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

Paraguayan Indigenous Protest, Paraguay, Sept. 2021 | Photo: Twitter/ @DrSuazo915

Published 3 November 2021

Since the beginning of the year, 11 Indigenous communities have been forcibly evicted from lands claimed by private companies.

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.

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"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).

In 2006, the Truth and Justice Commission denounced that the Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship (1954-1989) implemented an "agrarian reform" whereby over 75 percent of the lands of the Indigenous peoples and farmers were confiscated and handed over to its right-wing allies.

Since then, the affected social groups have tried to recover their lands through property occupation strategies, which are considered illegal under current laws. Besides being repressed by the police, popular organizations are attacked by private security agents that behave like paramilitary groups.

In July, for example, a private security force in Rosarino fired against a settlement that had been in the zone for 13 years. Days later, armed civilians disguised as police officers assaulted a group of farmers. Local organizations denounced that authorities allow these recurrent actions.