by DARIO PIGNOTTI
(Translated by Jim Rudolf)
According to some media sources, the police, and the landowner’s association of Paraguay, a group of agents was attacked when it entered the estate of a millionaire in order to evict landless campesinos. For the campesinos, it was a slaughter.
The death of 18 people, among them 11 campesinos, occurred last Friday when police cleared, without prior dialogue, an estate occupied by landless campesinos in the northeast of Paraguay, in an area near the Brazilian border. It was a “slaughter, and we have information that there are more dead comrades in the woods¨reported the representative of a campesino organization, while the spokeswoman of another group warned of a plan to destabilize the government of President Fernando Lugo.
“What happened was a slaughter of our comrades. Many lies are being told to discredit the campesinos, who are struggling to obtain their own land to work, who are fighting for the rights given to them by land reform. I confirm that up to now, 11 comrades have been murdered,” declared Damasio Quiroga, general secretary of the Paraguayan Campesino Movement, by telephone with the newspaper Página/12.
“I’m speaking to you from where the slaughter took place. We were 300 comrades of several organizations from the department of Canindeyú. We have information that there are more dead comrades, we were told there are injured, and we also knew that some being held captive were executed,” recounted Quiroga.
The version of events from the media and police is that a group of agents was attacked when it entered the estate of millionaire Blas Riquelme – who was linked to, and enriched by, former dictator Alfredo Stroessner – which was being occupied by members of the Carperos Campesino Movement. [Translator’s note: Carperos are landless campesinos struggling to obtain land promised to them by land reform.] The Rural Association of Paraguay adds to this tale the “certain” link between the farmworkers and the guerillas of the Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP): “This fact, plus the use of automatic weapons and explosive devices, suggests something more than a simple group of landless campesinos. It was a heavily armed and organized group, capable of dealing a fatal blow to regular police forces.”
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