US embassy cable - 05ASUNCION1222

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 ASUNCION 001222 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NOFORN 
 
STATE PASS TO USAID LAC/AA 
NSC FOR SUE CRONIN 
SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD DAN JOHNSON 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/23/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PTER, PINR, MARR, ETRD, PA, VE 
SUBJECT: PARAGUAY AND VENEZUELA: MORE ON CHAVEZ ACTIVITIES 
IN THE REGION 
 
REF: A. ASUNCION 01186 
     B. ASUNCION 01162 
     C. ASUNCION 01154 AND PRECEDING 
     D. ASUNCION 01076 
     E. ASUNCION 01025 
     F. TD-314/46316-05 (02 AUG 05) 
     G. ASUNCION 00807 
     H. STATE 116522 
     I. ASUNCION 00487 AND PRECEDING 
     J. STATE 43965 
     K. TD-314/12121-05 (28 FEB 05) 
 
Classified By: PolOff Mark A. Stamilio, reasons 1.4(b) and (d). 
 
1. (U) The following information responds to Department's 
action request in ref H and supplements information 
previously reported in ref I. 
 
2. (S/NF) SUMMARY: Post has no new information regarding 
campesino trips to Venezuela funded by the GOV for "special 
indoctrination training."  The website 
www.congresobolivariano.org and recent sensitive reporting 
list several Paraguayan social, political and religious 
organizations that belong to the Paraguay Chapter of the 
Bolivarian People's Congress.  Sensitive reporting indicates 
that Venezuelan and Cuban officials are systematically 
organizing activities of leftist organizations in Paraguay. 
The GOP continues to maintain lukewarm relations with the 
GOV.  The GOP and GOV reportedly are discussing a new oil 
purchase agreement, and possible GOV investment in a 
Paraguayan oil refinery and idle Paraguayan vegetable oil 
factories.  Paraguay's mainstream media continue to focus on 
issues other than Venezuela, Chavez and the Bolivarian 
Revolution.  However, Chavez could be behind the spread of 
blatantly false rumors of U.S. plans to build a base in 
Paraguay, deploy 400 troops to Paraguay to protect oil and 
natural gas reserves in Bolivia, and steal the region's fresh 
water supplies from the Guarani Aquifer.  END SUMMARY. 
 
3. (S/NF) CAMPESINO TRIPS: Post has no new information to 
report regarding campesino trips to Venezuela funded by the 
GOV for "special indoctrination training" (refs H and I). 
But see ref K, regarding travel by members of the leftist 
Patria Libre Party from Paraguay through Venezuela to 
Colombia for FARC training. 
 
4. (S/NF) BOLIVARIAN ACTIVITIES: Post directs Department's 
attention to the website www.congresobolivariano.org and ref 
F for information regarding the Paraguay Chapter of the 
Bolivarian People's Congress (Congreso Bolivariano de los 
Pueblos).  An August 16 website entry entitled "Get Out of 
Paraguay, Yankees" ("Fuera Yanquis de Paraguay") and a 
September 12 entry entitled "Third People's Summit Opens in 
Paraguay" ("Lanzamiento de la III Cumbre de los Pueblos en 
Paraguay") list several Paraguayan social, political and 
religious organizations that purportedly belong to the 
Congress's Paraguay Chapter.  (NOTE: The organizations 
include at least two campesino movements, the Paraguayan 
Campesino Movement (MCP) and the National Front for the 
Struggle for Sovereignty and Life (FNLSV), and Senate 
President Carlos Filizzola's Country in Solidarity Movement 
(Movimiento Pais Solidario).  END NOTE.)  Various articles 
opposing the recent SECDEF visit to Paraguay (ref C), the 
presence of U.S. troops in Paraguay for joint exercises, 
immunities for those troops, erroneous reports of U.S. 
intentions to establish a military base in Paraguay, and 
plans to establish an FBI (LEGATT) office in Asuncion are 
posted to the Paraguay Chapter's page of the website. 
 
5. (C) VENEZUELAN EMBASSY ACTIVITIES: Sensitive reporting 
indicates that Venezuelan and Cuban officials are 
systematically organizing activities of leftist organizations 
in Paraguay.  For example, on July 12 the Cuban embassy in 
Asuncion sponsored a public rally on "Terrorism and the 
Struggle for Peace."  The Cuban ambassador and a 
representative of the Venezuelan embassy attended the rally. 
The main themes of the rally were "U.S. Imperialism" and "USG 
Responsibility for Operation Condor." 
 
6. (C) GOP-GOV RELATIONS: The GOP continues to maintain 
lukewarm relations with the GOV (refs D and I).  Following 
the recent SECDEF visit, President Duarte did his best to 
strike a neutral pose.  In the face of claims by Brazil and 
Argentina that Paraguay was cozying up to the U.S. and 
distancing itself from its Mercosur trading partners, Duarte 
defended Paraguay's sovereign right to maintain relations 
with any country of its choosing.  At the same time, seeking 
to play down SECDEF's statements that Venezuela and Cuba were 
attempting to destabilize the region, Duarte emphasized that 
the GOP would continue to maintain normal relations with 
those two countries.  The following day, MOD Gonzalez issued 
a press release that criticized countries whose foreign 
policies sought to "satanize" the U.S.  At the same time, the 
MOD's press release commended the GOV for providing economic 
assistance to Paraguay, and the GOC for providing 
scholarships for Paraguayan students to study in Cuba. 
(NOTE: Venezuelan Ambassador to Paraguay Jose Huerta Castillo 
retorted on a local radio program that the U.S. was 
attempting to destabilize democratic governments in Latin 
America, and that the GOV was winning hearts and minds in 
Paraguay.  END NOTE.)  Oscar Rodriguez Kennedy, who is a 
member of President Duarte's Colorado Party but makes no 
secret of his disdain for Duarte, recently told PolCouns that 
 
SIPDIS 
he had been informed that Duarte recently passed a letter to 
Paraguay's ambassador to Venezuela -- without FM Rachid's 
knowledge -- for delivery to Chavez, assuring him that 
nothing had changed in terms of Paraguay's relationship with 
Venezuela notwithstanding the SECDEF visit.  (COMMENT: 
Rodriguez is notorious for rumor mongering Post has no 
secondary verification.  END COMMENT.) 
 
7. (C) COMMERCIAL TIES: Paraguay's state-owned oil company, 
Petropar, reportedly will sign a new oil purchase agreement 
with Venezuela in October, similar to the agreement the two 
countries signed in November 2004 (refs G and I).  According 
to source at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, no oil 
was ever purchased under the old agreement.  Additionally, 
Venezuelan Petroleum S.A. (PDVSA) reportedly seeks to enter 
an agreement with Petropar to conduct an economic and 
engineering study of the Petropar oil refinery, with an eye 
toward future investment by PDVSA (ref E).  There are similar 
reports that the GOV seeks to invest money to reactivate 
several idle vegetable oil factories in Paraguay, with an eye 
toward creating jobs and eventually transferring ownership of 
the factories to employees (ref E).  (COMMENT: Esso's country 
director told Econ Chief that, with the major oil companies 
closing much larger refineries elsewhere, it is hard to 
conceive of any commercial justification for investing in 
Petropar's refinery.  Similarly, the President of Paraguay's 
National Development Bank dismissed the vegetable oil 
proposal as "fantasy," since most of the factories that were 
left to the Bank have already been sold.  END COMMENT.) 
 
8. (C) MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Paraguay's mainstream media continue 
to focus on issues other than Venezuela, Chavez and the 
Bolivarian Revolution (ref I).  This held true during the 
recent SECDEF visit.  Rather than focusing on SECDEF's 
statements that Venezuela and Cuba were attempting to 
destabilize the region, or Venezuela's retort that the U.S. 
was attempting to do the same, mainstream media focused on 
the "secrecy" surrounding the SECDEF visit (his agenda was 
kept very close hold and there were no press conferences 
during the visit) and speculation about the "real reasons" 
for the visit (many commentators challenged official USG/GOP 
explanations that it was a courtesy visit and asserted that 
there must have been a hidden agenda).  (COMMENT: However, 
speculation about the "real reasons" for the visit centered 
primarily on the same themes carried on the web page for the 
Paraguay Chapter of the Bolivarian People's Congress, 
discussed above -- i.e., the debate over the presence of U.S. 
troops in Paraguay for joint exercises, immunities for those 
troops, erroneous reports of U.S. intentions to establish a 
military base in Paraguay, and plans to establish an FBI 
(LEGATT) office in Asuncion.  END COMMENT.)  In the wake of 
the SECDEF visit, mainstream media focused on Brazil and 
Argentina's claims that Paraguay was cozying up to the U.S. 
and distancing itself from its Mercosur trading partners, 
claims that raised the ire of many Paraguayans (ref A and C). 
 
9. (C) On August 23, one week after the SECDEF visit, an 
editorial entitled "Pigs Preaching about Hygiene" ("Los 
Chanchos Hablando de Higiene") appeared in Paraguay's leading 
local daily, ABC Color, in response to Chavez's statements at 
a medical school graduation ceremony in Cuba that U.S. joint 
military exercises with countries such as Paraguay were part 
of the U.S.'s alleged attempt to destabilize the region.  The 
editorial was highly critical of Chavez and Castro, asserting 
that neither leader had any moral authority.  The author 
criticized Castro for being "the oldest, most blood-thirsty 
tyrant on the planet," and Chavez for being "Latin America's 
new populist authoritarian."  The author added that Chavez 
was "not much better than Castro," since each uses his 
respective military to silence dissent and advance his 
political agenda, and surrounds himself with a political 
elite that enjoys special privileges while the masses live in 
poverty.  The author concluded by encouraging Paraguay's 
leaders to look to other nations that recently achieved 
prosperity and freedom as models for Paraguay to follow, 
rather than the model espoused by the "new Bolivars." 
10. (C) COMMENT: While it is possible that there is merely a 
concurrence of opinion between Chavistas and Paraguay's more 
radical left, it is also entirely possible that Bolivarian 
groups are behind the spread of blatantly false rumors of 
U.S. plans to build a base in Paraguay, deploy 400 troops to 
Paraguay to protect oil and natural gas reserves in Bolivia, 
and steal the region's fresh water supplies from the Guarani 
Aquifer (refs B and C).  In addition to appearing on the web 
page for the Paraguay Chapter of the Bolivarian People's 
Congress, a consistent set of anti-U.S. themes -- namely, 
opposition to the presence of U.S. troops in Paraguay for 
joint exercises, immunities for those troops, and erroneous 
reports of U.S. intentions to establish a military base in 
Paraguay -- have arisen repeatedly in the context of recent 
student protests, campesino demonstrations, and various news 
reports out of Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Chile.  It is 
unlikely that a misinformation campaign with such a 
consistent message would emerge spontaneously from such a 
wide range of sources.  It is now clear that someone is 
orchestrating it. 
KEANE