New government in Paraguay has different focus on issue of brasiguaios

Fernando Lugo, the president of Paraguay who was impeached on Friday (June 22), declared that the problem of the 350,000 Brazilians living in his country (“brasiguaios”), most of them landowning farmers in areas near the border with Brazil, was just one of some 30 bilateral issues that the two countries had to deal with.

The new president of Paraguay, Federico Franco, sees things differently. Yesterday (Monday, June 25), his new Foreign Minister, José Félix Fernandez Estigarribia, declared that the brasiguaios issue was one of the new government’s priorities.

Brasiguaios come in all sizes: big, medium and small farmers. What they all have in common is fear because of tension in the countryside, especially pressure by landless Paraguayan rural workers (“carperos”) who constantly threaten to invade their property. They say they are victims of discrimination because of their nationality and complain that Paraguayan authorities do not protect them. Since the Lugo government was elected (in 2008), promising to promote social justice and land reform, there has been more pressure for social justice and land reform (in Paraguay, a basically rural, farming nation with a population of 6.5 million, less than 5% of the population owns close to 90% of the productive land).

Over the weekend (June 23 and 24), representatives of the brasiguaios sent president Dilma Rousseff a letter requesting that the government of Brazil recognize the Franco administration as soon as possible because “…[it will be] a decision fundamental to creating a calm environment for the Paraguayan people and the Brazilians who live among them.”