{mini}Printable version

English · Español · Português

23 August 2012 | | | | |

Ethical Trial

Social Trial Against Parliament that Staged Coup in Paraguay

Download: MP3 (1.3 Mb)

Download: MP3 (5.8 Mb)

Two months after Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo was ousted, the new government is clearly defending vested interests: releasing new genetically modified crops, new mining projects by transnational corporations, repression in the countryside through eviction of peasants and persecution of community radios.

However, the social organizations continue exposing and resisting the de facto regime of Federico Franco’s and the Paraguayan conservative parties.

As part of this, on Wednesday 22 August, an Ethical Trial against the Paraguayan Parliament was launched by tens of social, environmental, human rights organizations and community radios that comprise the Platform of Social Organizations for Democracy.

The process will last until November of this year, when there will be a formal civic accusation against Congress for failing to comply with its constitutional duties, especially for the arbitrary use of the impeachment mechanism that led to Lugo’s ousting. Lugo is still in the country and he has encouraged civil resistance to the regime.

The Ethical Trial is a citizen control tool on the public administration of power under the Paraguayan Constitution.

Real World Radio interviewed Norma Gimenez, of Sobervivencia-Friends of the Earth Paraguay.

She said “We believe that we have been taken away our right to citizen participation. Parliament does not represent us and has no right to act on our behalf”, said Norma.

The Tribunal began a process to receive accusations and is expecting that by November 22 there will be a public hearing and a verdict, so the Congress will be requested to appoint a lawyer.

On the same day of the launching of the trial against Parliament, nearly 700 police officers and military police evicted the plot called 3 de mayo, near the capital, where 137 families had been living for a year.

A member of the community, Euterio Gonzalez, said the lands were part of the over 7,000 hectares of a plot of land, so they were negotiating its payment with the owner.

“Our bean crops are there as well as other harvests that are growing and people are going back to re-occupy the lands even though it is dangerous because they have no place to live”, said Gonzalez.

Norma Gimenez, of Sobrevivencia-Friends of the Earth Paraguay said that it only took a fortnight for the de facto regime to show its true colors.

She said that they immediately issued licenses for GM maize and cotton events by transnational corporation Monsanto without the necessary period to test they are innocuous.

Finally, in the case of Canadian mining corporation Rio Tinto, the public consultations and environmental impact studies that had to be performed before granting the licenses for its installation in the country were suspended.

The process for the installation of the mining corporation was planned to be finished in 2016, but it was canceled during the first two weeks of Federico Franco’s administration.

(CC) 2012 Real World Radio

Messages

Who are you?
Your post

This form accepts SPIP shortcuts [->url] {{bold}} {italic} <quote> <code> and the HTML code <q> <del> <ins>. To create paragraphs, simply leave blank lines.

Close

Friend of the Earth

Real World Radio 2003 - 2018 | All the material published here is licensed under Creative Commons (Attribution Share Alike). The site is created with Spip, free software specialized in web publications. Done with love.