Paraguay: Obama's Second Latin American Coup
international |
rights, freedoms and repression |
other press 
Tuesday June 26, 2012 12:49
by pat c
Yes, brought to you courtesy of Obama. Paraguays democratically elected President was deposed in a parliamentary coup. Shamus Cooke explains how the Obama Administration are responsible. Full text at link.
It's obvious that the President's real crimes are that he chose to ally himself more closely with Paraguay's left, which in reality means the working and poor masses of the country, who, like other Latin American countries, choose socialism as their form of political expression.
“We understand that Paraguay’s Senate has voted to impeach President Lugo,” said Darla Jordan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs...“We urge all Paraguayans to act peacefully, with calm and responsibility, in the spirit of Paraguay’s democratic principles.”
Obama might as well have said: "We support the right-wing coup against the elected president of Paraguay.” Watching a crime against democracy happen - even if it is "watched closely" - and failing to denounce it makes one complicit in the act. The State Department's carefully crafted words are meant to give implicit support to the new illegal regime in Paraguay.
Obama acted as he did because Lugo turned left, away from corporate interests, towards Paraguay's poor. Lugo had also more closely aligned himself with regional governments which had worked towards economic independence from the United States. Most importantly perhaps is that, in 2009, President Lugo forbid the building of a planned U.S. military base in Paraguay.