After spending two days in the United States, Fernando Lugo traveled to El Salvador a day before the XVIII Cumbre Iberamericana kicked off. Thus he was able to spend a bit more time meeting with the heads of state who were already there, like the King of Spain. (Remember, it was during the last cumbre that the number #1 Spanish-language ringtone was inaugurated when Juan Carlos I snapped at an interrupting Hugo Chavez, "¿Por qué no te callas?" launching a flurry of internet-creativity. Reyggeaton version (a pun) below.)

This week, Lugo has consolidated his international reputation.

President Bush says, "And Mr. President, it gives me great comfort to know that you're the person with whom we can work." Which quickly makes headlines in Paraguay as "Usted es la persona con la cual podemos trabajar." This is then followed a few days by a US-initiated suggestion that Paraguay and Uruguay form a strategic alliance, given Lugo's "technical ability" and "democratic role model" within the region. And Christopher McMullen (the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs), in making this announcement, adds, "Estamos entusiasmados por trabajar con el Gobierno paraguayo después de 61 años de administraciones coloradas. Hay una oportunidad para el cambio." ("We are excited about working with the government of Paraguay after 61 years of Colorado rule. There's an opportunity for change.")

And images like this have arisen from the week:

These images, of Lugo being saluted by El Salvador's military, warmly shaking hands with the president of the United States, chatting on the couch with Brazil's Lula (after having communicated a strong critique of that country's militarization at its Paraguayan border), are extremely destabilizing.

Destabilizing to more traditional oligarchic groups, that is. Lugo's high international profile and the implicit and explicit critique of Paraguay's traditional rulers that signifies has led to a flurry of infighting here that seeks to diminish Lugo's legitimacy. The entrenched political parties, enriched via graft and endangered via an exploding Itaipu-based corruption scandal that might actually go to trial one day, are a bit threatened by a president who doesn't need them to rule. And so, anxieties abound:

Galaverna dice que Lugo pretende humillar a Franco y que lo consigue. ([Senator, Colorado party] Galaverna says Lugo seeks to humiliate [Vice-president, Liberal party] Franco and that he's succeeding.)

ANR cuestiona "anarquía del gobierno". (ANR [a.k.a. Colorado party] questions "the anarchy within the government")

Franco: "A lo mejor él hubiese querido que otro sea su vice". (Franco [vice-president of Paraguay, Liberal party]: "Perhaps he would have wanted a different vice-president.")

Federico "confirma" problemas de comunicación con Lugo. (Federico [Franco] "confirms" that he has communication problems with Lugo.)

And, as promised:

In just a few hours, the Paraguayan president will meet with the current president of the United States. This is part of Lugo's second official trip to the U.S. Presumably they'll talk a bit about the economic crisis and its particular effects on Latin America (in other news, the dollar continues to strengthen here in Paraguay).

After spending a bit of time in DC, visiting the American University (and hopefully stopping by the Smithsonian... what an incredible series of museums!), he'll head to El Salvador and then Mexico, where he'll meet up with presidents Elías Antonio Saca González and Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (respectively).

UPDATE:
Here's the photo of the meeting, courtesy of Ultima Hora:


They spoke about Paraguay's attempt to deal with rampant government corruption.

UPDATE: Here is the transcript of their jointly held press conference.

Olive Oil... the low-end stuff is 3 or 4 times the price of what it is in the states.

Bleach... impossible to find, so far, at any price.

Dark beer on tap... unfound, so far.

With the kidnapping and death of Cecilia Cubas, a tragedy has unfolded in Paraguay that illustrates unchecked violence and threatens to take the lives of six more people in the coming days. The story is a Gordian knot of secrecy, political expediency, expendable lives, and cruelty.

Though a ransom of $800,000 was paid, Cecilia Cubas' strangled body was found in February 2005 in an abandoned house in a small town near Asunción. Her father, Raúl Cubas Grau, had been president of the republic during a time that saw the assassination of his vice-president, Luís Maria Argaña, in 1999 at the hands of as-yet-unknown assailents--a deed that has been tied to Lino Oviedo, in an attempt to take over the Colorado Party. After the assassination, Raúl Cubas was deposed amidst charges of corruption and the hit on Argaña, and he fled to Brazil. He was eventually acquitted of all charges, though the entire episode demonstrated fissures and power struggles within the Colorado Party--an institution in power for more than 6 decades and whose members have been invovled in massive amounts of corruption and fraud in Paraguay. (Photo of Ms. Cubas' interment from EFE.)

The 2004 kidnapping was immediately linked, by the government, to "leftist" guerrilla and when Ms. Cubas body was discovered, six peasant leaders were accused of the crime. They are Augustin Acosta, Simeón Bordón, Basiliano Cardozo, Gustavo Lezcano, Roque Rodriguez, and Aristides Vera. The case against the Six was so thin that it was thrown out of court, twice. It depended upon the questionable testimony of one witness which proved so sketchy that even the Paraguayan judicial system could not let it stand.

Nevertheless, then-President Nicanor Duarte exerted great pressure for their arrest. The Six, though cleared by court, feared the upcoming arrest and applied to Argentina for political asylum. Rather than receiving their "pending asylum" in Argentina, there they were arrested. For two-and-a-half years they have languished in jail in Argentina, while Paraguay requests extradition in order to prosecute the Six. On August 15, the Six began a hunger strike to try to jumpstart the stalled process. Today, on day 66, they find themselves incredibly weak and ill.

How can it be that six people have been cleared of a crime are still pursued? The Six are peasant leaders, part of a growing movement within Paraguay to have the state enforce land rights laws rather than accede to the wishes of bribe-giving (Paraguayan, Argentine, and Brazilian) elites. As they have become more vocal, the entrenched Colorado party has seen peasants as more and more a threat and, since the early 2000s, the government has increased its persecution of peasant leaders, under the age-old accusation of "leftist" "guerrilla." The Red Scare works less and less as a credible threat (a topic too great for this entry...perhaps I'll venture a theory about this in a later entry), but the Six face a very credible threat if they are returned to Paraguay.

How can it be that six people sit in jail for more than two years, with no charges against them? That is the question for the Argentine judicial system. Many human rights advocates in Latin America have decried this treatment of asylum seekers.

And here in Paraguay, a group of protestors meets on the steps of the Palacio de Justicia, wrapped in chains to plead "no to extradition" so that the Six might find refuge. Will there be justice for Cecilia Cubas--whose tragic death is being used for political ends-- and for Augustin Acosta, Simeón Bordón, Basiliano Cardozo, Gustavo Lezcano, Roque Rodriguez, or Aristides Vera?

Want to learn more? Check noalaextradicion.blogspot.com.

Paraguay beat Peru 1-0 in the World Cup qualifiers. People took to the streets... Here we can see the crowd just beginning to gather. Aside from watching the children leap from the back of vehicles, one noteworthy moment is the cheer: "El que no salta es kurepi!" Kurepi is a rather derogatory term for someone from Argentina. (This reminds me of the moment when, after the Patriots won their first Superbowl and we flooded the streets for the victory parade on a very cold February day, as the duck tour boats moved down the streets and we saw the triumphant football players, the cry of joy that rose up from the crowd was, "Yankees suck!")



And just the day before, a different crowd gathered to protest a re-zoning law that would cede some territory from Asunción to Lambaré. The law was vetoed, the protest dissipated. And while it looks "exciting," it was actually low in tension and (dare I say?) seemed to me more like an excuse to take the day off than something really high in stakes.

The article here is pretty thorough, but, heck, I emailed them anyway:

While it's heartening to see that the NYTimes is reporting more on Paraguay, I thought to offer just a few more nuances to the already-thorough piece by Mr. Barrionuevo and Ms. Machain. First, concerning the anti-Brazilian turn: this sentiment is spread broadly and not merely held by the landless peasants. But while university students and urban workers may cast aspersions at the Brazilians, this presents a particular difficulty for the peasant movement-- they have been supported and allied with the MST (the landless workers movement) in Brazil that effectively pushed Lula into power. International ties that have strengthened the movement in Paraguay are threatened by the anti-Brazilian sentiment.

And while Lugo certainly enjoys great support among underprivileged groups in Paraguay, this is by no means homogenous. Just this morning, the urban working class has risen up in protest against a rezoning law. Moreover, Lugo faces pressures from traditional and financial elite: his vice president is from the Liberal Party (more conservative than and as old as the Colorado Party, which was ousted from the presidency in April) and soy producers are not happy with Lugo's plan to begin taxing soy exports (currently there are no export taxes on this valuable crop, meaning that Paraguay benefits little since much of the land is illegally expropriated and few Paraguayans are employed in the industry).

As for me, I'm a PhD candidate working on Fulbright sponsored dissertation research in Asunción, focusing on issues of political culture and globalization.

I particularly appreciated that their treatment of the "leftishness" of Lugo was measured and not easily equated to Chavez. The assumed homogeneity of the leftward turn in Latin America is one of my pet peeves.

"The ball has to hit the ground before it can rise again."

News of what's happening on Wall Street and in DC (legislation on the bailout, for example) is front page material here in Asunción. Even "subprime" has been copied directly into Spanish. Because the U.S. is such a large market, it's clear that what happens there has effects here. But it looks a bit different.

1) The dollar is getting stronger. Between March 2007 and April 2008, I saw the conversion rate between USD and Guaranies go from 1 USD = 5,000+ G to 1 USD = 4,000 G. However, between October 5, 2008 and today, it's gone from 1USD = 4,000 G to 1 USD = 4,700 G. This makes it easier for me, of course, since I'm living off a stipend in USD, but it's causing a contraction in the buying power of Paraguayans. A local financial journal, Enfoque Económico, in its July issue discussed what to do about the influx of dollars coming from the decline of the dollar, urging the creation of funds with those dollars rather than merely spending them on increased imports. Now, though the Central Bank of Paraguay is releasing its dollar reserves to try to stem the rise of the dollar (and the declining buying power of the Guaraní), the ascent seems unstoppable.

2) Europe is having problems. Paraguay depends on remittances from a large expat community in Spain. But as economic contractions have hit Europe, construction and manual labor in Spain has halted. Many Paraguayans are out of work and returning back to Paraguay... a loss in remittances and an increase in the labor force, thus lowering wages here.

3) Fernando Lugo's economic agenda will have to proceed slowly. His Minister of Finance, Dionisio Borda, has a plan to significantly restructure the economy (recall the presence of Joseph Stiglitz in all this) including levying taxes (Paraguay, like much of Latin America, is undertaxed due to evasion and agreements that benefit external corporations).

4) Venezuela. Now that oil has fallen to below $80 a barrel (remember when it was at $150 a few months ago?), Chavez is going to have problems financing his agenda. Okay, so technically Venezuela and Paraguay aren't the same thing. But part of Chavez' lingering popularity comes from his distribution of oil wealth. The "leftward turn" to Latin America, as I've said before, is quite diverse... As Paraguay is part of this (though much more moderate than Chavez or Morales), it remains to be seen what happens to the more radical experiments in the continent when their bounty is squeezed.

5) Parallels to the crises of Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, etc etc etc in the 80s and 90s and 00s. Analysts inside and outside of Paraguay have remarked on the parallels between the crisis in the U.S. (overspending, rampant bad debt) and what went on in Latin American countries before they were reined in through structural adjustment programs that imposed austerity measures.

Ana's four-week old grandson was paraded in front of me with great delight. On my third day back in Asunción I was able to reconnect with the extended clan of my former Guaraní instructor, Hermelinda. Apparently, my months spent sitting and reading have added a few pounds, something that was noted and praised. Shrug. I noticed that the little boy, with a head of hair thicker than what we'd see on a newborn, had a small wad of cotton fixed in the middle of his forehead. "In our culture," Herme explained, "we does this to cure the hiccups. What do you do?"

I'm not sure we do anything; certainly trying to frighten the baby out of hiccups, as we do to adults, is out of the question. "Do you use olive oil?" I continued. "No... just water or saliva," she answered.

My suspicion has been confirmed, if only in part. The bodega on the corner is run by Koreans. I bet the one on the following block is, too. When I asked the owner, who sat reading his Bible, where one could find good bulgogi and kimchee, he looked at me bemused and surprised. Apparently, there's no place yet that serves this, but he did give me an approving thumbs-up for knowing (and liking) something about Korea. I wonder how different it'd be down here for a Paraguayan palate (and with local ingredients). Hopefully better than the suspicious "Exquisito Plato Oriental Chop Suey" I saw at Bolsi Restaurant, which boasts (in English) of having "The best food south of Mason-Dixon."

And?

Leticia Galeano, a Paraguayan student concerned with the effects of agribusiness on the campesino community, spoke at the CUNY Graduate Center on the particular nature of Paraguay's situation. Besides the well-known environmental risks of monoculture (including starvation, such as the Irish Potato Famine), Galeano's presentation included accounts of hostile takeover of peasant land by large farmers and the devastating health effects of pesticide sprayed indiscriminately on crops and villages alike.

Even as the landless peasantry has mobilized (including controversial land occupations), the situation is complicated by the fact that, though the produce and grain in large scale farming comes from seed from and is later to international agribusiness (such as Cargill and Bunge), these corporations don't actually own the farms-- rather, those are run by Paraguayans or, increasingly, Brazilians.

I'll be moving to Paraguay on Saturday, October 4. Yes... I'm a bit excited and a bit nervous. More details about what I'm doing are soon to come, but for now it's back to packing and last minute trámites.