Elected pledging to hand over large swathes of land to the landless peasants of one of the most impoverished countries in Latin America, Lugo offered a challenge to the 70 year rule of the Colorado Party, and the interests of the business oligarchy who have subjected the country, and indeed the whole continent, to their own personal greed. Of course, the monopolies of the elites of Latin America have only ever been possible with the unequivocal support of the United States and their allies, and the dictators that the CIA have periodically installed. The Monroe Doctrine has served as the United States primary ideological motivation for maintaining their hegemony over the American continent, through brutal military dictators, coup d'etats and the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The coup in Paraguay is the most recent example of western colonial efforts to control and subjugate the peoples of Latin America, often through the violence of death squads and paramilitary thugs. We condemn how the right wing used the recent killing of 11 farmers in Curuguaty as a pretext for its criminal interests. Paraguay has a history soaked in blood, much of which has coagulated in the corridors of power of Washington D.C.. Through the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, USA, the United States has trained decades of killers to enforce their rule in Latin America, trained in torture and suppression of popular political movements.
As a grassroots campaign against the occupation, colonisation and apartheid of Israel against the Palestinian people, we are familiar with political repression, political prisoners and the violence of the powerful against those struggling for justice. We know the brutality and cynicism of Western imperialism – with Israel, the self-defined 'bulwark against barbarism', as its key pillar in the region – in its quest to control people, countries and resources and to destroy anyone and anything in its way.
We look at the close links between the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner and Israel, despite the fact that Stroessner was protecting Nazi war criminals. We look at the increasing involvement of Israeli "security firms" in Latin America, and the role they play in defending the wealth of the rich against the desires of the majority of the continent.
We look at all of this, and as Palestinians we feel a strong sense of solidarity and comradeship with the people of Latin America and all those who struggle daily for dignity and their land, against imperialism, colonialism and neoliberal capitalism. We know we are fighting the same struggle.
From Palestine we offer our solidarity to the people of Paraguay in defense of their rights and freedoms and reaffirm that the struggle of the Palestinian people against Israeli occupation, colonisation and apartheid is also a struggle for every oppressed people in this world. The struggle for the liberation of Palestine, and the return of her refugees, is also a struggle for the farmers, the workers, the landless, the indigenous, exploited and oppressed of Latin America to win their futures.
From Occupied Palestine, Tuesday 26th June 2012,
En solidaridad.
¡Viva la revolución!
Signed
The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign,
Ramallah, Occupied Palestine."