12-07-04 Coup d'Etat in Paraguay

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Welcome to 'Democraship'

By Pepe Escobar
July 3, 2012 at 19:55:29

Cross-posted from Asia Times



Let's start with a bomb. Over 10 days ago a new brand of coup d'etat took place in Paraguay against elected president Fernando Lugo. It was virtually unnoticed by global corporate media.

Anything unexpected? Not really. A March 2009 cable from the US Embassy in Asuncion, revealed by WikiLeaks, [1] had already detailed how oligarchs in Paraguay were busy devising a "democratic coup" in congress to depose Lugo.

At the time, the US embassy noted political conditions were not ideal for a coup. Key among the plotters was former president Nicanor Duarte (2003 to 2008), severely bashed by progressive South American governments for having allowed US Special Forces in Paraguayan soil to conduct "educational courses," "domestic peacekeeping operations" and "counter-terrorism training."

This US Special Forces drive was happening decades after "one of our bastards," notorious dictator-general Alfredo Stroessner (in power from 1954 to 1989) had allowed the set-up of a giant US-owned semi-clandestine landing strip near the Argentina-Brazil-Paraguay Triple Border -- later to become part of the war on drugs, and then the war on terror.

So it's a no-brainer which was the first government to recognize last Friday's coup plotters in Paraguay: the United States of America.

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