ASUNCION, March 30 (NNN-TELESUR) — Representatives of Paraguay’s three branches of government, Indigenous people, and Campesinos established a dialogue table Wednesday in which Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Denis Lichi said the government would take on agricultural debts in response to one of the core demands of the protests.
The other demands include access to land and a productive economic reactivation.
As an alternative to subsidies for agriculture debts, Lichi proposed the purchase of private entities debts, to be then restructured under more convenient conditions, with minimum interest and other benefits that would be granted through state financial entities that would take on said debts.
“It has to be seen on a case-by-case basis. Evaluate each of the debts, because they do not count for that,” the minister said at the end of the meeting in the Chamber of Senators.
Protesters who have been demonstrating in Plaza de Armas in downtown Asuncion outside of Congress, have also denounced the dismissal of Ana Maria Allen Davalos, president of the Instituto Paraguayo del Indigena and the eviction of families of their ancestral lands in Tacuara’i.
In 2016 and 2017 similar protests took place. The second year of mobilizations resulted in US$40 million in sovereign bonds for the regeneration of family agriculture for Campesinos. Half went to the Agricultural Credit of Habilitation (CAH) and the other half to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG), Ultima Hora reported. CNI leader Jorge Galeano questioned the use of that money.
Economist researcher Gladys Benegas told AFP that “just over 63% of producers operate on land of less than 10 hectares, but they represent little more than 2% of the total agricultural area.”
“The issues that aggravate inequality are the existence of widespread insecurity of tenure, since approximately 27% of producers lack rights to the land they operate, and another 36% operate on illegal occupations.”
The news comes at a time when similar protests by Indigenous people in Colombia have been taking place against the right-wing government of President Ivan Duque, demanding the recognition of their right to land and the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement that would also grant local indigenous communities some autonomy over their ancestral lands. — NNN-TELESUR
