The revolutionary wave in Latin America reached Paraguay yesterday, as a combination of union, indigenous, and campesino power ejected the 61-year rule of the Colorado Party. Will Hillary and Obama embrace this change, or will they adopt the Bush Administration's ham-handed belligerence to the Left in Latin America?
Fernando Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop, dubbed the "bishop of the poor" has ended 60 years of single party right-wing rule in Paraguay.
Here's some footage from the Real News Network:
And an indication of how much this victory for democracy means for Paraguayans:
Mark this one down in the books because this moment is already engrained in the hearts of many Paraguayans - both here and across the globe.
People here from age 10 to 100 will never forget it, and it will be talked about for as long as they shall live - regardless of what comes after. It is the beginning of something else, new horizons, a new chapter in this book that is Paraguay, and this is living history. Everyone here realizes it, and tonight, you couldn't help but get teary-eyed as the grandmothers, wrapped in the Paraguayan flag, danced with children in the streets, and cried at the top of their lungs that this is the moment they've been waiting for their whole lives. -- UpsideDownWorld
Lugo joins the left-center consensus that has been developing in the Southern Cone over the last decade. Indeed, all the countries that were once under the thumb of US-backed death dealing generals who engineered Operation Condor to murder and dissappear their leftist opponents, have now elected left leaning governments. One of the most notorious of the old generals, Alfredo Stroessner, ruled Paraguay as his personal fiefdom for 35 years when Paraguay became an infamous smugging point and refuge for all sorts of Nazi war criminals.
However, the US is not ready to go without a fight. Indeed, under the widely unpopular President Nicanor Duarte, the US was establishing bases in Paraguay as a way to bulk up its presence in a region where the US is increasingly unwanted. This has caused grave concern, although it seems fitting that the US is up to its old Indian-Fighting ways:
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. -- Benjamin Dangl, The Nation
Hillary has already demonstrated her profound antipathy towards the Left in Latin America. Obama has been much more quiet. What the US does need is a president that can embrace these changes rather than fight them as the US has done since the Monroe Doctrine. The US can longer morally or economically afford to support the oligarchies of Latin America nor have its foreign policy dictated by multinational corporations or right-wing expatriates in Miami.