In These New Times

January 22, 2009 (LPAC) –-On orders from President Fernando Lugo, combined forces of Paraguay’s National Police, Army, and other law-enforcement agencies are doing a sweep of the northern states of San Pedro and Concepcion, severely hindering normally extensive drug cartel operations, while tracking down the murky drug cartel-linked “Popular People’s Army” (EPP). On Dec. 31, the EPP appeared out of nowhere to attack a military outpost in the region, fraudulently claiming to defend the local peasantry.

Allies of dope-pusher George Soros are hysterical, charging that Lugo is copying the “repressive” methods successfully used against the drug cartels and narco-terrorists in Colombia. Soros-financed media is screaming about military “death squads” attacking defenseless peasants.

What they are really upset about is that President Lugo has ordered security forces to carry out a long-term operation, intended to permanently establish the State’s presence in a region whose isolation has allowed the drug mafias to operate quite openly. Government forces have already seized 1,000 kilos of marijuana, and the 19 checkpoints they set up in these northern states, have allowed them to identify suspicious activity and individuals.

The daily ABC reported Jan. 18 that the government’s intervention couldn’t have come at a worse time for the drug mafias. It is close to Brazil’s “carnival” season, during which the flow of marijuana from Paraguay into that country greatly increases to meet larger demand. In general, the marijuana that Paraguay provides to regional markets only–Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay–is worth about $3.6 billion, an amount exceeding Paraguay’s legal annual exports. The cartels won’t be pleased if Lugo interferes with their lucrative business.