George W. Bush has opened a new front in his global war, potentially reviving the 'dirty wars' of Ronald Reagan in Latin America, favoring dictators and opposing citizen movements.
In an important article on Alternet.org, Benjamin Dangl (who has written extensively on Bolivia and Latin American politics) reports about some of the effects of Bush's operation in Paraguay, which has become quite an extensive support system for propping up and re-enforcing the military dictatorship, suppressing dissent, and providing more resources for multinational corporations and private military providers.
Dangl sees this as a prototype for a more extensive operation throughout Latin America to stem the tide of popular Leftist governments that oppose multinational corporate exploitation.
Bush's dirty war tactics in Paraguay
Paraguay now illustrates four new characteristics of Latin America's right-wing militarism: joint exercises with the U.S. military in counterinsurgency training, monitoring potential dissidents and social organizations, the use of private mercenaries for security and the criminalization of social protest through "anti-terrorism" tactics and legislation.
An example of how the U.S. created 'joint exercises' while monitoring dissidents are the MEDRETEs [Medical Readiness Training Exercises] in Paraguay:
Orlando Castillo, a military policy expert at the human rights rights organization Servicio, Paz y Justicia in Asunción, Paraguay, says the MEDRETEs were "observation" operations aimed at developing "a type of map that identifies not just the natural resources in the area, but also the social organizations and leaders of different communities."
Castillo... said these operations marked a shift in U.S. military strategy. "The kind of training that used to just happen at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, is now decentralized," he explained. "The U.S. military is now establishing new mechanisms of cooperation and training with armed forces." Combined efforts, such as MEDRETEs, are part of this agenda. "It is a way to remain present, while maintaining a broad reach throughout the Americas." Castillo said this new wave of militarism is aimed at considering internal populations as potential enemies and preventing insurgent leftists from coming to power.
The MEDRETEs are one way in which U.S. troups operate in Paraguay through the disingenious route of providing humanitarian medical aid, but with a twist:
A group of representatives from human rights organizations and universities from all over the world, including the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and a group from the University of Toulouse, France, traveled to Paraguay last July as part of the Campaign for the Demilitarization of the Americas (CADA) to observe and report on the repression going on in the country linked to the presence of U.S. troops. The local citizens they interviewed said they were not told what medications they were given during the U.S. MEDRETEs [Medical Readiness Training Exercises]. Patients said they were often given the same treatments regardless of their illness. In some cases, the medicine produced hemorrhages and abortions. When the medical treatment took place, patients reported that they were asked if they belonged to any kind of labor or social organization. Among the leaders of such organizations, dozens have been disappeared and tortured in recent years, just as they were during Latin America's "dirty wars" in the Reagan era.
What is also sinister is that, according to Dangl, the U.S. military trains the local militaries and private paramilitaries in such operations.
Private mercenaries, or paramilitaries in Paraguay
In his article, Dangl reports that the U.S. military helps set up, organize and train these paramilitary groups.
In Paraguay, the strongest paramilitary group is the Citizens Guard. "These paramilitary groups are made of people from the community. They establish curfews and rules of conduct... They also intervene in family disputes and can kick people out of the community or off land ... this all very similar to the paramilitary activities in Colombia." Castillo said that while this activity is illegal, the police and judges simply look the other way. Many of the paramilitaries are connected to large agribusinesses and landowners and have been linked to increased repression of small farming families that have resisted the expansion of the soy industry... The shadow army of the Citizens Guard is as big as the state security forces: These paramilitary groups have nearly 22,000 members, while the Paraguayan police force is only 9,000 strong and the military has 13,000 members.
The use of private security is on the rise throughout the Americas. Journalist Cyril Mychalejko reported that the Bush administration was recently incriminated in a scandal involving Chiquita Brands International Inc. and their funding of paramilitariesto repress a discontented labor force in Colombia. The paramilitary group, the United Self-Defense Force of Colombia (AUC) is designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization...
Castillo's comments about the new U.S. military strategy for the region apply to all of Latin America. Carrying on the legacy of the School of the Americas, the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) was recently opened in El Salvador, where similar training is going on to broaden the military's reach in the area.
Criminalization of social protest through "anti-terrorism" tactics and legislation
The Paraguayan Senate is scheduled to pass an anti-terrorism law that will criminalize social protest and establish penalties of up to 40 years in prison for participating in such activities.
Link to article on the proposed law.
The rest of Dangl's article concerns U.S. efforts to manipulate Latin American media outlets to stir opposition to leftist politicians and support right wing ones.
This article is a very worthwhile read, and recommended.
Here are some good links from the Alternet article to other sources of interest:
Soy corporations war on Paraguay, hurting local economies and ecosystems:
Rural eastern Paraguay used to be full of jungle, small farms, schools and wildlife. Now it is a green sea of soybeans. The families, trees and birds are gone. The schools are empty. The air is filled with the toxic stench of the pesticides like paraquat and 2,4-D used to protect the soy crops.
A good overview of Bush's economic/military strategic assault on Paraguay:
In Paraguay four powerful groups co-exist: transnational capital interests, among whom are included the soy farmers (closely linked to the U.S. corporations Cargill and Monsanto); the latifundistas or large estate owners; drug lords, who control extensive terrain where they grow marijuana and ingredients for cocaine; and the pseudo-businessmen (in Spanish, called empresaurios) that form part of or benefit the government. There is no real business community, because each time that there was an industrialization process, as in the majority of South American countries, the empresaurios benefit from biased public works elicitations, contraband, and the misuse of public funds.
The militarization and para-militarization of the Paraguayan countryside is related to the rise of the peasant farmers' movement and the expansion of soy cultivation, which is not grown on the lands of the large landowners, but of the small farmer...
SouthCom landed 400 marines in Paraguay on July 1. A few days later the Paraguayan press reported that the FBI would be installing itself as well, as soon as 2007...
The permanent U.S. military presence in Paraguay consists of small groups of around 50 troops that stay for a period of weeks or months, and are then replaced...
However, all indicates that the United States seeks to position itself at the tri-country border. Many diplomats have mentioned in the last decade that it is a "dangerous" place. In October of 2005, the director of the FBI, Robert Muller, confirmed in Asunción that the tri-border is a location of "fundraising that in some circumstances could be used to finance terrorist activities in different parts of the world." In June of 2006 General John Craddock, head of SouthCom, made an inspection visit to the tri-border. Finally, June 12 the House of Representatives of the United States approved, at the insistence of the Republican representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the presentation to the Organization of American States of a plan for "the formation of an anti-terrorist force to control the region" of the tri-border...
More about Bushco's operations supporting Chiquita paramilitary terrorism actions in Colombia:
The Washington Post reported that Chiquita's illegal activities in Colombia may have gone beyond financing weapons--the company actually helped smuggle them. It reported that "... Chiquita participated in smuggling thousands of arms for paramilitaries into the Northern Uraba region...
The Post also uncovered that "For some high-level administration officials, Chiquita's payments were not aiding an obvious terrorism threat such as al-Qaeda; instead, the cash was going to a violent South American group [even though it is designated a terrorist group by the State Department] helping a major U.S. company maintain a stabilizing presence in Colombia."
So for the Bush Administration murders, massacres and forced displacements constitutes a "stabilizing presence."
More links to the International Law Enforcement Academy. The ILEA is worth a diary in itself, someone ought to go for it:
Google search results for the ILEA in El Salvador
U.S. Dept. of State plan for ILEA, including Roswell, NM graduate facility currently in operation.
Roswell, NM ILEA school website
More info on El Salvador's ILEA
Homeland Security website, DHS oversees the ILEA's:
[The DHS' Federal Law Enforcement Training Center]has oversight and program management responsibility for the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in Gaborone, Botswana; San Salvador, El Salvador; and Lima, Peru. The FLETC also supports training at other ILEAs in Hungary and Thailand.
We all know about Bush's GWOT appointees from the Reagan Iran-Contra and Latin America dirty wars era. They had experience in undermining democracy in Latin America. But now it's important that we all see there's a bigger picture on how Bush's plans in Paraguay interlink with plans for Latin America, and international 'law enforcement' projects, all within the context of the so-called Global War On Terror. I submit that we should all raise our awareness of the GWOT plans on the Southern, Latin American front.