It will be two years since Fernando Lugo came to power. He took office on the historic day of April 20th, 2008, when the toiling masses, tired of 61 years of suffering and repression, delivered an electoral blow to the hateful Colorado Party.[1] However, the outcome of the electoral contest was a victory for a class collaboration government, a government that would continue to govern for the rich.
Since his first appearance on the political stage, Fernando Lugo aroused legitimate expectations among the majority of the toiling masses. The exploited masses trusted him with their legitimate yearning for real change. [2]
The main social and left-wing leaders soon began to preach to the masses that it was necessary to vote for Lugo in order to get an “alternative” into power, to defeat the “Mafia gang”[3] and so “open the floodgates” and “democratize” the country. Once in the office, Lugo was proclaimed by most of the Paraguayan left as – of all things! – the “first step towards socialism”.
At this point, and considering the reality, the stubborn facts, the vanguard and the social and political leaders of Paraguayan left must ask themselves some simple but certainly important questions. What class interests does Lugo defend? What has effectively changed for the better in the lives of poor peasants, of the inhabitants of ghettos and all the other exploited sectors in Paraguay? Is this really ‘our’ government?
Whose Team Is Lugo Playing For?
Fernando Lugo proclaimed himself to be the hinge between the different social sectors that supported him and announced that in ideological terms he would not respond to either the left or the right. He said that his policy would be in the “center”, just like the “poncho huru”[4]. Attractive words, pure lies, a fatal trap.
We are a society divided into social classes, which fight against each other to defend their antagonistic interests. There is not the slightest chance to remain neutral or to stay “in the middle”. Class struggle admits no intermediate points. Fernando Lugo governs without restraint for the capitalists and for imperialism. His administration betrayed all the popular expectations and confidence. He proved to be “more of the same thing”, a regrettable continuity of the Colorados and, from certain point of view, even worse.
He appointed Dionisio Borda as the Minister of the Treasury, the same as the Colorado administration of Duarte Frutos, and signed agreements with sectors of business and large landowners, grouped under PLRA[5]. Once in office, he began applying a real “economic Nicanorism”[6] with privatization projects[7] and a significant increase of the foreign debt through the BID and the World Bank, which opened a “line of credit” of over $1 billion for the country.
As for the land reform, Lugo promises “results” no earlier than 2023, and in the meantime, he proceeded to brutally repress the land occupations that took place at the beginning of his term in office. Between October, 2009 and April, 2010, he militarized the North of the country by means of five joint operations of the armed forces and police; one of them took place within the framework of a state of siege in five of the largest states in the country.
The result of Lugo’s agrarian reform was hundreds of prosecuted, jailed and wounded peasants and several leaders assassinated by the police. It was under this “democratic and progressive” administration – as the CPP[8] likes to call it – that the Ministry of the Interior and the police saw their budgets soar sky-high.
The government’s repressive policies worsened considerably, shifting to an overt “Colombianization” of the repressive forces. Lugo boasted publicly that he has signed agreements with the criminal Uribe administration that is receiving weapons and trained advisors from the United States.
The Lugo-PLRA administration has even abandoned the often mentioned democratic renegotiation of the lion’s Itaipu Treaty[9] with Brazil. Even Gustavo Codas[10], the Paraguayan director of the “bi-national” hydroelectric producer, made public that the government has capitulated on this issue, resigning to “change some formal aspects” of the Itaipu treaty.
It is not possible to omit the mention of the scandals of parental irresponsibility and male chauvinism or the gross cases of nepotism within the public administration with the excuse that the “family also has a right to work”.
Unlike the Lugo-PLRA administration’s treatment of the poor, they never attack the rich or the interests of imperialism. For example, at present, soybeans have registered record high harvests and enormous profits for the soybean growers. Lugo guaranteed them “social peace” and protection through the brutal repression of the peasants´ struggles and the cooptation of their main leaders.
In the terrain of the urban working class, Lugo has done away with the labor rights that the civil servants had won. Persecution of the unions is rampant and the employers’ violation of labor laws, like respecting the minimum wage or paying social security, remains unpunished.
On the other hand, they maintain the ridiculous 10% “company revenue tax” that was put in place by Nicanor Duarte (Colorado Party). We could easily continue with this list of facts exposing how the Lugo administration chose to rule on behalf of the Paraguayan ruling class and keep the country in the grips of imperialism.
Two Leftist Positions Towards The Government
During the electoral campaign (2008), the PT, the section of the IWL-FI in Paraguay, took a stand against this class collaboration project, which we call a Popular Front, represented by Lugo. We presented our own candidate for President[11] , raising the banners of class independence while the vast majority of the Left called for a vote for Lugo.
The Left, which we could call the Lugoist Left, is today grouped into what is known as Frente Guasu[12]. This Lugoist Left signed a blank check for Lugo from the very beginning. When all this was a new phenomenon, this policy could be understandable, even if not justifiable. Now, however, in the face of all the anti-popular measures taken during the last two years, instead of breaking with Lugo and the government, the Lugoist left supports or even justifies each one of the measures his administration is taking. In reality, the majority of the Left gives political support and keeps on preaching to the working masses to be “patient” with and have confidence in this bourgeois government.
In the face of each new repressive or anti-popular measure, the Lugoist Left seek to conceal or belittle Lugo’s political responsibility for these policies. In this way, everything negative that happens is portrayed as the fault of some minister or of the reactionary right wing. When Lugo declared a state of siege, he proposed passing the “antiterrorist law”[13] and modifying the Bill of Internal Security to allow the armed forces to go out into the streets with their weapons for war without even needing a state of siege to be declared. The majority of the Left said that this was all “part of a plan of the Right Wing to create a divide between Lugo and his social base of support”, or that the most concerning aspect of this “antiterrorist law” was what the future governments could use it for.
This is the political perspective supported by the majority of the Left, even if they have already had to swallow some bitter pills, as in the case of the recent pacts Lugo signed with the Colorados and the followers of Oviedo[14] – people Lugo used to say he was fighting against and who he used to call the “Mafia gang” – regarding the distribution of posts inside the Congress and other high spheres of the State. This political framework is in effect slowing or diverting the struggles.
For the Lugoist “democratic and progressive” forces, to criticize Lugo is equivalent to “making things easier for the right” or contributing to “political judgment”.[15] These Left tendencies are wrong. Criticizing and opposing the Lugo administration, from the Left, in no way implies any kind of support for the traditional rotten Right Wing parties. PT has always denounced these rotten sectors aiming to overthrow the government as what they are: declared enemies of the people; this, however has never impeded us from exposing the government who is, when all is said and done, the one who is making life easier for them.
Are There Only Two Ways? For A Third Space: Classist and Socialist
We have to break with the false “polarization” between the traditional Right and the Lugo administration. This belief is not only false but is being pushed by the bourgeois press. The mass media labels Lugo a Marxist and say he wants to “impose” class struggle.
The vicious attacks from the traditional Right contribute to the impression that the Lugo administration is “Leftist”. It is true and normal that there are real conflicts and intense clashes. However, strategically, both blocks have the same foundation: to maintain capitalist exploitation and the submission of the country to imperialism by defeating social movements. The fight is to see who will control the state means … and from power, control business.
Either the government or the Right – that is a false choice. Revolutionary socialists and honest activists in the social movement should not fall into this trap.
It is up to the working masses of the city and of the countryside to open a path towards the construction of a Left alternative to Lugo – a third political space opposed to the traditional Right and to the Lugo administration.
For the IWL-FI and the PT of Paraguay, this is an urgent and necessary task and we offer ourselves as a political tool in this service.
______________________________________________________
The Paraguayan Trade Union Movement Is Getting Back On Its Feet
In the last few months, we have witnessed a series of trade union struggles, demonstrations and strikes of varying magnitudes and outcomes.
Last 17th June, the Trade Union Coordination Board (MCS), in united action with other union sectors, led a march of 8,000 civil servants demanding respect for the acquired right to a 6 hour work day in the public sector. Today the working class is giving signs of promising revival of activism. A march and rally like this have not been seen for ten years now. These are signs of a slow but consistent process of revival of the union movement.
The current leaders of the traditional centrals have abandoned all the principles of classist unionism and have become the main supports of the Lugo-PLRA administration. That is why it is imperative to renew the union leadership. That is why the emergence and the consolidation of the MCS is such an important factor. The struggles are emerging under very harsh conditions and the outcomes combine achievements, advances, together with blows and retreats because of the combined attacks we are suffering.
_______________________________________________________
A Step Forward In The Reorganization: A New Central
The process opened by the Board of Trade Union Coordination – due to the needs of the class as a whole – a process leading to the establishment of a Central that will have to bring together workers of the public and the private sectors. Furthermore, the proposal includes organizations of peasants, indigenous peoples and neighborhood organizations.
To face the current and the future struggles what we need is a superior form of organization that would centralize organization and struggles in order to improve the conditions of struggle and increase the probabilities of success. This process should be built on the principles of Solidarity, Class Independence, Union Autonomy, Proletarian Democracy and Proletarian Internationalism.
The PT and the IWL-FI commit all our militant effort to support this process for we are convinced that it means a decisive step forward in the struggle for the social, economic and political interests of the working class in Paraguay.
_________________________________________________________________________________
[1] The Colorado Party is the main bourgeois party in Paraguay. They governed the country for 61 years, including the 35 years of the bloodthirsty dictatorship led by Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989).
[2] According to the MCM, at the time of taking over, Fernando Lugo had 93% popular support; this has not even been achieved by the government that came after the fall of the dictatorship in 1989.
[3] During his electoral campaign, Lugo centered his criticism mainly on the leadership of the Colorado Party, the “Mafio gang” that, in his opinion, had seized and distorted the aims of that party.
[4] An expression in Guarani meaning “the opening in the poncho” – Paraguay is a bilingual country. Most people speak Spanish, like the inhabitants of most Latin American countries and Guarani, the language of the Indigenous population who still live in that region.
[5] Authentic Liberal Radical Party; together with the Colorado Party, it is the bourgeois party with the most influence as well as the most conservative and reactionary.
[6] Referring to Nicanor Duarte Frutos, the last Colorado president (2003-2998) before the victory of Lugo-PLRA.
[7] After the international economic crisis broke out, Lugo and his economic team presented an “anti-crisis plan”, which includes the privatization of all international airports and the main motorways of the country.
[8] Communist Party of Brazil.
[9] The Itaipu treaty led to the construction of the dam bearing the same name, in its day, the greatest in the world. This Treaty, signed up by those who, in 1973, were the dictators of Paraguay and Brazil , compels Paraguay to sell the surplus production of electric energy this country is entitled to (50%) only to Brazil and at cost price.
[10] Gustavo Codas is the social democratic leader who lived for nearly 39 years in Brazil and was one of Lula’s top advisers inside the Brazilian PT. That is why Lula actually has two directors in Itaipu.
[11] The PT candidate was Julio López, a leader of his trade union and of the Party. There were 273 other candidatures of workers, peasants and popular sectors.
[12] Guasu stands for big in Guarani so this would be like Ample Front; it is a grouping of “socialist” social democratic and even bourgeois together with social leaders. They call themselves Lugoists.
[13] In accordance with this law, any action that “coerces” may be characterized by a judge as “terrorist activity”, the punishment for which may go as far as 30 years in jail.
[14] It is a sector led by the former general Lino Cesar Oviedo, a coup-making military man responsible for the murder of six young people during the events of the “Paraguayan March” in 1999. Oviedo is the Paraguayan Pinochet.
[15] Political judgment is regarded as a political coup to remove the president within the “legal and institutional” framework. The traditional Right uses this expression constantly to put pressure on the government. The PT takes a position that is against the political judgment for Lugo.
