SOLIDARITY

Paraguay ‘on edge of change’

This year is “the year of liberation” for
Paraguay, Ligia Prieto asserts.

The co-founder of the Women’s Union
of Paraguay reports that the political situa-
tion in her country, in the southern tip of
South America and adjacent to Argentina,
mirrors that of Chile under its fascist dicta-
torship.

But Prieto, in Vancouver recently to
attend the Latin American Women’s Con-
ference, told the Tribune that the dictator-
Ship in her country is facing new opposition.

This is the year that Napoleon Ortigoza,
for 24 years a political prisoner and revered
aS a national hero by the vast majority of
Paraguay’s citizens, is freed from prison.
The former air force captain was impri-
Soned for attempting to overthrow the bru-
tal regime of President Alfredo Struessner,

eto, speaking through translators, ex-
plained.

Few North Americans, including those
Politically active in international solidarity
work, know much about the small nation of
3% million people, some 1% million of
whom are exiled abroad.

A nation whose mainstay is large-scale
agriculture — mainly wheat and cotton
— as well as oil, Paraguay suffers under a
huge international debt load and chronic
Unemployment of 67 per cent.

Ruled by Struessner and his ironically-
Named conservative party, Parti Colarado
— the “Red Party” — much of Paraguay’s
farm land lies fallow while money loaned to
the country for agricultural purposes is
appropriated for luxury items for Struessner
and the small group of families who own
most of the arable land.

Prieto was a leading parliamentarian and

member of the Radical Party until, frus-
trated by the government’s stonewalling on
all reforms suggested by the Radicals
between 1973 and 1983, the party withdrew
from the parliamentary arena and did not
contest the 1983 elections.

Since then the Radicals have concen-
trated on building the extra-parliamentary
struggle, said Prieto, working among the
trade union, peasant, Native and women’s
movements to implement much-needed
reforms.

These include the Movement of Peasants
Without Land (the Spanish acronym is
MCST), the Union of Paraguayan Women,
the Association of Indian Women and the
umbrella organization, EPOS: the Encuen-
tro Permanente de Organizaciones Socia-
legs.

allel) the group works for freedom
of the press, freedom to organize, the right
to land, health and education, and a min-
imum wage. The organization, which the
government calls “subversive,” is led by Dr.
Carlos Filizzola, the 27-year old president

of the country’s medical association.
Also working for basic human rights, ina

‘country where there are few for poor and

working people, is the recently formed
union for cotton workers at the foreign-
owned Paraguayan Cotton Co. The union,
rejected by the right-wing labor central, the
Paraguayan Workers Confederation — an
AFL-CIO affiliate — joined up with the
larger and more popular Inter-union
Movement. That central, with 32 affiliates
to the confederation’s 22, is not officially
recognized by the dictatorship.

Paraguay’s government has been con-
demned since 1974, when the current dicta-
torship came to power, for the “physical
and psychological torture” of its opponents,
said Prieto noting that the dictatorship
sends its police agents to Taiwan to study
torture techniques.

Canadians can help by “pressing their
financial institutions not to give money to
the dictatorship,” and arranging visits by
human rights organizations and _ parlia-
mentarians to Paraguay, she said.

Nicaraguan ambassador here

Dr. Sergio Lacaya, Nicaragua’s ambas-
sador to Canada, will be making the keynote
address Mar. 20 to the fifth conference on
Central America as part of a four-day visit
to B.C. this week.

The conference opens with a public meet-
ing with Lacaya at the Robson Square
Media Centre at 7 p.m. March 20.

Earlier that same evening, Lacaya will be
the guest of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal
Council at B.C. Place Stadium for the First

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BILL KASHTAN

LEADER - COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA

MAURICE RUSH

PROVINCIAL LEADER

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 18, 1987 ¢ 11