GMW: The Pentagon, militarism and the GM soya stranglehold

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GMW: The Pentagon, militarism and the GM soya stranglehold

" GM WATCH " <info

Fri, 4 Aug 2006 09:37:19 +0100

 

 

 

 

 

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FOCUS ON LATIN AMERICA

 

EXCERPTS: The Pentagon seems to have understood the risks posed to the

continuity of United States dominance by social movements in Latin

America...

 

In the last decade, the area sown with genetically manipulated soya

went from 800,000 hectares to 2 million hectares, taking up 64% of the

country's agricultural area. The soya frontier advances over communal

lands and those of small farmers and has led to a dramatic clearance of

rural working families from the land.

 

....Soya's advance was accompanied by the rise of the rural workers

movement... Marches, roadblocks, land occupations and sit-ins in public

buildings turned the rural workers movement into the most important in

the

country... But the Duarte Frutos government that took office in 2003

took a severe anti-popular and above all anti-rural workers line...

 

Around 100 rural workers have been murdered by the paramilitary groups

and the state security services, more than 2000 are on trial and have

to present themselves weekly to the authorities, nor can they take part

in public demonstrations. Meanwhile, the soya business continues to

strangle the subsistence economy of rural working families, killing

children with pesticide induced poisoning.

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Paraguay, Militarism and Social Movements

La Jornada, Argenpress 28 July 2006

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=20 & ItemID=10696

 

The Pentagon seems to have understood the risks posed to the continuity

of United States dominance by social movements in Latin America. The

option of militarizing societies serves two aims: it guarantees control

of natural resources and protects governments so as to block social

movements' progress. In some countries like Colombia and Paraguay, both

processes merge into a strategy using them as solid platforms from which

to expand imperial control.

 

A visit in mid-July by the International Observer Mission of the

Campaign for the De-militarization of the Americas (CADA) composed of 15

people from 8 countries was able to confirm both aspects in the

field. The

presence of troops from the US Southern Command carrying out 13

designated missions since July 1st 2005 thanks to immunity conceded to

them by

the Paraguayan parliament, has been widely reported by numerous media

throughout the continent. Although the permanent, direct military

presence hovers around 50 or so military personnel, the influence the

Southern Command is gaining in Paraguay is much more important than the

figures suggest.

 

In effect, US-Paraguay relations go much further and run from the

possibility that the South American country might withdraw from

Mercosur to

sign a bilateral free trade treaty with Washington to the installation

of a military base near the Triple Frontier, following the training of

thousands of Paraguayan military personnel in anti-terrorist,

anti-drugs operations.

 

However, the militarization of Paraguayan society is a much less

visible process but with long term repercussions. 2004 was the tipping

point.

President Nicanor Duarte Frutos decreed the use of the armed forces in

the streets to carry out internal security tasks in rural areas and at

the same time promoted the creation of Citizen Security Councils,

paramilitary organizations armed by the Ministry of the Interior. If

the use

of the military for police tasks is a grave development, the creation

of the Security Councils marks an unprecedented move in the continent.

It is true that the Colombian paramilitaries, formed forty years ago at

the behest of US advisers, control a large part of the country and

State apparatus; and that in Guatemala the paramilitaries played a

significant role in the fight against the guerrillas and that in Peru the

" rondas " civilian patrols armed by the army played a similar role. But in

those three countries one might argue - from a " scorched earth " logic -

that their wars led to the arming of genocidal paramilitary groups.

 

Paraguay's case is different. Here, the paramilitaries have grown out

of social conflict, from the struggle of the campesino movements for

land and agrarian reform. And it has been the Paraguyan State that has

created them. The big landowners took the first step ten years ago by

creating the Committee for the Defence of Private Property. Now it is the

very government, via the Interior Ministry, that has created the Citizen

Security Councils, a parallel structure, armed by the State and

protected by soya planters and big landowners. In the last decade, the

area

sown with genetically manipulated soya went from 800,000 hectares to 2

million hectares, taking up 64% of the country's agricultural area. The

soya frontier advances over communal lands and those of small farmers

and has led to a dramatic clearance of rural working families from the

land. When Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship fell in 1989, 67% of

Paraguayans lived in rural areas , now barely 47% remain on the land.

Around a

million and a half Paraguayans live in Argentina, 50,000 in Spain. (1)

 

Soya's advance was accompanied by the rise of the rural workers

movement, gathered in two large organizations : the national Coordinating

Table of Campesino Organizations (MCNOC), linked to Via Campesina and the

National Rural workers Federation (FNC). Marches, roadblocks, land

occupations and sit-ins in public buildings turned the rural workers

movement into the most important in the country. The movements' power

was such

that they managed, in 2002, to hold up neoliberal privatization

policies and were able to settle thousands of families. But the Duarte

Frutos

government that took office in 2003 took a severe anti-popular and

above all anti-rural workers line. With the police and the governing

Colorado Party's client networks of control overrun, hardline policies

were

imposed. One eloquent statistic :

 

the Citizen Security Councils today have 22,000 members, many of them

recruited from the Colorado Party or from criminals, compared to just

9,000 police.

 

The rural worker's movements have not given way despite the

harrassment, persecution and abuses. Around 100 rural workers have

been murdered

by the paramilitary groups and the state security services, more than

2000 are on trial and have to present themselves weekly to the

authorities, nor can they take part in public demonstrations.

Meanwhile, the soya

business continues to strangle the subsistence economy of rural working

families, killing children with pesticide induced poisoning. The plans

of the elites mean to continue clearing people from the land until the

rural population drops to little more than 10%.

 

A hard battle for continental dominance is taking place in Paraguay.

Stopping the installation of US military bases and reversing the presence

of foreign military in that country will be an important step. But it

will not happen without the effective demilitarization of a society that

refuses to be turned into a platform for the US Southern Command and

for agricultural big business.

 

Trnaslator's note 1. Paraguay's population in 2005 was estimated at

just under 6.5 million people

 

Translated from Spanish into English by toni solo, a member of Tlaxcala

(www.tlaxcala.es), the network of translators for linguistic diversity.

This translation is Copyleft.

 

 

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