Paraguay's Fernando Lugo apologizes to dictatorship victims

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Paraguay's Fernando Lugo apologizes to dictatorship victims
Posted on Fri, Aug. 29, 2008
Associated Press

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- President Fernando Lugo has apologized on behalf of Paraguay to victims of the 1954-1989 dictatorship of the late Gen. Alfredo Stroessner.

Speaking Thursday at the presentation of a report by the country's Truth and Justice Commission, Lugo asked for ''forgiveness from the victims'' for abuses under what he called ``the worst dictatorship, which must never again return to Paraguay.''

The commission presented documents containing the names of some 300 politicians, oppositions, students and union leaders who were tortured after being arrested by Stroessner's security forces and whose remains were never found.

Stroessner was ousted in February 1989 by a military coup and died in exile in Brazil in 2006. He was 93 years old.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/664548.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. RIGHTS-PARAGUAY: President Apologises to Victims of Dictatorship

RIGHTS-PARAGUAY: President Apologises to Victims of Dictatorship
By David Vargas

ASUNCIÓN, Aug 28 (IPS) - Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo apologised Thursday in the name of the state to the victims of human rights violations committed by the 1954-1989 dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner.

The testimony of thousands of victims was compiled in the final report of the Truth and Justice Commission, the result of four years of work, which was presented Thursday in Asunción.

~snip~
The report puts the number of direct and indirect victims of the dictatorship at 128,076, including victims of forced disappearance, extrajudicial execution, detention, torture, rape and political exile.

Of that total, 19,682 were the victims of illegal detention, 59 were the victims of extrajudicial execution, and 337 were "disappeared."

The Commission estimates that 3,470 people were forced to flee into exile for political reasons, although it acknowledges that this figure "falls short of the reality of this painful human rights violation."

An estimated 95 percent of the political prisoners were tortured, and at least half received death threats, according to the report.

Torture included electric shock to different parts of the body, near suffocation with plastic bags or in tubs filled with filthy liquids, being burned or cut, and being forced to watch the torture of other people.

Torture was "the main instrument of social control used by the military regime," and mainly affected members of political parties and social movements, especially peasant farmers, says the report.

"We want to specifically underscore the sexual violence that was used as a repressive strategy, aimed at demonstrating the aggressors’ power and dominance over their victims," said Bishop Mario Medina, the chairman of the Truth and Justice Commission.

The largest number of cases documented by the report involve sexual abuse of girls between the ages of 12 and 15 at the hands of members of the military and the police and civilian agents of the dictatorship.

It states that many women suffered human rights abuses because they were the relatives of the victims of political persecution, belonged to communities that suffered attacks, or were leaders or members of civil society groups.

Bishop Medina, a leading figure in the struggle against the dictatorship, said that although the figures "fail to reflect the pain of the Paraguayan people in its full dimension," they "give us a sense of the magnitude."

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43718

[grannie4peace]

2. paraguay- that's where bush bought a lot of land. right?

:popcorn: :popcorn:

[Judi Lynn]

3. That's what a whole lot of people believe.

Here's one google grab on the subject:

Paraguay in a spin about Bush's alleged 100,000 acre hideaway
Tom Phillips in Cuiab
The Guardian, Monday October 23 2006

Meeting the new couple next door can be an anxious business for even the most relaxed home owner. Will they be international drug traffickers? Have they got noisy kids with a penchant for electronic music? As worries go, however, having the US president move in next door must come fairly low on the list.
Unless of course you are a resident of northern Paraguay and believe reports in the South American press that he has bought up a 100,000 acre (40,500 hectare) ranch in your neck of the woods.

The rumours, as yet unconfirmed but which began with the state-run Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, have triggered an outpouring of conspiracy theories, with speculation rife about what President Bush's supposed interest in the "chaco", a semi-arid lowland in the Paraguay's north, might be.

Some have speculated that he might be trying to wrestle control of the Guarani Aquifer, one of the largest underground water reserves, from the Paraguayans.

Rumours of Mr Bush's supposed forays into South American real estate surfaced during a recent 10-day visit to the country by his daughter Jenna Bush. Little is known about her trip to Paraguay, although officially she travelled with the UN children's agency Unicef to visit social projects. Photographers from the Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color tracked her down to one restaurant in Paraguay's capital Asunción, where she was seen flanked by 10 security guards, and was also reported to have met Paraguay's president, Nicanor Duarte, and the US ambassador to Paraguay, James Cason. Reports in sections of the Paraguayan media suggested she was sent on a family "mission" to tie up the land purchase in the "chaco".

Erasmo Rodríguez Acosta, the governor of the Alto Paraguay region where Mr Bush's new acquisition supposedly lies, told one Paraguayan news agency there were indications that Mr Bush had bought land in Paso de Patria, near the border with Brazil and Bolivia. He was, however, unable to prove this, he added.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/23/mainsection.tomphillips

[grannie4peace]

4. yup- that's where i read it :):):)

[Peace Patriot]

5. Ain't it great to see leaders who have a sense of decency

It's been a long time--and we have to look mostly to South America to find leaders who care a goddamn about the victims of the dictatorships that the U.S. supported, or about the massive poor majority, victims of our Corpos' greed and of their own local fascists in cahoots with our Corpos.

One of the last truly compassionate and engaged political leaders here, especially regarding Latin America, was Paul Wellstone. Bobby Kennedy also springs to mind. Both assassinated by the war profiteers, in my opinion. And there is Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center election monitors have been a very important factor in the success of democracy in South America.

And I have to say that Bill Clinton did a similar thing to Lugo--he apologized to Guatemala for the horrendous slaughter of TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND Mayan villagers, with Reagan's direct complicity. I don't think he named names. But at least he apologized. His policies on Latin America otherwise stunk to high heaven. Plan Colombia. "Free trade."

Obama has yet to mourn for the victims of policies he supports--the 10,000 innocent people murdered by death squads with close ties to the government, Colombia, on whom we have larded $6 BILLION in military aide. Hundreds more murdered this year, and last year. He wants to continue that. He has yet to apologize for the tens of thousands of small peasant farmers, poisoned by our pesticides, in the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs." Another policy he intends to continue. I guess it's expecting a lot for him to take on the nest of vipers in our war industry, and threaten their dirty profits, when they can kill him, too, or Diebold him. We should never forget how dire our situation is. We don't even know if these gangsters will leave the White House.

Well, I really just wanted to praise Lugo for acknowledging the victims, for not forgetting. So much of politics, as we've come to know it here, is about forgetting--letting the horrible facts slip beneath the corpo news river of forgetfulness. They are not forgetting in Argentina. They are not forgetting in Chile. They have not forgetten in Venezuela or Uruguay. They have not forgotten in Guatemala. It is all still in living memory, for them. And all have now elected leftist governments, that are investigating these crimes, and still prosecuting them, and holding memorials, and, in some places, still finding bodies.

I just wish it would penetrate the brains and the soul of our people here--and maybe it will. With the rise of democracy in South America--and increasingly in Central America--word gets out. Democracy is a beautiful thing, ain't it? Time we had some here.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Paraguay submits first official report on torture

Paraguay submits first official report on torture
PEDRO SERVIN, Associated Press Writer



August 29, 2008 7:41 PM

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) - The first official account of the disappearance of hundreds of government opponents during Paraguay's 1954-1989 dictatorship was presented to the Senate on Friday, a key step in the nation's efforts to reconcile its painful past.

The report outlines the torture and disappearance of some 300 politicians, students and union leaders opposed to the government of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, who were arrested and tortured by state security forces - and whose remains were never found.

Prepared by a Truth and Justice Commission that was formed in 2003, the report is a historic document with no force of law. But the prosecution of torturers in neighboring Argentina began with similar efforts to document crimes committed by that nation's 1976-83 military dictatorship.

Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo apologized on behalf of the nation Thursday, asking forgiveness of victims of what he called ''the worst dictatorship, which must never again return to Paraguay.''

Lugo was a boy when the worst of the repression took place - although his uncle, former central bank president Epifanio Mendez Fleitas, was one of about a million Paraguayans forced into political and economic exile under Stroessner.

More:
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=WORLD&ID=565359022321303797

[Judi Lynn]

7. What is almost always buried is the fact Lugo's three brothers were tortured by US-supported

fascist dictator, Alberto Stroessner:

What is also commonly not known about Lugo is his personal and family’s resistant to the Stroessner dictatorship. During the General’s rule, Lugo’s father was detained on more than 20 occasions while three of his brothers were tortured and expelled from Paraguay. In 1983, Lugo was also expelled from the country because of sermons that were considered subversive.

More:
http://www.the-diplomat.com/article.aspx?aeid=7224

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Apparently for our own corporate media to be useful as a means of informing the public, they'd have to include real information in their articles, rather than right-wing, domination-minded spin. So we end up learning vital information about US policy decades after brutal, catastrophic, barbaric, genocidal actions been implemented covertly by our right-wing Presidents. By that time, all the bottom feeding, short attention span yokels who make all the noise, and get in the way of citizens attempting to communicate concerning these realities have spread so much disinformation there's an additional barrier to normal people getting to the truth as they have to fight off the idiots clogging up public perception with their continual obsessive spew.

To anyone who may suspect he/she may not have been given the truth, please keep your ears and eyes open, and try to take time to add research on Latin America to your days and nights. It will open so many doors you will learn quickly you can NEVER go back to the views you were raised with, which you never questioned, having never suspected they weren't true!