Bush Family Paraguay Hideaway Update

Bush Family Paraguay Hideaway Update: WMR's Paraguayan sources have confirmed that George W. Bush recently bought 42,000 hectares (over 100,000 acres) of land in Paraguay's northern "Chaco" region.

The land, near the town of Chaco, sits atop huge natural gas reserves, according to sources in Asuncion. Moreover, the land deal was consummated in a dinner meeting between Bush's daughter Jenna and Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte. Although Jenna, who was in Paraguay under the cover of a 10-day UNICEF trip to visit child welfare projects, put the Bush family seal of approval on the land deal, the actual legal papers were worked out by Bush family lawyers and business representatives. Jenna Bush is supposedly working for UNICEF in Panama City. The Bush land is close to a new U.S. military installation, the Mariscal Estigarribia Air Base. It is also nearby a huge tract of land purchased by Sun Myung Moon that sits astride Latin America's largest water aquifer, the Guarani aquifer. According to earlier Madsen reports, Bush and the Carlyle Group are also the owners of major tracts of land along the proposed US super-highway linking Mexico and Canada, land that will be worth hundreds of millions more when the highway is completed. Related: See Neo-Con Escape Plan to Paraguay? below.

Neo-Con Escape Plan to Paraguay? Fascists seem to have a penchant for escaping to this place. Apparently Bush and cronies are allegedly buying land down there .. "An Argentine official regarded the intention of the George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, besides being a bad signal for the governments of the region...Luis D Elia, undersecretary for the Social Habitat in the Argentine Federal Planning Ministry, issued a memo partially reproduced by digital INFOBAE.com, in which he spoke of the purchase by Bush of a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia." Related Article: Bush Buys Land in Northern Paraguay

The unruly region at convergence of Argentina-Brazil-Paraguay borders is locus of money laundering, smuggling, arms and illegal narcotics trafficking, and fundraising for extremist organizations

major illicit producer of cannabis, most or all of which is consumed in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile; transshipment country for Andean cocaine headed for Brazil, other Southern Cone markets, and Europe; corruption and some money-laundering activity, especially in the Tri-Border Area; weak anti-money-laundering laws and enforcement

Secret Invasion: US Troops Steal into Paraguay

By W.T. Whitney Jr

12/29/05 "ICH" -- -- The Bush administration has sent troops into Paraguay. They are there ostensibly for humanitarian and counterterrorism purposes. The action coincides with growing left unity in South America, military buildup in the region and burgeoning independent trade relationships.

In a speech on July 26 in Havana, Fidel Castro took note of the incursion and called upon North American activists to oppose it. In that vein, an inquiry is in order as to why the US government has inserted Paraguay into its strategic plan for South America. In addition, we should look at factors that favor Bush administration schemes for the region and others that work against US plans.

In December 2004, the Bush administration canceled $330 million in economic and military aid to 10 South American countries. They were being penalized for turning down a US request for granting its soldiers immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit within the countries’ borders.

On May 5, however, the government of Paraguay took the bait. It signed an agreement authorizing an 18-month stay, automatically extended, for US soldiers and civilian employees. The previous limit had been set at six months. On May 26, in a secret session, Paraguay’s Congress passed legislation protecting US soldiers from prosecution for criminal activity, both within Paraguay and by the International Criminal Court.

Reportedly, 400 or 500 US troops – estimates vary – arrived in Paraguay on July 1, with planes, weapons, equipment and ammunition. They are billeted at a base near Mariscal Estigarribia, a small city located 200 kilometers from the Bolivian border in the arid, sparsely populated Chaco area of Paraguay. That facility, built by US contractors in the waning years of the Stroessner dictatorship (1954-1989), offers a runway long enough to accommodate large military transport planes and bombers. It provides barrack space for 16,000 troops.

Journalist and human rights activist Alfredo Boccia Paz, stated in Asuncion that immunity from prosecution for US soldiers, extension of their stay, and joint military exercises all provide the groundwork for the eventual installation of a US base in Paraguay. He quoted Argentine Nobel Peace laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel: “Once the United States arrives, it takes it a long time to leave. And that really frightens me.”

The US embassy in Paraguay declared that the United States has “absolutely no intention of establishing a military base anywhere in Paraguay” and “has no intention to station soldiers for a lengthy period in Paraguay.” The government of Paraguay seconded that notion. Brazil, however, responded. In late July, its army undertook military maneuvers along that country’s border with Paraguay. Paratroopers staged a mock occupation of the Furnas electrical substation, located on the Brazilian border with Paraguay.

Paraguay’s vice president, Luis Castiglioni, met with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and former Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs Roger Noriega last July in Washington. Observers suggested that this welcoming committee was unusually high-powered for a visiting vice president of a small South American nation. According to Rumsfeld, experts would soon be going to Paraguay to develop a “planning seminar on systems for national security.” The secretary visited Paraguay in August. The FBI announced that it would be opening an office in Paraguay in 2006.

The official US version of the Paraguay initiative is that for the next 18 months, in addition to joint military exercises, 13 US military teams would be working on humanitarian aide projects, provide counterterrorism and police training and ameliorate the effects of poverty. It turns out that US military personnel have been providing medical care for poor peasants in a northern province since 2002. Boccia Paz commented: “These missions are always disguised as humanitarian aid.… What Paraguay does not and cannot control is the total number of agents that enter the country.”

There is of course no shortage of US bases in Latin America. They are located in Guantánamo, Cuba; Fort Buchanan and Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico; Soto Cano, Honduras; and Comalapa, El Salvador. New US air bases are situated in Reina Beatriz, Aruba; Hato Rey, Curacao; and Manta in Ecuador. The latter was officially described as a weather station on a dusty road, until it came out that a full-fledged air base had materialized on the site at a cost of $80 million. Washington also operates a network of 17 land-based radar stations (three in Peru, four in Colombia, plus 10 mobile radar stations in secret locations.) All of these installations come are under the control of the US Southern Command, based in Miami.

The US rationale for converting Paraguay into a military satellite is worth exploring. For one thing, Washington is responding in catch-up fashion to mounting popular resistance in the region to US bullying. In neighboring Bolivia, for example, two US-friendly presidents have been chased from office in the past two years. And mass opposition to the US-backed candidate in last December’s national election was no exception to the trend.

There’s more. Paraguay’s neighbor, Uruguay, put a social democrat into the presidency in 2004, and last February President Kirchner of Argentina violated world financial orthodoxy when his government negotiated a 60 percent cut in Argentina’s $82 billion debt obligations. Both Argentina and Brazil have quietly rejected the FTAA. Paraguay has joined them in the South American Common Market (Mercosur), which shelters its members from US and International Monetary Fund dictates. For Paraguay to defect would serve US ends.

Washington took major exception to declarations emanating from a gathering March 29, 2005 of Brazilian, Colombian, Venezuelan and Spanish heads of state at Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela. They had discussed the use of raw materials and regional trade patterns to combat poverty and secure peace in South America. A few weeks later Washington was miffed when its candidate for the secretary generalship of the Organization of American States was rejected. And right under the US nose, Latin American nations are coming together to form Telesur and Petrosur, continent-wide television and energy corporations, and developing banking services that serve people’s needs.

Natural resources may also figure into the US motivations for expanding its military presence in South America. One branch of the main opening for a huge Bolivian natural gas field apparently crosses the international border and is accessible in Paraguay at the Independencia I site, not far from Mariscal Estigarribia. If US troops occupied the base there, they would be in striking distance of the Bolivian provinces of Santa Cruz and Tarija, where US natural gas corporations are active. Bolivia will soon be voting on autonomy for the provinces. A “yes” vote is expected to result in privatization. In the event of civil unrest following that outcome, the corporations could call for military protection.

The military base overlies the Guarani aquifer, one of the world’s largest underground fresh water reserves. Already water wars have riled Bolivian politics. Oligarchic interests in both the United States and South America have great longings to advance the process of turning water into a commodity.

The Bush administration has an additional interest in Paraguay through its war on terrorism. The so-called triple border, where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet along both sides of the Parana River, is the storied locus for smuggling, money laundering, commerce in child prostitutes, counterfeit operations, and fixing of illegal border crossings. Some 20,000 Middle Eastern, Muslim expatriates, most of them Lebanese in origin, live in Ciudad del Este on the Paraguayan side of the river and Foz do Iguacu in Brazil. The cities supposedly are centers for Islamic extremism and sources of funding for terrorist groups. Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah operatives reportedly have passed through the area, and training camps, sleeper cells, and passport factories are said to be located there. After September 11, 40 FBI agents joined Paraguayan colleagues to investigate some of these networks. Dozens of suspects were arrested. US military authorities advertise their operatives moving into Paraguay as experts in counterterrorism.

US meddling in South America has great potential to add to existing tensions in the region as it adds its might to ongoing South American military expansion. According to Uruguayan Raúl Zibechi, an expert on the continent’s military landscape, South America is experiencing unprecedented military growth. Nations there have reacted to the excesses of US Plan Colombia and to new military modalities, particularly the privatization of military forces on display in Columbia. They are also attempting to emulate Brazil’s new posture of strategic military autonomy. And, as is their habit, ruling circles in many countries, following Washington’s lead, respond to social unrest through military expansion.

In December 2004, Venezuela agreed to buy 110,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 33 helicopters and 50 fighter-bombers from Russia. Spain supplied Venezuela with naval aeronautical material, 10 transport planes, and four coast-guard cutters. Venezuela will be buying 50 training and combat jets from Brazil. Venezuela earlier this year activated a two million-member reserve component of its national military force.

Yet according to the journal Military Power Review Venezuela comes in at sixth place among South American nations in terms of military strength. Brazil is far in the lead; Peru places second; Argentina, third; followed by Chile and Colombia.

Increased military power, operating in tandem with nationalist stirrings, may inhibit US military meddling. Brazil, for example, with its own strategic defense plan and brisk economic growth, is an unlikely US acolyte. The nation is the 10th largest industrial power in the world and has become the world’s fifth largest arms exporter. Brazilian industry builds warships, several types of fighter jets, and is constructing a nuclear submarine. And to facilitate its expanded trade with China, Brazil is paying 70 percent of the $1 billion cost of a 1,500 mile long highway that extends from Peruvian ports to Santos on Brazil’s Atlantic coast.

Brazil recently sent military planners to Vietnam to learn about guerrilla war. The head of Brazil’s Amazon military command, General Claudio Barbosa, has predicted that Brazil may in the future face wars similar to the war that convulsed Vietnam and the one transpiring in Iraq now. The priority would be guerrilla warfare, “an option the army will not hesitate to adopt facing a confrontation with another country or group of countries with greater economic and military power.” What nation could the general be thinking of?

Brazil opposes Plan Colombia. The nationalist orientation of its industrial leaders persuaded them to put off joining FTAA. Brazil has no US bases on its soil, nor does Brazil engage in joint military exercises with the United States. Military cooperation between Brazil and Argentina apparently is flourishing, and in February, Brazil signed strategic accords with Venezuela. The Brazilian example of independent pursuit of national interests has emboldened other South American nations.

The single-minded pursuit of national interests, however, may work against popular struggle and Latin American unity. Analysts agree that Brazil and Argentina’s preoccupation with internal interests has created a power vacuum that encouraged Washington to court Paraguay successfully. Relations between the two nations have long been plagued by trade clashes.

Ideally, Brazil might have utilized its economic power to further Latin American unity and ward off predatory US behavior. Instead it operates according to free market rules and, unlike Venezuela, looks for salvation through from the US-led world market economy, distancing itself from Latin America’s agenda. Worse, jostling for market advantage creates divisions that lay the region open to tactics of divide and rule.

The Herculean labors of unified democratic struggle elsewhere in Latin America point to strategies through which Bush scheming and US military probing in the region might be resisted.
The example of the FARC-EP, in its survival and apparent growth, has meaning for revolutionaries far beyond Colombia’s borders. The organization now maintains a presence in nearly 100 percent of the municipalities in Colombia, and, according to Monthly Review, “with the exception of Cuba, [the FARC-EP] has become the largest and most powerful revolutionary force – politically and militarily – within the Western Hemisphere.”

Chávez forces in Venezuela, under the aegis of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), have fused the twin causes of Latin American unity and social justice. Mass protests in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, even Chile keep empire minders in Washington on edge. The point here is that growing solidarity on the part of US activists with struggles throughout Latin America may act as a brake on US meddling in Paraguay.

Opposition likely will materialize within Paraguay itself. In recent years peasants there have mounted protests against privatization, economic restrictions imposed by the International Monetary Fund, unfair land holding patterns, and antiterrorism legislation.

There is no lack of awareness. Orlando Castillo of the human rights group Servicio Páz y Justicia recalls that, “US soldiers taught torture and other forms of human rights violations in courses at the School of the Americas.” He warns that “the United States has strong aspirations to convert Paraguay into a second Panama for its troops and is not far removed from reaching its objective of controlling the Southern Cone.”

While attending the 2nd Jubilee South World Assembly in Havana, Sixto Pereira of the Paraguayan Initiative for People’s Integration told Cuban-based Prensa Latina:

We demand the abolition of regulations that harbor and give impunity to Pentagon troops. It is a demand in favor of Paraguay and Latin American integration.

Pereira indicated that mobilization against the presence of US troops is gaining momentum in Paraguay.

A military training agreement with Asunción, giving immunity to US soldiers, caused some concern after media reports initially reported that a base housing 20,000 US soldiers was being built at Mariscal Estigarribia within 200 km of Argentina and Bolivia, and 300 km of Brazil, near an airport which could receive large planes (B-52, C-130 Hercules, etc.) which the Paraguan Air Forces do not have. ^[1] ^[2]. The governments of Paraguay and the United States subsequently declared that the use of an airport (Dr Luís María Argaña International)[1] was one point of transfer for few soldiers in Paraguay at the same time. According to the Clarín argentinian newspaper, the US military base is strategic because of its location near the Triple Frontera between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina; its proximity towards the Guarani aquifer; and, finally, its closeness toward Bolivia (less than 200 km) at the same "moment that Washington's magnifying glass goes on the Altiplano and points toward Venezuelian Hugo Chávez—the regional demon according to Bush's administration—as the instigator of the instability in the region" (El Clarín ^[2]). In October 2006, US President George W. Bush was reported to be negotiating for purchase of a 400 km² ranch in this region^[3]^[4].

Why has Bush bought 150 square miles in northern Paraguay? (Hellie)

Paraguay is a landlocked country in South America, with a population of 6 million. It's one of the least densely populated countries, and has a super-high Gini index. Back in the day, its economy was dominated by a small number of landlords, with big loads of the population squatting on the fringes of their huge estates. The Gini index (the standard measure of income inequality) is predictably high -- 56, by comparison the US is at 45, France at 32, Brazil at 59.

Sounds like a great place for disgraced dictators to hide out.

Apparently also the US has been planning to put up an air base near the Bolivian gas fields, near to Mariscal Estigarribia, close to the Brazilian and Bolivian borders.

Which of these facts best explains this intriguing news item?

An Argentine official regarded the intention of the George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, besides being a bad signal for the governments of the region.

Luis D Elia, undersecretary for the Social Habitat in the Argentine Federal Planning Ministry, issued a memo partially reproduced by digital INFOBAE.com, in which he spoke of the purchase by Bush of a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia.

The news circulated Thursday in non-official sources in Asuncion, Paraguay.

D Elia considered this Bush step counterproductive for the regional power expressed by Presidents Nestor Kirchner, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

He said that "it is a bad signal that the Bush family is doing business with natural resources linked to the future of MERCOSUR."

The official pointed out that this situation could cause a hypothetical conflict of all the armies in the region, and called attention to the Bush family habit of associating business and politics.

Bolivia’s Trial By Fire
Written by Benjamin Dangl
Thursday, 12 January 2006
After winning a landslide election victory on December 18th, Bolivian president-elect Evo Morales announced plans to nationalize the country’s gas reserves, rewrite the constitution in a popular assembly, redistribute land to poor farmers and change the rules of the U.S.-led war on drugs in Bolivia. If he follows through on such promises, he’ll face enormous pressure from the Bush administration, corporations and international lenders. If he chooses a more moderate path, Bolivia’s social movements are likely to organize the type of protests and strikes that have ousted two presidents in two years. In the gas-rich Santa Cruz region, business elites are working toward seceding from the country to privatize the gas reserves. Meanwhile, U.S. troops stationed in neighboring Paraguay may be poised to intervene if the Andean country sways too far from Washington’s interests. For Bolivian social movements and the government, 2006 will be a trial by fire.

The Social Movements and the State

Among the presidential candidates that ran in the December election, Morales has the broadest ties to the country’s social movements. However, he has played limited roles in the popular uprisings of recent years. During the height of the gas war in 2003, when massive mobilizations were organized to demand the nationalization of the country’s gas reserves, Morales was attending meetings in Geneva on parliamentary politics. After the 2003 uprising ousted right-wing president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, Morales urged social movement leaders to accept then vice president Carlos Mesa as Sanchez de Lozada’s replacement. In June 2005, when another protest campaign demanding gas nationalization forced Mesa to resign, Morales helped direct the social movements into governmental channels, pushing for an interim president while new elections were organized.

Morales’ actions during these revolts were aimed at generating broad support among diverse sectors of society, including the middle class and those who didn’t fully support the tactics of protest groups. This strategy, combined with directing the momentum of social movements into the electoral realm, resulted in his landslide victory on December 18th.

In spite of Morales’ relative distance from social movements, his victory in a country where the political landscape has been shaped by such movements presents the possibility for massive social change. Once he assumes office, Morales has pledged to organize a Constituent Assembly of diverse social sectors to rewrite the country’s constitution. It is possible that this could allow for a powerful collaboration between social movements and the state.

Vice President-elect Alvaro Garcia Linera says such collaboration is possible. He contends that MAS, the Movement Toward Socialism party which he and Morales belong to, is not a party but rather "a coalition of flexible social movements that has expanded its actions to the electoral arena. There is no structure; it is a leader and movements, and there is nothing in between. This means that MAS must depend on mobilizations or on the temperament of the social movements."(1)

Oscar Olivera, a key leader in the revolt against Bechtel’s privatization of Cochabamba’s water in 2000, believes the relationship between social movements and the Morales administration will play a vital role in creating radical change in the country. Olivera participated in the December election because he felt that it was part of "a process of building strength so that in the next government…we can regain control of natural resources and end the monopoly that the political parties have over electoral politics…We are creating a movement, a nonpartisan social-political front that addresses the most vital needs of the people through a profound change in power relations, social relations, and the management of water, electricity, and garbage." (2)

To sustain their momentum and unity, an alliance between some of the most dynamic social groups was formed in early December 2005 in the first Congress of the National Front for the Defense of Water and Basic Human Services. This alliance includes the Water Coordinating Committee of Cochabamba, the Federation of Neighborhood Councils of El Alto, the Water and Drainage Cooperatives of Santa Cruz, as well as neighborhood organizations, cooperatives, irrigation farmers, and committees on electricity, water rights and other services from all over the country. In many cases, these autonomous groups have organized methods of providing citizens with basic services which the state fails to offer. Such a coalition of grassroots forces may pave the way for a nation-wide, alternative form of governance.

Tangling Over Coca

Morales plans to fully legalize the production of coca leaves and change the rules of the U.S.-led war on drugs in his country. White House officials are wary of any deviation from its anti-narcotics plan in Latin America; a strategy they claim has been successful. However, U.S. government statistics and reports from analysts in Bolivia tell a different story.

A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office explains that, "While the U.S. has poured 6 billion dollars into the drug war in the Andes over the past five years…the number of drug users in the U.S. has remained roughly constant."

In an interview on National Public Radio (NPR), Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s undersecretary for political affairs, said the Bush administration hopes "that the new government of Evo Morales in Bolivia does not change course, does not somehow assert that it’s fine to grow coca and fine to sell it."

Though it is a key ingredient in cocaine, coca has been used for centuries in the Andean region for medicinal purposes; it relieves hunger, sickness and fatigue. It’s also an ingredient in Coca-Cola, cough syrups, wines, chewing gum, and diet pills. The U.S. Embassy’s website for Bolivia suggests chewing coca leaves to alleviate altitude sickness.

"Trying to compare coca to cocaine is like trying to compare coffee beans to methamphetamines, there’s a universe of difference between the two," Sanho Tree from the Institute for Policy Studies explained on NPR. "We have to respect that indigenous cultures have used and continue to use coca in its traditional form, which is almost impossible to abuse in its natural state."

Georg Ann Potter worked from 1999 to 2002 as an advisor to Morales, and since then has been the main advisor to the Coordination of the Six Women Federations of the Chapare, the country’s biggest coca growing region. Potter explained that although Morales plans to continue a hard line approach against the drug trade, the current policies of the U.S. war on drugs need to change.

"One billion dollars has been spent [on alternative crop development] over the last 20 years and there is little to show for it," she said. "Forced eradication resulted in many dead, more wounded, armed forces thieving and raping."

It’s widely held among critics of Washington’s anti-narcotics agenda for Latin America that the U.S. government uses the war on drugs as an excuse for maintaining a military and political presence in the region.

A report from the Congressional Research Service stated that the U.S. war on drugs has had no effect on the price, purity and availability of cocaine in the U.S. Potter explained that even the U.S. government admits that "Bolivian cocaine, what there is of it, does not go to the U.S., but rather to Europe."

The Andean Information Network, a Bolivia-based NGO which monitors human rights issues in the U.S.-led war on drugs, recommends that "the U.S. should recognize studies that have determined that domestic education, prevention, and rehabilitation programs are more effective in altering drug consumption, and accordingly address the demand side of the war on drugs."

Between a Rock and Hard Place

In regard to the country’s gas reserves, the Morales administration could go in two directions. It could fully nationalize the gas reserves and face the wrath of multinational corporations and lending institutions that want exactly the opposite to happen. Or it could renegotiate contracts with gas corporations, and partially nationalize the industry. Choosing the latter option would likely generate massive protests and road blockades. Social movement leaders have stated that if Morales doesn’t fully nationalize the gas, the population will mobilize to hold the administration’s feet to the flames.

"We will nationalize the natural resources, gas and hydrocarbons," Morales explained. "We are not going to nationalize the assets of the multinationals. Any state has the right to use its natural resources. We must establish new contracts with the oil companies based on equilibrium. We are going to guarantee the returns on their investment and their profits, but not looting and stealing." (3)

Any move that Morales makes is likely to upset either corporate investors, social movements or both. Previous Bolivian presidents Carlos Mesa and Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada walked similar gauntlets and ended up being ousted from office by protests.

A secession movement in Santa Cruz, the wealthiest district in the country, also threatens Bolivia’s peace. An elite group of businessmen lead the movement to separate Santa Cruz from the rest of the country, which would allow for the full privatization of the gas industry regardless of what protest groups, and the federal government, demand. This group has been accused of maintaining militias organized to defend their autonomy.

Other methods of destabilization are already underway. Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the U.S. government has spent millions to support discredited right-wing political parties and stifle grassroots movements in Bolivia. Between 2002 and 2004, a grant from the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) allowed for the training of thirteen "emerging political leaders" from right-wing parties in Bolivia. These 25-to 35-year-old politicians were brought to Washington for seminars. Their party-strengthening projects in Bolivia were subsequently funded by the NED. (4)

US Troops in Paraguay

Outright U.S. military intervention in Bolivia is a possibility. An airbase in Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay is reportedly being utilized by hundreds of U.S. troops. The base, which was constructed by U.S. technicians in the 1980s under Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner, is 200 kilometers from the border with Bolivia and is larger than the international airport in Paraguay’s capital. Analysts in the region believe these troops could be poised to intervene in Bolivia to suppress leftist movements and secure the country’s gas reserves. (5)

Estigarribia Base, ParaguayUnder U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's direction, the Pentagon has pushed for a number of small Cooperative Security Locations (CSLs) based around Latin America. These military installations permit leapfrogging from one location to another across the continent. Such a strategy reflects an increased dependence on missiles and unmanned aircraft instead of soldiers. CSLs offer the opportunity for a small but potent presence in a country. Such outposts exist at Eloy Alfaro International Airport in Manta, Ecuador, Reina Beatrix International Airport in Aruba, Hato International Airport in nearby Curacao and at the international airport in Comalapa, El Salvador. Paraguay may already be home to the region’s next CSL. (6)

The U.S. Embassy in Paraguay contends that no plans for a military outpost are underway and that the military operations are based on humanitarian efforts. However, State Department reports do not mention any funding for humanitarian works in Paraguay. They do mention that funding for the Counterterrorism Fellowship Program in the country doubled in 2005. (7)

U.S. officials say the triple border area, where Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet, is a base for Islamic terrorist networks. Analysts in Latin America believe that the U.S. government is using the threat of terrorism as an excuse to secure natural resources in the region.

"The objectives of the U.S.A. in South America have always been to secure strategic material like oil in Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, tin mines in Bolivia, copper mines in Chile, and always to maintain lines of access open," Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, a Brazilian political scientist at the Universidade de Brasilia, wrote in the Folha de São Paulo. (8)

Orlando Castillo, a Paraguayan human rights leader, said the goal of U.S. military operations in his country is to "debilitate the southern bloc...and destabilize the region’s governments, especially Evo Morales..." (9)

While grappling with these challenges, the Morales administration will have to answer to the millions of Bolivians who, in the December election, gave him the biggest mandate in the country’s history.

For centuries Bolivians have, in the words of Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, "suffered…the curse of their own wealth." The country’s tin, copper and silver were exploited by foreign companies that made enormous profits while Bolivia struggled on. For many Bolivians, the election of Morales offers the hope that history will stop repeating itself. As Galeano writes, "Recovery of the resources that have always been usurped is the recovery of our destiny."

Benjamin Dangl has traveled and worked as a journalist in Bolivia and Paraguay. He edits www.UpsideDownWorld.org, uncovering activism and politics in Latin America and www.TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events. Email Ben(at)upsidedownworld.org

Sources:

1. Raul Zibechi, "Two Opposing Views of Social Change in Bolivia", IRC Americas, 12-14-05 http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2987

2. Zibechi

3. Jorge Martin, "Bolivia after the election victory of the MAS - Morales cannot serve two masters", In Defense of Marxism, 10-1-05 http://www.marxist.com/bolivia-election-victory-mas100106.htm

4. Reed Lindsay, "Exporting Gas and Importing Demoracy in Bolivia", North American Congress on Latin America, 11-05 http://www.nacla.org/art_display.php?art=2603#

5. Benjamin Dangl, "U.S. Military in Paraguay Prepares To "Spread Democracy"", Upside Down World, 9-15-05 http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/47/44/

6. Sam Logan and Matthew Flynn, "U.S. Military Moves in Paraguay Rattle Regional Relations", IRC Americas, 12-14-05, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2991

7. Dangl

8. Logan

9. Benjamin Dangl, "An Interview with Paraguayan Human Rights Activist Orlando Castillo", Upside Down World, 10-16-05 http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/48/44/

Photo Credits:

Bolivia Protest: Indymedia.org

Paraguay Air Base Photo: Claudio Aliscioni, "Los marines de EE.UU. ponen un pie en Paraguay" Clarin, 9-11-05 http://www.clarin.com/suplementos/

zona/2005/09/11/z-03615.htm

U.S. inroads raise alarm
WORLD BRIEFINGS
By Kenneth Rapoza
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 25, 2005

SAO PAULO, Brazil
An 18-month-old military agreement between Paraguay and the United States is viewed with skepticism in Brazil, but analysts say concerns are overblown.
The Paraguayan Congress endorsed the accord four months ago.
Influential newspapers in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Brasilia generally have denounced the agreement as intrusive Washington politics.
President Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will meet at the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina, next week to discuss money laundering, counterterrorism policies and other issues for the Triple Frontier region shared among Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina.
Mr. Bush is scheduled to meet with Mr. Lula da Silva in Brasilia after the summit, sources in the Brazilian capital told The Washington Times. The meeting has not been announced officially.
Arab influence
Since the early stages of its war on terrorism, the Bush administration has said the Triple Frontier region near Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, generates funds for Hamas and Hezbollah, though ties to terrorist activities remain unsubstantiated.
Documents found during U.S. military operations in Afghanistan reportedly included photographs of Paraguay and letters received from Arabs living in Ciudad del Este, a city of 150,000 people, of whom 10 percent are Arabs, Paraguayan officials said.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, interviewed on TV Cultura in Sao Paulo on Oct. 3, warned Brazilian viewers of the U.S. military presence in South America. Mr. Chavez suspects the Bush administration is using its war on terrorism as a cover to counter populist political movements in South America.
Opponents of the U.S.-Paraguayan accord do not trust official claims by both sides that the United States does not plan to take over an airstrip it built in 1982 in the Chaco region in northern Paraguay.
Paraguay's Foreign Ministry told the Brazilian government in writing on July 7 that "the national government did not sign any accords with the U.S. government for establishing an American military base."

The air base, located in Mariscal Estigarribia, is large enough to handle B-52 bombers and C-5 Galaxy cargo planes, but is being used only as a runway for small planes owned by local farmers.
Mariscal is 434 miles from the Triple Frontier and 186 miles from the Brazilian border. The surrounding area is mostly forest.
Skeptics point out that the United States and Ecuador said the same thing about a supposed military base in November 1999, only to sign a 10-year agreement with the U.S. Air Force soon after.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the U.S. at least wants that base in Mariscal because they believe there are Arab terrorists in Paraguay," said Walder Goes, a political consultant with close ties to politicians in Brasilia.
"I'lI bet there's a U.S. base there in a few years. That said, Brazil has a lot of influence in Paraguay. They can play hardball if they want," he said.
Critics also caution that if terrorists are in the Triple Frontier, the presence of a U.S. base in Mariscal could attract violence.
Still, the U.S. base in Ecuador has not led to an increase in terrorist activity or rumors of terrorism there.
"We've been told that this is just training and humanitarian health missions," said Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim. "There is no reason to believe that there is something related to terrorism going on."
Of the 13 military exercises at the base in Mariscal, only two involved medical training.
U.S. military training
U.S. Special Forces units are to arrive in Paraguay next year for educational courses and counterterrorism training, including Operation Commando Force 6 scheduled for July through September.
The Paraguayan government said other South American nations will be invited to participate, but the Brazilian Defense Ministry said Brazil has not been included.
"No matter how you slice it, this treaty is viewed with a lot of concern by the government," said Francisco Heitor da Rosa, a military psychologist at Assiz Gurgacz College in Cascavel, Parana, 93 miles east of Ciudad del Este. "The accord has been viewed by politicians as if it was some kind of threat to our sovereignty. But that is far from a consensus opinion."
Luiz Moniz Bandeira, a Brazilian-U.S. foreign affairs analyst who has written several books on Washington-Brasilia military relations, said he doubts leftist rhetoric that the Bush administration would try to destabilize South America using the war on terrorism as a fig leaf and Paraguay as its base station.
"That would generate more tension, upheavals and terrorist activity against U.S. troops and corporations," he said. "That said, I wouldn't dismiss the hypothesis that U.S. agents plant stories in the media about Arab terrorists in the Triple Frontier to provoke terrorism and justify their military presence."
Defense analyst Fernando Sampaio counters: "This business that the U.S. is here to create disharmony is pure Hollywood.
"The United States lacks the conditions to successfully overthrow governments in South America," he said, alluding to suspicions that a Washington-backed coup briefly removed Mr. Chavez as president of Venezuela in April 2002.
"South American countries don't need the United States to make them fall apart. They fall apart by themselves" said Mr. Sampaio, who works at the Superior College of Geopolitical Strategy in Porto Allegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul state.
Red flags raised
With its Paraguayan accord, the United States moves closer to the Triple Frontier.
The Washington-Asuncion relationship has been building since Nicanor Duarte Frutos was elected president in August 2003. Mr. Frutos met with Mr. Bush in Washington that year, becoming the first Paraguayan president invited into the Oval Office, according to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington.
Mr. Duarte's vice president, Luis Castiglioni, met in June with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Roger Noriega, former assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. Mr. Rumsfeld traveled to Asuncion, Paraguay's capital, in mid-August.
Brasilia insiders agree that Mr. Bush and Mr. Lula da Silva have a cordial relationship, but see little trust and reciprocity further down the hierarchy.
Brasilia has turned down Washington's hawkish requests to rally nations in the Organization of American States against Mr. Chavez, and Mr. da Silva has been an outspoken critic of Mr. Bush's Iraq war.
When politicians add Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Noriega to the Triple Frontier and throw in 15,000 Arabs in Ciudad del Este, it inevitably raises red flags.
The Triple Frontier was thrust into the spotlight in October 2002, when Jeffrey Goldberg wrote "In the Party of God" for the New Yorker magazine. In the story, he defined the region as, "the center of Middle Eastern terrorism in South America" and "a community under the influence of extreme Islamic beliefs."
Mr. Goldberg said Hamas, Hezbollah and al Qaeda were training in the area and perhaps financing terrorism.
The State Department's "Patterns of Terrorism" reports for the past two years have found no evidence of terrorist funding or activity from Paraguay.
An International Monetary Fund report by the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering said the region was awash in cash smuggling but not terrorist financing. The IMF did say, however, that Brazil needs to "quickly implement" more comprehensive counterterrorist financing measures.
Policy control
Brazil appears to be taking counterterrorism policy seriously. Legislation in the works aims to keep Brazil in line with U.N. Security Council counterterrorism norms established after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
Brazil hasn't had a central counterterrorism unit since the 1964-85 dictatorship years. The country wants to control its policies against terrorism before it is forced to follow the policies of other countries, defense analysts say.
Although al Qaeda is never mentioned outside of international news, Hamas and Hezbollah appeared in Brazilian news reports this summer. On June 7, Parana state police arrested a Palestinian, Saiel Bashar al Atary, 43, on charges of credit card fraud and drug trafficking in Foz do Iguacu, across the river from Ciudad del Este.
Police are investigating whether he sent money to Hamas. People who know Mr. al Atary say he has no connection to the group. This tends to be as far as terrorist investigations go in the Triple Frontier.
When U.S. soldiers arrived in Paraguay in July, the Asuncion-based newspaper ABC Color, citing "intelligence sources," reported that $20 million a year leaves the Triple Frontier to fund Hezbollah. The article said some of the money is hidden in Brazilian banks.
"We have to intensify our defense and security relationships," Mr. Amorim told government news agency Agencia Brasil on Sept 17. It's the best way to dispense with the doubts that arise from public opinion, even when there are no doubts in the government."
The last Arab terrorist attack in South America occurred at the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1994.
Between 1961 and 2003, 1.2 percent of worldwide terrorist activity took place in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile combined, the U.S. State Department reports. Over the same period, those five countries experienced less than 8 percent of total terrorist activity in Latin America.

Brazil would see such an official American base as a threat, which may be why this is all being done under the guise of Bush family private ownership. If that theory is correct, then there ought to be an interesting money trail. The Bushes would not use their own funds to create a United States air base.

The whole package is part of a controversial military agreement between Paraguay and the United States endorsed by the Paraguayan Congress more than a year ago. The US Special Forces are guaranteed total immunity and diplomatic status. They are free to import and export, they don't pay any taxes, and what they trade is not subjected to any inspections. Contraband kingpins at the Triple Border would kill for a deal like that.
Public intellectuals in both Brazil and Argentina fear that the usual US-paid mules will keep planting stories in the media about Arab "terrorists" at the Triple Border, thus justifying a permanent-resident visa for the US forces in Paraguay. What happened in Colombia is also evoked. The Colombian agreement with the United States stipulated visa-free entry for US civilians. But these "civilians" happen to be mercenaries, working for private security firms. The same process could happen in Paraguay.

Essential in the Pentagon machinery is the new Counter-Terrorism Fellowship Program, which is operated (with no supervision by anyone) out of the Pentagon's Office of Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict.
As with most neo-con operations, the Paraguyan episode involves three key factors:

1. Military suppression of anyone who won't dance to America's tune. A wave of independence -- not socialism per se, just a defiant "We're not gonna take it" attitude directed toward Uncle Sam -- is taking hold throughout South America. Paraguay remains the exception; a majority of that country wants a return to the days of Stroessner.

2. Natural resources. Rancho Bush (and the ten-times-larger Rancho Moon) is home to the region's largest aquifer, as well as gas and (possibly) oil.

3. Drugs. Hey, the money's got to come from somewhere.

Aug 3, 2006

THE ROVING EYE
Part 1: Hezbollah south of the border
By Pepe Escobar

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, at the triple border of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay - This is the way savage globalization ends - at least 20,000 shops, stalls, tin shacks and mini-malls crammed into 15 blocks selling everything under the (tropical) sun. There's Little Asia - thousands of Taiwanese, mainland Chinese and Koreans. But above all there are some 20,000 Arabs of Syrian and mostly Lebanese descent (another 12,000 live in the Brazilian resort of Foz do Iguacu, across the Friendship Bridge).

Welcome to Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, population 200,000, free-trade cesspit and World Trade Organization wet dream, realm of sacoleiros (bag carriers) crossing the bridge every day and dreaming of the ultimate knockoff, but mostly realm of money changers, prehistoric armored cars, gun-and-coke dealers, dodgy pharmacists and stolen Mercedes with tinted windows.

The border is virtually non-existent, as Paraguay is a Mercosur member (along with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela). Airspace is free - virtually no radar. Cocaine comes by plane or truck from the Bolivian Andes. Brazilian weapons are everywhere - not to mention real and fake Kalashnikovs. Tons of laundered money whirl in free flow. The whole thing is a dizzying black void of billions of dollars in contraband, narco-trafficking, weapons smuggling, money laundering, car theft, piracy and corruption of public officials.

And it gets worse: it's crammed with terrorists.

Stand and deliver
The head of the US Southcom (Southern Command), the vociferous General Brantz Craddock, is absolutely convinced the Triple Border is the abode of "the "transnational terrorist, the narco-terrorist, the Islamic radical fundraiser and recruiter, the illicit trafficker, the money launderer, the kidnapper and the gang member". The emphasis is on "terrorist" and "Islamic". Southcom - US$800 million annual budget, more than the State, Treasury, Commerce and Agriculture departments combined - is the eyes and ears of the Pentagon over Latin America.

In essence, this is how it works. Armchair gurus in Washington and New York theorize on the so-called five wars of globalization - terrorism, trafficking, money laundering, piracy and migration - and the Pentagon sends the Special Forces posing as cleaners to make it all proper for the "free" world. The underlying assumption is that Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda - "in sum, terror" - are profiting like mad from the so-called five wars.

The "new threats of the 21st century recognize no borders", according to the Pentagon. Ergo, everyone may be a terrorist, at least a potential one. Not accidentally, General Craddock hates "anti-globalization and anti-free-trade demagogues". Sunni or Shi'ite, Marxist or anarchist, ruralist or existentialist, the Russian mafia, the Hong Kong triads, the Nigerian mafia, the Ukrainian mafia - they are all in cahoots. And for the Pentagon, Hezbollah is selling pirate video discs of Christina Aguilera to finance more Katyusha rockets.

At the real Triple Border, though, everyone may be a spy, or a would-be spy, because everyone is there: the Russian mafia, the Mossad, the Nigerian mafia, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Hong Kong triads. A rule of gold in the underworld is that Brazil is neutral territory and not subject to turf wars; everyone is entitled to join the fun (technically Ciudad del Este is in Paraguay, but it does business as a Brazilian annex via the Friendship Bridge). There's no chance of catching one of Ayman al-Zawahiri's lieutenants slipping $100 bills into the G-string of dancer Harlem Roux at the Casino Parana. He - and his al-Qaeda affiliation - would be spotted in minutes.

General Craddock grudgingly had to admit that the Pentagon has "not detected Islamic terrorist cells" at the Triple Border, nor anywhere else in South America, for that matter. But he'll keep trying. If he dropped by Ciudad del Este's mean streets, Craddock would hear a lot of Mandarin - but not Arabic. He would see every cheap plasma set in every audio-video shop tuned to Lebanese TV - or Al-Jazeera, hardly a terror ID. In his search for preemptive strikes, he could try the Condominio Mesquita - which, as the name attests, is a condo in the shape of a gold-painted mosque (they would love it in Peshawar). But he would see no Hezbollahs in fake Nikes chowing an empanada and sipping mate with Jet Li lookalikes.

Hezbollah's electronic casino
Anyway, the latest annual State Department terrorism report explicitly regards the Triple Border as a main source of financing for both Hamas and Hezbollah, even though it admits "there's no confirmed information" either Hamas or Hezbollah has "an operational presence" on the ground.

The US government keeps accusing the Brazilian government of regarding Hezbollah as a legitimate political party. The Treasury Department also said it has detected money transfers from Foz do Iguacu - home of the famous Iguacu (Iguazu in Spanish) Falls, on the Brazilian side - to "terrorist groups" including Hezbollah. In a report on drugs released in March, the US once again was explicit: Brazil must fight "terrorism financing" in the Triple Border area.

It doesn't matter that the State Department has found no evidence of "terrorist financing" from Paraguay and was forced to admit that between 1961 and 2003, only 1.2% of worldwide terror took place in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile combined. An International Monetary Fund report on money laundering also revealed the obvious: the Triple Border is awash in cash smuggling, but no sight of "terrorist financing".

In 2001 CNN dubbed the Triple Border "a terrorist paradise" - based on dodgy documents obtained by US embassies in both Paraguay and Argentina. An article in The New Yorker in late 2002 defined the Triple Border as "the center of Middle Eastern terrorism in South America" and "a community under the influence of extreme Islamic beliefs" - with Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda all training on the spot.

Between late 2001 and early 2002, this whole thing was fine-combed by US and Brazilian investigators. There was no chance Sheikh Nasrallah would be uncovered operating an electronic casino in Ciudad del Este under an alias. Commercial and banking ties between the Arabs in the Triple Border and their relatives in the Middle East were perfectly legal - just like the ones between resident Arabs in the US and their relatives.

But the heat was on - relentless, humiliating, brutal.

Thus US Immigration and Customs agents, financed to the tune of $2.25 million, will soon be parachuting into the Triple Border to help the locals fight money laundering, contraband and terrorism financing. The Americans will establish "units of commercial transparency". Up to now the only country in the world boasting a "unit of commercial transparency" was Colombia. The Brazilian Federal Police and the Ministry of Foreign Relations prefer not to comment. American diplomats insist a permanent group representing the US, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay has agreed on the matter.

Common wisdom rules that at least $20 million annually is sent from the Triple Border to finance Hezbollah, linking South American banks to banks in Texas and New York in the US, plus banks in Panama, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Egypt and Lebanon. That would be 20% of total worldwide financing for Hezbollah's military wing. There's no independent confirmation. "This figure was arrived at by the Mossad. They always have plenty of people snooping around here," said a Lebanese-Brazilian businessman who owns a bustling audio-video shop. Hezbollah receives donations from sympathizers worldwide. There's no evidence it is being financed by pirate video discs or cocaine dollars from the Triple Border.

But the pressure is non-stop. Thus the US Congress has approved a motion enabling President George W Bush to ask for a task force to act against "terrorism in the Western Hemisphere", especially on the Triple Border. Bush is also supposed to demand from Brazil and other Latin American countries the branding of both Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.

The Brazilian Embassy in Washington was furious - reminding the Americans that even the White House admits there's no terror operating on the Triple Border. Carlos Alvarez, head of the Commission of Permanent Representatives of Mercosur, worries that the Americans "want to convert the Triple Border into part of the war on terror". Diplomats from Mercosur countries say they have enough of an institutional base to fight crime - as that is the real issue. Brazil has set up a new police unit and has reinforced air and fluvial patrols at the Triple Border - fighting above all the trafficking of drugs and weapons. Starting in two weeks - to the dismay of the business community in Ciudad del Este - they will even start inspecting all the sacoleiros crossing the Friendship Bridge.

Arab businessmen in both Foz do Iguacu and Ciudad del Este dismiss US paranoia as, well, paranoia. They have more tangible things to worry about - like two Lebanese businessmen robbed of $250,000 cash in downtown Ciudad del Este just as they had left a bank. The robbers - carrying machine-guns - were disguised as Paraguayan investigative police. The Sunday headline in the Paraguayan daily Ultima Hora also told another popular story: "It's easier to leave Lebanon than to arrive in Paraguay". It referred to a Lebanese-Paraguayan family who managed to leave Lebanon in a Brazilian rescue plane, arrived in Sao Paulo but then could find no flights home. No one wants to fly to Paraguay: airspace is totally unprotected, with no security systems and no radar.

The locals claim they don't need Americans to arrest one of the top Brazilian narco-traffickers, Marcelinho Niteroi, as they did last week. Niteroi carried fake Paraguayan identification, which he obtained posing as a "farmer". On the other hand, businessmen on both sides of the border focus on made-in-USA missiles used by Israel that killed Lebanese-Brazilian kids, who were born in Brazil. "Maybe these kids were dangerous terrorists," said a real-estate developer.

Where is Osama's hotel?
Irrespective of the facts on the ground, as far as the Pentagon is concerned the Triple Border remains a nest of subversive activity to be preempted as fast as Syria and Iran.

Take what happened last year when the Foz do Iguacu municipality ran a full-page ad in leading newspapers with a photo of Osama bin Laden. The caption read: "When he's not busy blowing up the world, bin Laden spends his time relaxing at Iguacu." Craddock might have taken it literally - and blown the place apart.

Craddock would have had a heart attack with the recent subversion calendar. Last month the Mercosur chiefs of state got together in Cordoba, Argentina - officially welcoming Venezuela as a new member. Fidel Castro stole the show. Venezuela's news network Telesur - very popular via satellite in Ciudad del Este - provided extensive coverage of "anti-imperialist" speeches by both Castro and Hugo Chavez.

Meanwhile civil society - in the form of social, political, cultural, environmental, student, religious and human-rights organizations - was engaged in the second Triple Border Social Forum in Ciudad del Este, discussing the region's security, a controversial military agreement between the US and Paraguay, and the preservation of the Guarani Aquifer. The slogan went straight to the point: "Out Yankee troops and the World Bank".

The "Yankee troops" are holding "training exercises" in Paraguay (more on that in Part 2 of this report). And the World Bank is developing a program toward mapping the Guarani Aquifer - which is the first step toward commercial exploration of its precious waters. The Guarani Aquifer is arguably the biggest reservoir of fresh, potable water in the world - right under Triple Border soil. The majority (71%) of its 1.2 million square kilometers lies in Brazil. According to the United Nations, by 2025 worldwide demand for potable water will be 56% higher than what will be on offer.

When you combine a huge Arab community and lots of non-commercialized water in a Pentagon-defined "lawless area", no wonder bells start ringing. Watching the non-stop coverage on the Arabic channels of Lebanese civilians dying under Israeli bombs, a Lebanese-Brazilian businessman offered the preferred local version of the "war on terror": "In Iraq they said there were WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. They wanted the oil. Here they say that we are terrorists. But what they want is our water."

THE ROVING EYE
Part 2: Lost paraguayos: The Yankees are coming By Pepe Escobar

ASUNCION - "The Yankees are coming," says a Paraguayan university student in Villa Morra, the slice of North American suburbia in eastern Asuncion. Wait; in fact they're already here. And not only because of the American University, or the rows and rows of private clinics, medical services, pharmacies and life-insurance companies catering to expat customers in Mariscal Lopez Avenue. President Nicanor Duarte has been allowing US troops on Paraguayan soil since mid-2005. US Special Forces are performing 13 military exercises, to expire late this year, including "educational courses", "domestic peacekeeping operations" and counter-terrorism training, this one part of Operation Commando Force 6, scheduled to go on until next month.

The whole package is part of a controversial military agreement between Paraguay and the United States endorsed by the Paraguayan Congress more than a year ago. The US Special Forces are guaranteed total immunity and diplomatic status. They are free to import and export, they don't pay any taxes, and what they trade is not subjected to any inspections. Contraband kingpins at the Triple Border would kill for a deal like that.

The Foreign Ministry for its part insists that "the national government did not sign any accords with the US government for establishing an American military base". The Paraguayan government defines these rumors as "delirious". Brazilians are not so sure.

According to Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, "They told us this is just training and humanitarian health missions ... There is no reason to believe that there is something related to terrorism." Brazilian diplomats worry that Paraguay didn't even bother to tell its Mercosur counterparts it would be hosting US troops. Paraguayan businessmen even want to scrap Mercosur altogether, complaining that the big members, Brazil and Argentina, monopolize all the decisions.

When in doubt, invade
It's useful to remember that soon after September 11, 2001, notorious neo-con Douglas Feith suggested to George W Bush an air invasion of the Triple Border - where the boundaries of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet - to capture al-Qaeda fighters and permanently occupy the region. No wonder that as early as 2002 a study by the Brazilian army was asking whether "these armed forces that ring the border of Brazil, especially in the Amazon region", could be used "for reasons that are [at present] undeclared".

Although the Paraguayans insist these troops are in the country on a "temporary" basis, they may represent a giant step toward Washington's setting up a US military base very close to the Triple Border. Way back in 1982, the US built and started operating a semi-clandestine airstrip in Mariscal Estigarribia, in the Chaco region in northern Paraguay near the Bolivian border, where B-52 bombers and C-5 Galaxy cargo planes are able to land with no hassle. The airstrip is literally in the middle of dense forest. It also happens to be only 270 kilometers from the Brazilian border.

Some Brazilian diplomats bet off the record that a US permanent base is all but inevitable. But maybe not, as Brazil is known to play hardball with Paraguay.

Significantly, the US-Paraguay military agreement happened right when President Duarte was struggling against social movements contrary to his privatization wave, and peasant movements fighting for more land.

The "training" provided by the US forces is the usual mix of combat and counter-insurgency and counter-terror theory. After that, it could be adapted for use against any "terrorist" threat. For Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, the Bush administration's real target is to smash popular movements and governments in South America.
Muy amigo
The Washington-Asuncion axis has been a stellar accomplishment of President Nicanor Duarte, who came to power in August 2003. Duarte is described by economic analyst Pablo Herken as "populist, demagogue, charlatan, liar, incoherent, authoritarian, rancorous and irresponsible".

The supreme Pentagon obsession remains the Triple Border and Ciudad del Este, Paraguay - the Wild West of the "war on terror". Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela have been very critical toward Washington's regional geostrategic designs. So for the Bush administration a weak and corrupt Paraguayan government is the perfect Trojan horse.

Duarte is a certified FOB (Friend of Bush). He was personally received at the White House. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Asuncion one year ago. Paraguayan Vice President Luis Castiglioni met his US counterpart Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and crucially Roger Noriega, the sinister former assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. John Keane, US ambassador to Paraguay, publicized a huge contribution to fight "drug trafficking, terrorism, money laundering and corruption". The Triple Border has always been the top issue on all meetings between these players, not to mention the ministerial meetings sponsored by Southcom (the US Southern Command).

The lethal cocktail of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Noriega, the Triple Border and all those thousands of "Ay-rabs" in Ciudad del Este could not but spell endless trouble. Argentine non-governmental organizations also identify the Triple Border as the Americans' No 1 geostrategic target. The master plan would be typical Rumsfeld: light, "rapid reaction" forces based in Paraguay intervening in neighboring countries and conducting low-intensity warfare against the - non-existent - Triple Border "terrorists". The Pentagon's agenda is the militarization of the so-called Western Hemisphere. In his South American trips the Rumsfeld mantra has been "dominion over ungoverned spaces". So Pentagon logic equally applies to the Triple Border and the Rio favelas run by drug mafias.

El Condor pasa (again)
Brazil is one of the very few South American countries with no US bases, garrisons or airstrips. But now that Brazil is actually facing US troops on two flanks - north, in Colombia, and south, in Paraguay - no wonder Brazilian congress members have started to regard it as "a threat to our national security". Public intellectuals in both Brazil and Argentina fear that the usual US-paid mules will keep planting stories in the media about Arab "terrorists" at the Triple Border, thus justifying a permanent-resident visa for the US forces in Paraguay. What happened in Colombia is also evoked. The Colombian agreement with the United States stipulated visa-free entry for US civilians. But these "civilians" happen to be mercenaries, working for private security firms. The same process could happen in Paraguay.

Essential in the Pentagon machinery is the new Counter-Terrorism Fellowship Program, which is operated (with no supervision by anyone) out of the Pentagon's Office of Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. What this represents in fact is nothing but a rerun of the infamous Operation Condor coordinated by infamous Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet during the 1970s. As much as Condor, the Counter-Terrorism Fellowship Program may work as the de facto Central Command in a South America-wide campaign of intimidation and political terror.

In the 1970s - with sinister dictator Alfredo Stroessner in full power - the Central Intelligence Agency set up in the US Embassy in Asuncion the most powerful electronic spying station in South America. According to researcher Anibal Miranda, it's still operational.

For the past five years the US has also set up a real sanitary cordon in South America, from the Caribbean to the Paraguayan Chaco - 20 garrisons split between air and radar bases, at the cost of roughly US$340 million. Spy planes roam the Amazon, the Andes and the Antilles. Operating under the "war on drugs" banner, three airstrips are crucial in this plan: Hato in the Netherlands Antilles, Queen Beatrix in Aruba, and Manta in Ecuador. The first two happen to be right in front of Venezuela's coast.

After September 11 the US State Department mantra was that al-Qaeda and/or Hezbollah had an intimate connection with FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia). The "coincidence" could not be more extraordinary: "terror" at the geographic heart of Mercosur - which happens to be dreaded in Washington as the made-in-South America answer to the Washington-promoted Free Trade Area of the Americas - was suddenly connected with "terror", which happens to be the biggest obstacle to the US occupation of the Amazon rainforest.

Before September 11 the main rationale behind Washington's Plan Colombia was the "war on drugs". Then it became the "war on terror" - and Plan Colombia spread way beyond the Andes. The Pentagon's new Long War (war on terror remixed) is now the catalyst that multiplies "evidence" forever justifying sending special agents, US Special Forces, "training" of local forces, "joint military operations" and, sooner rather than later, a permanent military base.

Eyes on the loot
The Grand Prize may not be only the fabulous freshwater wealth of the Guarani Aquifer. There are also the huge gas reserves of Bolivia, and great unexplored reserves of carbon in southern Brazil, not to mention Venezuelan oil. It all comes back once again to the 21st-century energy wars.

Anyone familiar with South America knows that the key issue is not terrorism but lack of investment in health and education, and hunger and unemployment inevitably leading in despair to petty crime and beyond. But for the Pentagon shock troops of hardcore globalization, the only thing that matters is an ideological crusade.

General Brantz Craddock, the man who sees a terrorist behind any pirate video disc sold in the Triple Border, recently said that "transnational terrorism" is Latin America's "foremost" problem. The Pentagon managed to fabricate a hardcore Islamic jihad in Iraq out of nothing. There's no reason to doubt it may fabricate a South America-wide Ciudad del Este out of a single Triple Border.

[NYTr] Pentagon quietly builds up South American bases

Workers World - Feb 23, 2006 issue
http://www.workers.org/2006/world/pentagon-0223/

Pentagon quietly builds up South American bases

By Teresa Gutierrez

At the very same time that the working class and progressive movement in Latin America is rapidly shifting to the left, invigorating anti-imperialist sentiment around the world, Washington is quietly and ominously militarizing the Americas.

From the U.S./Mexican border to many parts farther south, U.S. imperialism is setting up more and more military bases throughout the region and stealthily sending ever more U.S. troops and mercenaries to Latin America.

Under the guise of fighting the so-called drug war or seeking "Al Qaeda terrorist cells," Washington's real intention is to prepare to overcome the rising movements against U.S. imperialism that are sweeping the region.

Washington's intense escalation of military force is extremely dangerous for the oppressed people of the Americas and should be energetically fought by the anti-war movement in the United States.

As Conn Hallinan wrote last November in Foreign Policy in Focus, "Indeed, it is feeling a little like the run-up to the sixties and seventies, when Washington-sponsored military dictatorships dominated most of the continent, and (secret) armies ruled the night."

The growing U.S. military threat

Although it only recently came to light, last year the Bush administration sent 400-500 U.S. troops to Paraguay, alarming many Latin Americans.

This action takes place within the context of a growing number of U.S. military bases built in the region in the last several years, and within the context of Plan Colombia, a $3-billion-plus military initiative for Colombia, was passed under the Clinton Administration. Plan Colombia is the military wing of the stalled Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA).

What cannot be wrested from the people of Latin America by its operators in three-piece suits, Washington clearly aims to steal through its agents in military fatigues.

There are approximately 25 known U.S. military bases or land-based radar stations in Latin America and the Caribbean. These include
military bases in Guanta namo, Cuba; Comalapa, El Salvador; Reina Beatriz, Aruba; Fort Buchanan and Roose velt Roads, Puerto Rico; Hato
Rey, Curacao; Manta, Ecuador and Soto Cano, Honduras.

In January 2006, Cuban Radio Havana revealed that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had authorized the expansion of U.S. military bases in
the summer of 2005. These expanded military bases were called CSL's--Cooperative Security Locations --and set up at the Mariscal
Estigarribia airbase in Paraguay and elsewhere.

According to Radio Havana, these bases, while staffed by a relatively small number of troops, "have the capability to ramp up military
operations at short notice."

Developments in Paraguay are alarming progressives across that country's borders in Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia, where Indigenous
peasant leader Evo Morales recently took office as president.

According to an article in the January Political Affairs, the Bush administration in December 2004 canceled $330 million in aid to
several South American countries because they had refused to grant U.S. soldiers immunity from prosecution for crimes committed in those
countries.

Paraguay did sign the immunity agreement in a secret session of its congress on May 26, 2005, authorizing an 18-month stay for U.S.
soldiers, which can be extended repeatedly.

The U.S. troops that arrived in Paraguay last July 1 are only 120 miles from Bolivia at a base near Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay.

The base has a runway long enough to accommodate large military transport planes such as B-52 bombers and Galaxy C-5 cargo planes. It
also has barracks space for 16,000 troops, a huge radar system and vast hangers.

Prominent Paraguayan journalist and human rights activist Alfredo Boccia Paz stated recently that "immunity from prosecution for U.S.
soldiers, extension of their stay, and joint military exercises all provide the groundwork for the eventual installation of a U.S. base in
Paraguay."

Furthermore, last July a high-powered meeting of Bush administration officials met with Paraguay's vice president.

Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Noriega met with Paraguay Vice President Luis Castiglioni and concluded that "experts would soon be
going to Paraguay to develop a planning seminar on systems for national security."

The FBI also announced that in 2006 it would open an office in Paraguay.

The U.S. troops stationed in Paraguay are already up to no good. The Southern Command, according to several sources including Radio Havana,announced an upcoming "saber rattling" military exercise to take place in Paraguay called "Fuerzas Comando 06 (Operation Commando Force 06)."

Stan Goff, a former sergeant in the U.S. Special Forces, often points out in his denunciations of U.S. intervention that it can be misleading to judge the impact of a U.S. intervention only by the number of U.S. troops involved. If these troops are Special Forces, for example, they can train local mercenaries or pave the way for
thousands of ground troops.

Bush administration officials deny that Mariscal Estigarribia will become or is a U.S. military base.

Manta, Ecuador US Military Base

In 2001, the Pentagon came under criticism for opening a military base in Manta, Ecuador. The base is located 20 minutes from war-torn Colombia's borders. Those in Colombia who resist neocolonial domination there consider the base opening an act of war. Many U.S. Congress members also opposed Manta and tried to block the Manta project.

The first thing the base in Manta housed was E-3 AWACS surveillance planes. According to the Washington Post (Jan. 25, 2001), with the troops and the planes, "Manta will become the main hub for U.S. surveillance flights over the vast cocaine-producing areas of Latin America."

The U.S. pays no rent at Manta. It signed the deal with a former Ecuadorian president, Jamil Mahuad, who fled to exile in the U.S. and was under indictment for abuse of power.

One year before Ecuador opened the Manta base it adopted the U.S. dollar as the national currency.

A rose is a rose

In the usual Pentagon and Washington double talk, government officials have taken to doctoring up the language of the militarization of Latin America to make it palatable for the U.S. public.

In the case of both Manta, Ecuador, in 2001 and Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay now, government officials called the bases "Forward Operating Locations" or "Cooperative Security Locations" to avoid calling them bases.

Washington has mislabeled the militarization of Latin America as part of the fight against drugs, just as some of the media have mislabeled the Minutemen militarizing the U.S.-Mexican border as freedom fighters.

In reality, the strengthening of military bases and the sending of U.S. troops is aimed to subvert the rising revolutionary movements in Latin America. It is aimed against Presidents Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia and at Fidel Castro in Cuba.

But the tide for an end to colonial and imperialist domination has turned in favor of the oppressed and no military base can turn it back.

It's useful to remember that soon after September 11, 2001, notorious neo-con Douglas Feith suggested to George W Bush an air invasion of the Triple Border ...

The Estigarribia airbase was constructed in the 1980s for US technicians hired by the Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner, and is capable of housing large troops units. The base has an enormous radar system, huge hangars and an air traffic control tower. The airstrip itself is larger than the one at the international airport in Asuncion, the Paraguayan capital. It's oversized for the Paraguayan air force, which only has a handful of small aircrafts
Pope John Paul II (Vatican Control) was there in May 1988 when he visited the town of Santa Teresita, 3 kilometers away.
Estigarribia has a population of about 2000, which 300 belongs to the 6th Infantry Division, 3rd Corps, Paraguayan army garrison
On a May 2005 agreement, Paraguay allowed United States to use the base.

On July 1, 2005, the United States reportedly deployed troops and aircraft to the large military airfield of Mariscal Estigarribia as part of a bid to extend control of strategic interests in the Latin American sphere, particularly in Bolivia. A military training agreement with Asunción, giving immunity to US soldiers, caused some concern after media reports initially reported that a base housing 20,000 US soldiers was being built at Mariscal Estigarribia within 200 km of Argentina and Bolivia, and 300 km of Brazil, near an airport which could receive large planes (B-52, C-130 Hercules, etc.) which the Paraguan Air Forces do not have. The governments of Paraguay and the United States subsequently declared that the use of an airport (Dr Luís María Argaña International) was one point of transfer for few soldiers in Paraguay at the same time. According to the Clarín argentinian newspaper, the US military base is strategic because of its location near the Triple Frontera between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina; its proximity towards the Guarani aquifer; and, finally, its closeness toward Bolivia (less than 200 km) at the same "moment that Washington's magnifying glass goes on the Altiplano and points toward Venezuelian Hugo Chávez — the regional demon according to Bush's administration — as the instigator of the instability in the region" (El Clarín, making a clear reference to the Bolivian Gas War.

Written by Jessica Weisberg and Benjamin T. Brown Thursday, 05 October 2006

(Editor's note: Article updated, corrected on 10-13-06) On October 2, the Paraguayan government announced its decision to revoke U.S. immunity as soon as their current contract expires in December 2006. The US military has carried out military exercises in Paraguay since July 2005. Since then the troops have enjoyed technical and administrative immunity, exempting them from trial in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Thomas Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said that the US will not continue to provide military support without immunity for its soldiers. However, on October 3, 2006 President Bush signed a waiver allowing for military aid in countries that have refused to sign immunity agreements with the US military. The waiver affects 21 countries, including Paraguay.

Historically, Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte Frutos and President George W. Bush have enjoyed what Brazilian President Lula calls a "political matrimony." (quote from Ultimahora) Paraguay´s decision represents a political alliance with the countries in the MercoSur trade block,
which includes Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela.

Orlando Castillo, director of SERPAJ, a human rights organization based in Paraguay, stated that Frutos´ decision does not necessarily represent an ideological shift of Paraguay´s center-right government. Castillo explained that regional solidarity would require major reforms in all sectors of the Paraguayan government.

Furthermore, military representatives from the CIA, DEA, and FBI will continue to hold immunity in Paraguay.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE WITH OTHER LINKS:

The US Military Descends on Paraguay
Written by Benjamin Dangl, The Nation
Monday, 17 July 2006

While hitchhiking across Paraguay a few years ago, I met welcoming farmers who let me camp in their backyards. I eventually arrived in Ciudad del Este, known for its black markets and loose borders. Now the city and farmers I met are caught in the crossfire of the US military's "war on terror."

On May 26, 2005, the Paraguayan Senate allowed US troops to train their Paraguayan counterparts until December 2006, when the Paraguayan Senate can vote to extend the troops' stay. The United States had threatened to cut off millions in aid to the country if Paraguay did not grant the troops entry. In July 2005 hundreds of US soldiers arrived with planes, weapons and ammunition. Washington's funding for counterterrorism efforts in Paraguay soon doubled, and protests against the military presence hit the streets.

Some activists, military analysts and politicians in the region believe the operations could be part of a plan to overthrow the left-leaning government of Evo Morales in neighboring Bolivia and take control of the area's vast gas and water reserves. Human rights reports from Paraguay suggest the US military presence is, at the very least, heightening tensions in the country.

Soy and Landless Farmers

Paraguay is the fourth-largest producer of soy in the world. As this industry has expanded, an estimated 90,000 poor families have been forced off their land. Campesinos have organized protests, road blockades and land occupations against displacement and have faced subsequent repression from military and paramilitary forces. According to Grupo de Reflexion Rural (GRR), an Argentina-based organization that documents violence against farmers, on June 24, 2005, in Tekojoja, Paraguay, hired policemen and soy producers kicked 270 people off their land, burned down fifty-four homes, arrested 130 people and killed two.

The most recent case of this violence is the death of Serapio Villasboa Cabrera, a member of the Paraguayan Campesino Movement, whose body was found full of knife wounds May 8. Cabrera was the brother of Petrona Villasboa, who was spearheading an investigation into the death of her son, who died from exposure to toxic chemicals used by transgenic soy producers. According to Servicio, Paz y Justicia (Serpaj), an international human rights group that has a chapter in Paraguay, one method used to force farmers off their land is to spray toxic pesticides around communities until sickness forces residents to leave.

GRR said Cabrera was killed by paramilitaries connected to large landowners and soy producers, who are expanding their holdings. The paramilitaries pursue farm leaders who are organizing against the occupation of their land. Investigations by Serpaj demonstrate that the worst cases of repression against farmers have taken place in areas with the highest concentration of US troops. Serpaj reported that in the department of San Pedro, where five US military exercises took place, there have been eighteen farmer deaths from repression, in an area with many farmer organizations. In the department of Concepción there have been eleven deaths and three US military exercises. Near the Triple Border, where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet, there were twelve deaths and three exercises.

"The US military is advising the Paraguayan police and military about how to deal with these farmer groups.... They are teaching theory as well as technical skills to Paraguayan police and military. These new forms of combat have been used internally," Orlando Castillo of Serpaj told me over the phone. "The US troops talk with the farmers and get to know their leaders and which groups, organizations, are working there, then establish the plans and actions to control the farmer movement and advise the Paraguayan military and police on how to proceed.... The numbers from our study show what this US presence is doing. US troops form part of a security plan to repress the social movement in Paraguay. A lot of repression has happened in the name of security and against 'terrorism.' "

Tomas Palau, a Paraguayan sociologist at BASE-IS, a Paraguayan social research institute, and the editor of a recent book on the militarization of Latin America, said, "The US conducts training and classes for the Paraguayan troops. These classes are led by North Americans, who answer to Southern Command, the branch of the US military for South America."

Like Castillo, Palau said there is an association between the US military presence and the increased violence against campesinos. "They are teaching counterinsurgency classes, preparing the Paraguayan troops to fight internal enemies," he told me. He said it's common knowledge that the US troops and the Paraguayan troops are conducting operations together. "All the Paraguayan press is talking about this."

The US Embassy in Asunción rejects all claims that the US military is linked to the increased repression against campesino and protest groups, either through exercises or instruction. In an e-mail response to the charges, Bruce Kleiner of the Embassy's Office of Public Affairs writes that "the U.S. military is not monitoring protest groups in Paraguay" and that "the U.S. military personnel and Paraguayan armed forces have trained together during medical readiness training exercises (MEDRETEs) to provide humanitarian service to some of Paraguay's most disadvantaged citizens." However, the deputy speaker of the Paraguayan parliament, Alejandro Velazquez Ugarte, said that of the thirteen exercises going on in the country, only two are of a civilian nature.

According to BASE-IS, Paraguayan officials have recently used the threat of terrorism to justify their aggression against campesino leaders. One group, the Campesino Organization of the North, has been accused of receiving instructions from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), that country's largest leftist guerrilla movement. The FARC has also been accused of colluding in the kidnapping and murder of the daughter of former Paraguayan President Raúl Cubas Grau last year. A June 23 report from the Chinese news service Xinhua said that Colombia's defense minister, Camilo Ospina, spoke with Paraguay's attorney general, Ruben Candia, about the presence of the FARC in Paraguay. Ospina said the FARC was consulting organized crime groups and "giving criminals advice on explosives" in Paraguay.

Regarding the FARC connection in Paraguay, Paul Wolf, an international attorney in Washington who has studied the group closely and written about it, said, "Since the Colombian government hasn't shown any evidence or given any names, this can't be considered as anything but war propaganda." Linking Paraguayan campesino groups to the FARC is nothing new, particularly since the death of Cubas's daughter. However, in an interview with the Paraguayan newspaper La Nación, the bishop of Concepción, Zacarias Ortiz Rolon, said, "As far as the official interest in making believe that there is a guerrilla group and that it is fed by the Colombian FARC, that seems a bit suspicious to me."

The Association of Farmers of Alto Paraná (ASAGRAPA), a campesino group near the Triple Border, reported that a local politician offered one of the organization's leaders a sum of money equivalent to a monthly salary, in return for which the ASAGRAPA member was told to announce that other leaders in the organization were building a terrorist group and receiving training from the FARC. BASE-IS reports suggest that this type of bribery and disinformation is part of an effort to guarantee the "national security of the US" and "justify, continue and expand the North American military presence."

"All of these activities coincide with the presence of the US troops," Palau explained about the violence against farmers. "The CIA and FBI are also working here. It's likely they are generating these plans for fabricating lies about guerrilla and terrorist activities. They need to find terrorists to use as an excuse for militarization." Last October the Cuban media outlet Prensa Latina reported that FBI director Robert Mueller arrived in Paraguay to "check on preparations for the installation of a permanent FBI office in Asunción...to cooperate with security organizations to fight international crime, drug traffic and kidnapping."

Journalist Hugo Olázar of the Argentine paper Clarín reported last September that US troops were operating from an air base in Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay. He visited the base last year and said it had an air-traffic control tower, a military encampment and was capable of handling large aircraft. Though the United States denies it is operating at the base, it used the same rhetoric when first discussing its actions in Manta, Ecuador, which is currently home to an $80 million US military base. The base there was first described in 1999 as an archaic "dirt strip" used only for weather monitoring. Days later, the Pentagon said it would be utilized for security-related missions.

Other indications that the US military might be settling into Paraguay come from the right-wing Paraguayan government. Current President Nicanor Duarte Frutos is a member of the Colorado party, which has ruled the country for more than fifty years. It was this party that established the thirty-five-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. Soon after his election in 2003, Duarte became the first Paraguayan president to be received at the White House. Last August Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flew to Paraguay. Shortly afterward, Dick Cheney met with Paraguay's vice president.

Last year, Argentine Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel commented on the situation in Paraguay, "Once the United States arrives, it takes it a long time to leave. And that really frightens me."

Washington has justified its military presence in Paraguay by stating that the Triple Border area at Ciudad del Este is a base for Islamist terrorist funding. In a June 3, 2006, Associated Press report, Western intelligence officials, speaking anonymously, claimed that if Iran is cornered by the United States, it could direct the international network of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah to assist in terrorist attacks. The Justice Department has indicted nineteen people this year for sending the profits from the sale of counterfeit rolling papers and Viagra to Hezbollah. "Extensive operations have been uncovered in South America," the AP article states, "where Hezbollah is well connected to the drug trade, particularly in the region where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet."

Other claims about terrorist networks said to be operating in the Triple Border region include a poster of Iguaçu Falls, a tourist destination near Ciudad del Este, discovered by US troops on the wall of an Al Qaeda operative's home in Kabul, Afghanistan, shortly after 9/11. Aside from this, however, the US Southern Command and the State Department report that no "credible information" exists confirming that "Islamic terrorist cells are planning attacks in Latin America."

Luiz Moniz Bandeira, who holds a chair in history at the University of Brasília and writes about US-Brazilian relations, was quoted in the Washington Times as saying, "I wouldn't dismiss the hypothesis that US agents plant stories in the media about Arab terrorists in the Triple Frontier to provoke terrorism and justify their military presence."

Throughout the cold war, the US government used the threat of communism as an excuse for its military adventures in Latin America. Now, as leaders such as Bolivia's Evo Morales and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez move further outside the sphere of Washington's interests, the United States is using another "ism" as an alibi for its military presence. As Greg Grandin pointed out in his article "The Wide War," first posted on TomDispatch.com, the Pentagon now has more resources and money directed to Latin America than the Departments of State, Agriculture, Commerce and Treasury combined. Before 9/11 the annual US military aid to the region was around $400 million. It's now nearly $1 billion. Much of this goes to training troops.

Making wild allegations about Paraguayan farmers being terrorists is one way to justify the increased spending and military presence in the region. "The US government is lying about the terrorist funding in the Triple Border, just like they did about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," said an exasperated Castillo of Serpaj. Indeed, the street markets I walked through in Ciudad del Este, and the farmers I met along the way, seemed to pose as much of a threat to US security as a pirated Tom Petty CD or a bottle of counterfeit whiskey.

This article was first printed in The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060717/dangl

Benjamin Dangl is the editor of Upside Down World, an online magazine uncovering activism and politics in Latin America, and Toward Freedom, a progressive perspective on world events. He is the author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia, forthcoming from AK Press in March 2007, and a recipient of a 2007 Project Censored Award for his coverage of US military operations in Paraguay.

Hezbollah South of the Border
By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times 3-4/8/06
Aug 4, 2006, 09:42

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There's Little Asia - thousands of Taiwanese, mainland Chinese and Koreans. But above all there are some 20,000 Arabs of Syrian and mostly Lebanese descent (another 12,000 live in the Brazilian resort of Foz do Iguacu, across the Friendship Bridge).

Welcome to Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, population 200,000, free-trade cesspit and World Trade Organization wet dream, realm of sacoleiros (bag carriers) crossing the bridge every day and dreaming of the ultimate knockoff, but mostly realm of money changers, prehistoric armored cars, gun-and-coke dealers, dodgy pharmacists and stolen Mercedes with tinted windows.

The border is virtually non-existent, as Paraguay is a Mercosur member (along with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela). Airspace is free - virtually no radar. Cocaine comes by plane or truck from the Bolivian Andes. Brazilian weapons are everywhere - not to mention real and fake Kalashnikovs. Tons of laundered money whirl in free flow. The whole thing is a dizzying black void of billions of dollars in contraband, narco-trafficking, weapons smuggling, money laundering, car theft, piracy and corruption of public officials.

And it gets worse: it's crammed with terrorists.

Stand and deliver The head of the US Southcom (Southern Command), the vociferous General Brantz Craddock, is absolutely convinced the Triple Border is the abode of "the "transnational terrorist, the narco-terrorist, the Islamic radical fundraiser and recruiter, the illicit trafficker, the money launderer, the kidnapper and the gang member". The emphasis is on "terrorist" and "Islamic". Southcom - US$800 million annual budget, more than the State, Treasury, Commerce and Agriculture departments combined - is the eyes and ears of the Pentagon over Latin America.

In essence, this is how it works. Armchair gurus in Washington and New York theorize on the so-called five wars of globalization - terrorism, trafficking, money laundering, piracy and migration - and the Pentagon sends the Special Forces posing as cleaners to make it all proper for the "free" world. The underlying assumption is that Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda - "in sum, terror" - are profiting like mad from the so-called five wars.

The "new threats of the 21st century recognize no borders", according to the Pentagon. Ergo, everyone may be a terrorist, at least a potential one. Not accidentally, General Craddock hates "anti-globalization and anti-free-trade demagogues". Sunni or Shi'ite, Marxist or anarchist, ruralist or existentialist, the Russian mafia, the Hong Kong triads, the Nigerian mafia, the Ukrainian mafia - they are all in cahoots. And for the Pentagon, Hezbollah is selling pirate video discs of

Written by Jessica Weisberg and Benjamin T. Brown
Thursday, 05 October 2006
(Editor's note: Article updated, corrected on 10-13-06) On October 2, the Paraguayan government announced its decision to revoke U.S. immunity as soon as their current contract expires in December 2006. The US military has carried out military exercises in Paraguay since July 2005. Since then the troops have enjoyed technical and administrative immunity, exempting them from trial in the International Criminal Court (ICC). Thomas Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said that the US will not continue to provide military support without immunity for its soldiers. However, on October 3, 2006 President Bush signed a waiver allowing for military aid in countries that have refused to sign immunity agreements with the US military. The waiver affects 21 countries, including Paraguay. Historically, Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte Frutos and President George W. Bush have enjoyed what Brazilian President Lula calls a "political matrimony." (quote from Ultimahora) Paraguay´s decision represents a political alliance with the countries in the MercoSur trade block, which includes Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela. Orlando Castillo, director of SERPAJ, a human rights organization based in Paraguay, stated that Frutos´decision does not necessarily represent an ideological shift of Paraguay´s center-right government. Castillo explained that regional solidarity would require major reforms in all sectors of the Paraguayan government. Furthermore, military representatives from the CIA, DEA, and FBI will continue to hold immunity in Paraguay.

We Hate To Bring Up the Nazis, But They Fled To South America, Too

Why has Bush bought 150 square miles in northern Paraguay? (Hellie)