 2419 passed in July 2004,
established the new agency's revised official charter.
However, Julio Brun, a senior agronomist who has worked at
IBR/INDERT for 10 years, recently told PolOff that the agency
has not undergone any significant changes since the law was
passed.


10. (SBU) One frequent campesino demand is that the
government establish minimum prices for crops (ref B). Every
year for the past 25 years campesinos have requested a
minimum price for their raw cotton, which the government then
announced as a "referential" price. In practice, however,
the market remains free, following supply and demand. For
the last five years, the market price has exceeded the
referential minimum price, because of strong demand.

Organization and Political Connections
--------------

11. (SBU) Ref B discussed signs that campesino groups were
becoming better organized and more politicized. Since the
end of widespread unrest last November, campesino groups have
shown somewhat waning levels of organization. The fronts
that united last year remain active, but they do not speak
with one voice at a national level; nor do they appear to
have a single, coherent strategy for the rest of 2005. The
FNC's inability to mobilize campesinos across the country in
June, as discussed above, is a prime example. Although some
demonstrations last year reportedly drew the participation of
a few thousand campesinos, most drew between several dozen
and a few hundred. Only a small percentage of those who
participated in demonstrations engaged in violent actions.


12. (SBU) Campesino groups enjoy the general political
support of some opposition parties, such as the socialist
Country in Solidarity party (PPS) and left-leaning members of
the Liberal party (PLRA). In November, then-Interior
Minister Nelson Mora told the Ambassador that former general
Lino Oviedo, the imprisoned leader of the National Union of
Ethical Citizens party (UNACE),was instigating campesino
unrest, noting that one of Oviedo's lieutenants allegedly was
seen passing out money to demonstrators (ref B). However,
the campesino agenda does not take center stage even with the
parties that support them, and their supporters are too few
in number to win them many concessions in Congress. Senate
approval of a bill to expropriate land from the Unification
Church in Puerto Casado, discussed above, is a notable
exception. (Comment: The proposed Puerto Casado
expropriation is part of deal between the ruling Colorado
party (ANR) and a multi-party alliance that included issues
such as election of the new President of the Senate and
appointment of the new Attorney General. Enactment of the
expropriation legislation would not necessarily signal a
dramatic increase in the political leverage of the
campesinos. It merely would represent an ANR concession for
the political expediency of achieving its immediate goals in
other areas. End Comment.)

Military and Police
--------------

13. (SBU) The military's deployment to the countryside (ref
B) was short-lived. The military currently is not
permanently deployed to rural areas to support police in
evicting campesinos from private land. There has not been
any recent campesino violence targeting the military or
police, or vice versa. (But see paragraph 6, above,
regarding the murder a policeman in rural Canindeyu in
August. The military supported the search for the assailants
and their gang.)

Agriculture Minister
--------------

14. (SBU) Newly appointed Agriculture Minister Gustavo Ruiz
Diaz has been fairly invisible since his appointment, and
appears to be on the sidelines with respect to the rural
crisis. A special crisis cabinet had the lead role in
working with campesinos and landowners to identify
comprehensive, broadly acceptable solutions (ref B); the Vice
President's office is responsible for establishing and
coordinating policy and land purchases; and INDERT is charged
with implementing agrarian reform.


15. (C) Comment: Ruiz Diaz's reputation among land owners is
that he is weak and at least half-corrupt. Close Embassy
contacts told EconOff that the ministry is being run from the
President's office. One Embassy contact said her brother was
on the "short list" to become Agriculture Minister but
declined the offer because it was apparent to him that he
would have no authority to make decisions or run the ministry
as he saw fit.)
KEANE