Paraguay: retired bishop plans presidential run, defying Vatican

[struggle4progress]

Jan. 2, 2007 (CWNews.com) - ... Bishop Fernando Lugo, a populist noted for his work among the poor of Paraguay, announced on Christmas Day that he plans to challenge President Nicanor Duarte Frutos in the May 2008 elections. The incumbent president heads the Colorado Party that has kept a stranglehold on political power in Paraguay for the last 60 years ...

Bishop Lugo, whose strong popular support makes him a formidable candidate for the presidency, has had a checkered career in the Catholic hierarchy. Appointed in 1994 to head the San Pedro diocese, he resigned in January 2005, at the age of only 55. Although the resignation was attributed to reasons of health, the retired bishop has been extremely active in public affairs since that time, showing no evidence of physical disability.

Bishop Ignacio Gogorza Izaguirre of Encarnacion, the president of the Paraguayan bishops’ conference, said that Bishop Lugo was “exposing himself to the punishment of excommunication” by launching his political campaign.

The candidate himself told reporters in Paraguay that he had “resigned” from the priesthood before announcing his presidential bid, and therefore was not subject to the provisions of canon law barring clergy from partisan politics. Church officials responded with the observation that while a priest can retire from active ministry, he cannot cease to be a priest by "resigning."

http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=48393

[jarnocan]

1. Bush just bought land there- Moon is there too....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1928928,00.html
We already have some Marines there http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/9400/79/ - perhaps we may have to get rid of the left leaning president of Bolivia?
Hmmm, Between Moon and Bush having massive investments in Paraquay likely the right wing will win with their support. If this guy is a decent person- I wish him well, but wouldn't be surprised if he is assasinated or suicided.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1928928,00.html
Here is an earlier DU thread with some good information from Consortiumnews.com
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2449290&mesg_id=2449290

many viewed the arrival of troops as a sign that Washington was trying to monitor US business interests in neighbouring Bolivia, after the election of Evo Morales, a leftwing leader who promised to nationalise his country's natural gas industry.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1928928,00.html

[Peace Patriot]

3. Thanks for the links, Jarnocan! Every time a new leftist leader arises in

South America, people say, 'oh, he'll be assassinated." I can't tell you how how often I've seen this comment at DU. And then another leftist leader pops up, and another. What is going on? While there is certainly reason to be fearful of assassinations and violent disruptions, given US history--and especially Reagan-Bush history--in Latin America, I think this automatic reflex is causing us to miss something, or rather, to look past it too quickly. And it is this: that the peaceful, democratic, leftist (majorityist) revolution occurring throughout South America (and also parts of Central America) is solidly based in grass roots movements and transparent elections. It cannot be decapitated.

I think that this assassination thing is partly OUR projection. We don't expect anything good to happen HERE, so we assume that if anything good happens there, it will be destroyed. But what has happened every time the Bushites in collusion with the oil giants and the rich oil elite have tried to remove Chavez--first by violent military coup, then by a crippling oil professionals strike, then by a US taxpayer funded recall election, and by US taxpayer money poured into the country in support of Chavez's opposition in every one of the recent five elections there? In every case, starting with the attempted military coup, the people of Venezuela has risen up and defended their government and their elected leaders--peacefully and firmly.

And if, by some awful plot, the Bushites succeed in killing Chavez, what makes us think there are not other very intelligent and competent people in the Venezuelan government, and in the population, to re-establish order and continue their reforms? It's kind of an insult to the people of Venezuela to think that they could not. And if such a thing happened, there would be hell to pay in Venezuela for anyone involved--precisely BECAUSE Chavez is NOT, as our corporate media portray him, a "dictator." He is a reflection of the Venezuelan people as much as he is a leader of them. And this is true of all the new leftist leaders--in Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and soon, I think, in Paraguay and Peru. One of these days we are going to have to face the fact that the South Americans are creating far better democracies than we have here, in the land of the free, home of the brave.

Do you know that the Venezuelans hand-count 55% of their paper ballot backup, cuz they don't trust the electronic voting machines? Know how much WE hand-count, in the places where we can even do a recount--that have a paper ballot backup of some kind (one third of our country does not)? 0% to 1%. We let Bushite corporations "count" all our votes, using TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit of the results. Our elections are almost entirely non-transparent, due to the takeover of vote "counting" by these rightwing corporations (mainly Diebold and its related corporation ES&S), during the 2002 to 2004 period, under legislation signed by Bush (the "Help America Vote For Bush Act" of '02).

Non-transparent elections = bad fascist government.

Transparent elections = good leftist government, of, by and for the people.

We have been woefully neglectful of the institutions of our democracy. The South Americans have not been. And it shows.

[jarnocan]

4. thanks for the thoughtful insight:) I hope we will restore our democracy someday.

[Peace Patriot]

2. "In Paraguay, there are only thieves and the victims of thieves." --F. Lugo

This is an extremely important candidacy. The OP is from "Catholic World News."

Here are some more secular perspectives.

(the best--from the left) http://jimjay.blogspot.com/2006/12/church-right-wing-shocker.html
"La Prensa Latina reports that 'President Nicanor Duarte said to newspaper La Nacion Lugo constituted a menace to the current system, because of his socialist aspirations'. Lugo also has an interesting take on the class nature of Paraguay stating famously 'in Paraguay there are only thieves and the victims of thieves.' He said of his intention to run for the Presidency that 'the time has come to take exclusion, oblivion and discrimination from the current Paraguayan social life.'"

(informative) http://ncrcafe.org/node/786

(enthusiastic--from the left) http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B0D25D283-6E7D-4BCE-8FBB-9B532A487ADD%7D)&language=EN

(business perspective) http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=9512&formato=HTML

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20061227-1006-paraguay-bishop-.html

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=7202

----------------

I'm having trouble finding any decent analysis of this candidacy--just a few interesting facts, that Lugo is a leftist and an advocate of the poor, that he wants a woman as a running mate, that he is very popular and no more announced his candidacy than he zoomed ahead in the polls, that the Vatican opposes him of course, and some articles point out that corporations, Bushites and rich people fear him as "another Chavez." The latter is getting rather tiresome as a rightwing line, since "Chavez's" are springing up all over South America--in Venezuela obviously, in Bolivia (Evo Morales), in Ecuador (big, big win for leftist Rafael Correa there, a few weeks ago), with a big leftist movement in Peru (almost won this year, will win in the next election cycle), as well as leftist governments established and flourishing in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. Not to mention developments in Central America--Sandanista Daniel Ortega getting elected president in Nicaragua; and a huge social movement in southern Mexico and Mexico City (temporarily crushed by the corporatists/Bushites, but it is not going away).

Lugo's election in Paraguay--which seems assured at the moment--will mean a near solid block of leftist democracies throughout the continent (left-leaning Peru and right-leaning Colombia being the only exceptions), and the Lugo candidacy is intriguing in connection with the region of greatest interest to the Bush Cartel & associated predators--rich in oil, gas and minerals--that is, the Andes democracies of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. For rumor has it that the Bush Cartel has purchased a 100,000 acre enclave in Paraguay, and our taxpayer dollars have been spent on upgrading a US military air base in Paraguay. Also, the Bush Junta has poured our money into the Colombian military ($1.5 billion over several years). Then there are the missing multi-billions from the Iraq War. Add this all up, and you could develop some paranoia about a corporate resource war in the Andes, launched from Paraguay in cooperation with Colombian paramilitaries, in a scissor action against the countries between them, or in some other more dispersed effort to cause trouble and destabilize these governments. (The president of Colombia has refused to cooperate with Bushite plots against Hugo Chavez, but that doesn't mean rightwing militaries wouldn't get involved, especially if they are well paid--say by the tankers of cash that have been stolen from our treasury.)

I don't think any such plot would succeed. The democratic revolution in South America is too broad-based and has too many leaders. But it's not unthinkable that the Bushites and the corporations that stood to benefit from torturing and killing peasants and leftists--as the Reaganites (and some of the same characters--John Negroponte, etc.) did in the '80s--would give it a try.

Another aspect to Lugo's presidency is what it would mean for the vast poor population that has been so exploited and brutalized. If Venezuela is any guide, it will be a new day. Schools. Medical clinics. Land reform. Empowerment of the majority. High interest and participation in politics and government. Transparent elections. Real democracy. It is a thrilling prospect. And solidarity with other leftist governments toward regional self-determination and self-sufficiency--a South American "Common Market" with a common currency (already being talked about). It's not so much a question of whether Paraguay (and also Peru) will join this new movement, as when. It is the future.

As Evo Morales--the first indigenous president of Bolivia--has said: "The time of the people has come."

[jarnocan]

5. EXCELLENT POST- wow- very interesting!!!! still worried but some hope...

Maybe Mexico will regain fairer elections too ....