Parlasur: Progressive parliamentary group denounces evictions of Paraguay’s indigenous

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Several peasant leaders recently denounced that Paraguay is criminalizing the fight for land and that it intends to evict over 700,000 people, as a result of the advance of soybean plantations in the country.

“We condemn and denounce this violence committed by the Paraguayan government through the police forces in violent evictions of the indigenous and peasants,” said Perié, a leftist Parlasur bench deputy.

More than 3,000 people “belonging to indigenous communities who have been living, working the land and surviving from what they produce in these territories for a long time” have been evicted in recent days, she added. Consequently, “what is being done to protect the region’s large landowners is barbaric, along with what this land usurpation signifies,” she lamented.

UNESCO CONCERNED ABOUT EVICTIONS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND PEASANTS IN PARAGUAY

“The Human Rights Commission of Parlasur has held a meeting with the UNESCO Commission in Buenos Aires, expressing its firm opposition to the actions of the Paraguayan police forces,” Perié said.

“This was very common in the period of Stroessner’s dictatorship and today we see that it is happening again, therefore the Parlasur progressive bench will continue condemning these actions for their institutional gravity which we cannot allow,” she added.