700,000 Paraguayans At Risk Of Being Evicted By The Abdo Regime

[Judi Lynn]

Published 3 November 2021

On Tuesday, the Paraguayan Farmers Movement (PFM) denounced that 700,000 citizens are at risk of being evicted due to a President Mario Abdo's law supporting mass evictions of Indigenous families.

"There are 860 Indigenous and farmer settlements that are going to be evicted," PFM leader Belarmino Balbuena said, stressing that Abdo seeks to criminalize popular land occupations.

Previously, the Police evicted 250 families from the Edilson Mercado community and 300 families from Yasy Cañy, where violence erupted between the citizens and law enforcement. As part of the law enforcement actions, every house was destroyed and the fields were burned down.

Since the beginning of the year, 11 Indigenous communities have been forcefully evicted from lands claimed by private businesses. Paraguay is one of the countries with the most unequal land distribution in the world, with 94 percent of cultivable lands being owned by the private sector, according to the Intersectoral National Coordinator (CNI).

More:
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/700000-Paraguayans-At-Risk-Of-Being-Evicted-By-The-Abdo-Regime-20211103-0006.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Indigenous community evicted as land clashes over agribusiness rock Paraguay

Police in riot gear tore down a community’s homes and ripped up crops, highlighting the country’s highly unequal land ownership

Mario Rivarola, a Mbyá Guaraní craftsman, surveys the wreckage after a police eviction of the indigenous Hugua Po’i community in eastern Paraguay.

Laurence Blair in Raúl Arsenio Oviedo
Sun 21 Nov 2021 05.30 EST

Armed police with water cannons and a low-flying helicopter have faced off against indigenous villagers brandishing sticks and bows in the latest clash over land rights in Paraguay, a country with one of the highest inequalities of land ownership in the world.

Videos of Thursday’s confrontation showed officers in riot armour jostling members of the Hugua Po’i community – including children and elderly people – out of their homes and into torrential rain.

Tractors then tore down the thatched wooden cabins and ripped up crops from the surrounding land, which is claimed by a Mennonite soybean farmer.

Later in the day, police armed with submachine guns briefly allowed a Guardian reporter and Mario Rivarola, a craftsman and community organizer, into the ruined village.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/nov/21/paraguay-evictions-land-indigenous-agribusiness

[Judi Lynn]

2. Paraguay Failed To Stop Soy Farms From Poisoning Indigenous Land, Un Says It dramatically harms the

Paraguay Failed To Stop Soy Farms From Poisoning Indigenous Land, Un Says It dramatically harms the existence of the culture of the group as a whole.
November 28, 2021 by Mongabay



The United Nations’ Human Rights Committee has found that the Paraguayan government failed to regulate the use of harmful chemicals near an Indigenous community, resulting in severe health issues and the degradation of its culture.


The OHCHR said the government didn’t adequately respond to credible complaints made by the Ava Guarani people about two nearby properties illegally fumigating genetically modified soybeans. The chemicals leaked onto Ava Guarani land and upended traditional customs.

. . .

Over the last 30 years, Paraguay’s economy has increasingly relied on commercial agriculture, especially soybeans and beef from cattle ranching. In 2019, the country exported $1.58 billion of soybeans and nearly $1 billion in beef, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

But economic gains have often come at the expense of Indigenous communities, who suffer from some of the world’s worst land distribution inequality, the result of decades of agrarian reform programs that, in some cases, gifted land to power players close to the government.

More:
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/paraguay-failed-to-stop-soy-farms-from-poisoning-indigenous-land-un-says/