New vs. Old Right in Paraguay's Election
Howard, Benjamin Dangl and April
NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: the right
2000 in Cochabamba, and the two gas wars, in 2003 in El Alto and throughout the country in 2005; in Ecuador, the indigenous uprisings of 1990,...
...The children wore the insignias of major and lieutenant colonel, which is prohibited by law...
...my the candidates representing the old statist right include fight and my government have and will have a clear objective, duarte—whose success seems unlikely, given that the a well-identified enemy: poverty,” she declared on her blog...
...He appointed ministers to his cabinet who are linked to the multinational sector, including Roberto Rodrigues, minister of agriculture during the first four years of the Lula government...
...the government None of these governments are interested in giving up the neo seeks to throw liberal model...
...one of citizens’ few prospects for they represented the Colorado party signaled that they will employment is through the Colorado party, which employs not challenge the status quo—that is, the monolithic clien-some 200,000 people, 95% of whom are party members, in telist state apparatus that the party embodies...
...corporate interests in producing ethanol from sugarcane...
...multinational firms,” mostly in the computer, agro-in-his requests for laicization, and paraguayan law forbids dustrial, telecom, and banking industries, have subsidiar-clergy from running for office...
...This rotation in hegemonies is part of profound changes to the very role of the region’s right wings...
...However, this represents a weakness of the right...
...This new unit’s official objective is to fight organized crime in “those acts that run counter to national security and to restore order...
...Faced with the magnitude of such changes, the right has had to find new channels of expression...
...But the stability in the Southern Cone is linked to political immobility, to the fact that right-wing interests are not endangered...
...5 Faced with the inability to strengthen the state and sustain credible parties among the population, Colombian elites have diverted resources from Plan Colombia to “refound” the country on new grounds...
...One significant event reveals what we could call the militarization of the Mexican right: The day on which the beginning of the country’s war of independence is celebrated, September 16, Calderón presided over an immense military parade, in\cluding both ground and air forces, surrounded by his small children dressed in military uniforms...
...noah Friedman-rudovsky JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 report: the right T he presidents of mexico and colombia, felipe Calderón and Álvaro Uribe, represent a phenom enon belonging to another era: the conversion of the right wing into an ultra-right allied with the armed forces or with paramilitaries...
...though the anti-piracy and anti-narco-trafficking projects on the sieve-two countries have long been close, tensions arose even dur-like border...
...Old Right in Par-and in those where aguay’s Elections,” page 14...
...Colombia has one of the highest crime rates in the world, and the state appears incapable of providing security and justice...
...In the short term, the most important role is that of the right in Bolivia and Ecuador, since the Venezuelan right seems it will be defeated for a long time...
...There are notable differences, however, between the two countries...
...even military officials commented that this was an “excess...
...In venezuela, the mass media alone have the capacity to fill the right-wing leadership void...
...However, few believe Brazilian hegemony will be as damaging for the people as that of the U.S...
...on a trip to Capitalizing on his “martyr” status earned during a jail stint the united states in 2005, Castiglioni was photographed in for participating in the coup, he promotes “a judicial guarchummy meetings with roger noriega, dick Cheney, donald antee of public order...
...Uribe was elected as the war president after a century of civil violence and 20 years of failed peace processes, which have generated deep skepticism in a population tired as much of politicians and their electoral promises as of armed groups of whatever political bent...
...Among the principal promoters of the Inter-American CommissiononEthanol,launchedinDecember2006,are two key, well-connected figures: Jeb Bush, ex-governor of Florida, and Rodrigues, the former agriculture minister...
...In the four counthose countries tries, left or progressive forces where the right has pursue the same policies as the become an ultra-traditional right but with more attention to the poor, and sup-right allied with porting education and health the White House, care (for the Paraguayan case, see “New vs...
...But besides rado party, which has been in power for 61 years, the longest insulting ovelar, Castiglioni’s campaign speeches have been continuous rule of any political party in the world...
...fiscal control...
...He did not pursue agrarian reform as he promised and fervently supported agrobusiness, particularly the soy lobby, but he also established an extensive welfare plan for some 12.5 million poor Brazilians...
...It is not assured that the governments of Morales and Correa will manage to be as successful as Chávez’s...
...The true meaning of the collapse of the Communisms,” he asserted, “is the final collapse of liberalism as a hegemonic ideology...
...But she also used new populist rhetoric...
...Old Right in Paraguay’s Election ow that much of Latin america has shifted to the left, terests that have arisen since the end of the stroessner era, nparaguay remains a key washington ally...
...has been...
...It is also simi lar to the process Argentina Southern Cone...
...in government impossible,” he says...
...In some regions like Magdelena Medio, the paramilitaries seek to impose strict control on daily life...
...Or, at least, that is their perception, since their rejection of the government is influenced by the favorable treatment given to the poorest Venezuelans, who always have darker skin, listen to different music, live segregated on the cerros (hillside barrios), and come through the city improvising informal jobs...
...In doing so, its limitations come into evidence, since to mobilize the population it must resort to the lie of exaggeration, which often occurs and produces results contrary to its interests...
...Yet his base comprises fickers conducting business in paraguay...
...and counterfeit goods alike find their way to port...
...while both followed in the anti-corruption footsteps of many paraguayan roads, water systems, and electric utilities outgoing president nicanor duarte frutos, the very fact that remain under state control...
...But it has also identified paraguay as a with oviedo, is considered a front-runner...
...The fearful population opted for security: Using a discourse of mano dura (iron fist) to end the war, Uribe was elected in 2002 and reelected in 2006 with the support of paramilitary sectors...
...But he adds that if the 1996, Forbes magazine ranked the city as the third most im-Colorado party does win the elections, a continuation of portant commercial center, after miami and Hong kong—a its clientelist, pro-business policies for the next five years crucial node in the trade circuits through which legitimate could be “disastrous...
...initially named port stroessner after capable, and could mobilize their wide support and state-the dictator founded it in 1957, the city exists in the tri-border based infrastructure to make any advances by the new region where paraguay, Brazil, and argentina meet...
...tivated close ties with him, especially on trade...
...an society...
...up mandating silence and the retreat of individuals toward the private and domestic sphere...
...nonetheless, Lugo, together ies in the country...
...For this reason, new political forces have arisen in those countries, and in each case have established constituent assemblies to refound the nation on new grounds...
...Thus, to achieve mass support, the right had to push for autonomy...
...In Bolivia the use of the racial factor has been very evident...
...global hegemony is increasingly reflected in Latin America with Brazil, that is, with the Brazilian business class...
...upon his election in 2003, the two main contenders for the Colorado party’s nomina-duarte, a Colorado stalwart, declared, “neoliberalism has tion best represent this new paraguayan right: Blanca ove-been a failure because it denies human dignity...
...6 A schedule for minors was also established with obligatory study hours for those 17 years and younger...
...Constitution will have to be changed to allow him to seek a (more than half of the paraguayan population lives under the second term—and general Lino oviedo, running under his poverty line...
...In not a few of the cases, the crisis of the right is making it possible for old social actors (business people, media, intellectuals) to become new political subjects...
...ably don’t coincide past a rejection of Colorado rule...
...Yet as the panorama of candidates for the april Castiglioni’s advocacy of corporate control over public presidential election makes clear, a new right-wing faction services and deregulating the economy clashes with the old is emerging within the party, pledging to cut the umbilical right’s vast system of clientelism, in which public jobs are ofcord with the past...
...During the parade, several helicopters descended onto the plaza so the camouflaged soldiers could simulate combat...
...Finally, the right has turned to forms of struggle that until now were the patrimony of the popular sectors, like hunger strikes and occupations of public buildings, courthouses, and streets...
...8...
...In this scenario, the country would military parade, march toward a “vigilante soincluding both ciety” in which “confidence among neighbors, the old soliground and dary loyalties and social fabrics air forces, would fracture, dissolve, atomsurrounded by ize...
...It has effectively divided the country: the indigenous altiplano and the media luna (half-moon) region, home to the principal gas riches, led by Santa Cruz...
...these ciologist and human rights advocate marco Castillo, they concerns center on one of the country’s most notorious cit-are in for a surprise...
...This sector is ready to deforest the Amazon to permit the Brazilian ethanol industry to supply agrofuels to the first world...
...Moreover: Everything indicates that the decline in U.S...
...Thus, a global look at the continent allows us to conclude that it is in the countries of the Southern Cone where more stability is to be found...
...meanwhile, in those countries where the right has become an ultra-right allied with the White House and those where governments seek to throw off neoliberalism, instability and political-social conflicts are permanent...
...Rehabilitation and Conolidation Zones were cre on the day on ated, under military leadership, which the where citizen rights like holding beginning of the meetings and demonstrations are restricted...
...On the one hand, it delegitimized the neoliberal system and held back elite plans...
...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: the right 2000 in Cochabamba, and the two gas wars, in 2003 in El Alto and throughout the country in 2005...
...The Venezuelan right has long experimented with the use of media as a means of creating political crises and reversing the Bolivarian process...
...and today, washington touts the fact that “more than a dozen his candidacy is uncertain, since the vatican has rejected u.s...
...Here the right factions do no come to “mutate...
...Henry Salgado Ruiz asserts that Plan Colombia is an integral, long-term project to “open” the entire region to multinational control.7 The approval of the free trade agreement with the United States and the installation of large open-pit mining projects and monocultures in zones “liberated” by paramilitaries form part of the construction of a new right in Colombia...
...which allows them to counteract the influence of the great media monopolies...
...He represents new in-and to restructure the state government but fails to offer JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 report: the right president, “the country’s principal TV stations broadcast game shows, variety shows, sitcoms, and movies, with no news programming...
...On the other, it discredited traditional leaderships and the political parties they supported...
...In effect, Lula pursues a right-wing policy and has become a corporate darling...
...After establishing a solid alliance with this sector and with national and global banks, Lula proposed continuing the social-democratic neoliberal policies of his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso...
...stroessner himself a wide coalition of opposition forces whose interests probcame to be called king of the smugglers...
...Said another way, the fall of real socialism not only affected the various national left wings, but also, as Immanuel Wallerstein has maintained, liberals and conservatives, who can longer continue governing as before...
...The best example was what happened during the coup of 2002...
...though many view the party as corrupt and ineffective, ruption, promising “systematic, rigorous, and professional” supporting it often means receiving a salary...
...For more on this, see “By Means Legal and Otherwise,” page 20...
...First there were the great demonstrations in Santa Cruz, headquarters of the most powerful business class in the country...
...This certainly isn’t happening throughout Colombia, but it is a practice that can be found in those regions effectively ruled by paramilitaries...
...In both cases the right achieved wide, mass support and competed with popular governments in their capacity as mobilizers...
...oviedo was banned Castiglioni, on the other hand, is a close washington ally from the election for participating in a foiled 1996 military and promoter of neoliberal policies...
...Yet it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to ing the stroessner era over the dictator’s not so subtle drug enforce legislation against the mafia and narco-traffickers business...
...Mexican war of The analyst María Teresa Uribe independence holds that the government has pursued a “citizen soldier” model, is celebrated, which proposes to remake sociSeptember 16, ety under “the parameters of the militia” and to “transform the Calderón citizen into a combatant with presided over commitments and obligations an immense in wartime circumstances...
...and Uruguay are undergoing, meanwhile, in notwithstanding some minor differences...
...He also promises a new constitution rumsfeld, and the director of the fBi...
...in Ecuador, the indigenous uprisings of 1990, 1997, and 2000...
...the Colorados are organized and ies, Ciudad del este...
...thus the old right has more links to narco-traffickers Benjamin Dangl is the author of the price of fire: resource and the lumpen business class, both of which depend on wars and social movements in Bolivia (AK Press, 2007...
...In fact, the autonomy movement spurred by the Santa Cruz elite, which largely self-identifies as “white,” together with departments that make up the media luna, are clearly driven by a rejection of the indigenous people of the altiplano...
...major illicit producer of cannabis” and “locus of money in any case, if paraguayan voters think ousting the Cololaundering, smuggling, arms and illegal narcotics traffick-rados is enough to create change, warns paraguayan soing, and fundraising for extremist organizations...
...As we have seen, today there are countries where the right has made a militarist turn, making it ultra-right or radical right, while at the extreme opposite, the traditional right has become occupied with its alliances with the left and sectors of the center and center-right...
...In this country, however, there exists a wide variety of media in the hands of popular sectors, by Benjamin Dangl and April Howard any details on how he would go about this...
...3 Media employees reported that the directives dictated that Chávez supporters and spokespeople were specifically to be omitted...
...The war has created 3 million displaced people, 8,000 annual homicides for political-social reasons, 3,500 kidnappings each year, and hundreds of forced disappearances...
...Almost in no country does the right-wing panorama represented by its conservative parties bear any similarity to anything before 1990...
...In 2007, he took a more ambitious step: He established a long-term alliance with the Bush administration and with U.S...
...In sum, there has not arisen a single, unitary new right in Latin America, since the political processes in every country are markedly different, making generalizations difficult...
...lacking party structures with wide social support, it must turn to the media as a last resort...
...Moreover, all of off neoliberalism, them are deepening their cominstability and mitment to it: mining in Chile, soy in Argentina, forestry and social conflicts are cellulose in Uruguay, and ethapermanent...
...this system lar, a former minister of education, and Luis Castiglioni, who relies entirely on state programs and services...
...In Venezuela, the mass media alone have the capacity to fill the leadership void—in other words, the media fill in for right-wing parties...
...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: the right former Spanish president josé María aznar arrives in Santa Cruz, bolivia, for the 2003 Ibero-american Presidential Summit...
...4 The force reports directly to the president and is considered a means of involving the military in maintaining internal order...
...ramón lepage / orinoquiaphoto / archivo latino and disorganizes the movements, since it introduces a strong dose of confusion among the grass roots...
...unlike in other renounced his post as vice president in october in order to Latin american countries where neoliberalism has flourished, run...
...Raising the banner of autonomism has permitted the right to appear not directly racist and to achieve massive support among middle-class youth...
...In Bolivia, the right, having been displaced from power, also uses the media as a means of recovering its leadership...
...The plaza of the zócalo was replete with uniformed soldiers, and the press pointed out that “for the first time, the special army troops made a demonstration in the heart of the country...
...In both these Andean countries, a decisive battle is under way in which a new political situation will emerge, one that will have strong influence in the South American region...
...national union of ethical Citizens party...
...nol, soy, and cellulose in Bra zil...
...In parallel, the fact that left or progressive factions are following the same policies as the right demoralizes JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 report: the right Media mogul Gustavo Cisneros flies over Caracas in 2002...
...What we could call the “Brazilian model” is very similar to the one Chile has More stability is followed since the 1990 return to be found in the to democracy...
...Among the movements, debates abound on the new situation in a panorama dominated by many disagreements and few points in common...
...social movements are active but don’t now have the capacity to counteract this form of domination...
...L uiz inácio lula da silva arrived in government committed to respecting financial capital and large corporations...
...In Barrancabermeja, a paramilitary laboratory, “young men are prohibited from having long hair or wearing earrings or bracelets,” while gay bars were closed and “the hair salons with homo NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: the right sexual men were handed over to women...
...In Venezuela the right has been able to mobilize businesspeople, who pressure their employees to go on strike, paying them for the days they don’t work, and has obtained the support of the principal central union, the Workers Confederation of Venezuela...
...With the excuse of combating drug trafficking, he quickly ordered a massive military deployment the likes of which the country hadn’t seen in years...
...The issue might seem minor, but it did successfully mobilize wide sectors of society that channel their dissatisfactions through autonomist demands...
...active participation in the operation of cocaine laboratories,” in contrast to the other candidates, fernando Lugo, the and in 1988, the u.s.-based Cox newspapers reported that bearded former bishop running for president, represents a stroessner was collecting payoffs from “all narcotics traf-link to the new left in Latin america...
...and legislative sectors on projects ranging from “medical relations with washington, which has lavished paraguay missions” among the radicalized anti-soy farming comwith democratization projects (that is, military training) in re-munity, to military training for pro-soy law enforcement, to cent years, figure heavily as a campaign issue...
...In such a social order, “mu tual suspicion, collective action, his small children public deliberation, and social dressed in military organization would decline, and mutual suspicion would end uniforms...
...Were this to happen, Brazil would become a global player and, effectively, the leading economic power of South America...
...Some of its companies are among the most important in Latin America and even in the world, like the aeronautics firm Embraer, the oil company Petrobras, and the mining company Vale do Rio Doce...
...The really serious thing is that Uribe maintains a close alliance with them, and that the “social cleansing” goes hand in hand with the Bush administration, which seeks to subordinate the country to the political, military, and economic objectives of Washington...
...Later, during the Constituent Assembly meetings, the autonomists raised the banner for Sucre, the city where the assembly meets, to become not only the country’s political but also its administrative capital...
...washington continues to work with military org, a Web site on activism and politics in Latin America...
...The case of Colombia is even more serious, given that it is a country in the midst of a civil war...
...In both countries, the ultra-right turn is part of the political-economic alliance with Washington, in which NAFTA and the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement play a relevant part...
...Brazil, the world’s eighth largest industrial power, is home to Latin America’s largest private business sector...
...a 1986 House of representatives report declared given the connections they have to high-ranking members that there was “evidence of military collaboration and even of the police, military, and judiciary...
...The media actively supported the coup plotters, and when Chávez was reinstated as New vs...
...this enor-limited to anti-corruption rhetoric, particularly with regard to mous political machine, much of it built and consolidated the disappearance of $50 million from the social project fund during the 35-year military dictatorship (1954–89) of general of the binational Hydroelectric itaipú Company, for which he alfredo stroessner, still permeates every inch of paraguay-blames the paraguayan director víctor Bernal and duarte...
...The profundity of the social movements’ offensive had many effects on the political system...
...In these countries, the right has been worn out and its polices have been taken over by the progressive left without profound changes...
...fered in return for political support...
...by counterfeits...
...international trade and black market goods, whereas these April Howard is a journalist, translator, and adjunct lectur-illicit flows are a thorn in the side of the new right and the er of Latin American studies at the State University of New multinational corporations whose products are undersold York, Plattsburgh...
...This is explained in great measure by Caracas’s middle class having come out hurt by the Bolivarian process...
...The government created a network of civil informants of up to 1 million people to support the armed forces, with security forces in the barrios and commercial areas...
...Aware that his government was born in the midst of hostility from a large part of the population during a time when social conflicts are still a destabilizing factor (Chiapas and Oaxaca in the first place), he seems prepared to resolve such conflicts with force...
...Reports by several human rights groups on Magdelena Medio point out that young people can be seen, machetes in hand, cleaning public areas as a part of their penalty and in other cases people are obliged to wear signs indicating that they are thieves or prostitutes...
...the country’s particularly soy growers and cattle ranchers, as well as the political landscape continues to be dominated by the Colo-transnational agribusinesses allied with them...
...Both are editors at UpsideDownWorld...
...Hours for public establishments were limited, along with sanctions and penalties for those who did not comply...
...washington has cul-coup, until the supreme Court pardoned him in october...
...It established the Day of Compensation, which awards money to citizens who, in the previous week, have helped the security forces avoid a terrorist act or capture a suspect...
...The United Forces for Federal Support—a military unit created May 10, 2007, a few weeks after Calderón became president—also participated...
...Until now, the Bolivian right has successfully obstructed the Constituent Assembly, and is ready to maintain its offensive against the Morales government, which is showing signs of disorder...
...Calderón beat the progressive candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador in a dubious election, and since his first day as president has shown that he is ready to govern with soldiers...
...while adher-various capacities, from construction to teaching to local poli ing to conservative Colorado policies, ovelar attacked cor-tics...
Vol. 41 • January 2008 • No. 1
