Paraguyan Communist Party

Paraguayan Communist Party

Paraguay and the possibilities for change

introduCtion

First, we salute the militants of the Communist and Workers’ Parties from all over the world, as well as the working class of the cities and the countryside. We would like to make a particular recognition to the health workers and to each woman, each man, who had (and has) to expose himself for labor reasons, to the contagion of the new coronavirus.With the enormous risk that the capitalist mode of production spreads on a global scale, imposing the commercialization of all social relationships and –thus- weakening the public health systems in the vast majority of countries.

We dedicate our efforts to the millions of combatants for the free association of women and men, revolutionaries who fought, were persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, kidnapped, disappeared, and whose examples continue to underpin the socialist-communist project.This year we remember the 40th anniversary of the kidnapping and disappearance of comrades Antonio Maidana and Emilio Roa, victims of Operation Condor; 45 years of the kidnapping and disappearance of comrades Miguel ÁngelSoler, Octavio Rubén González Acosta and DerlisVillagra.We continue to fight for the freedom of the political prisoners of our country and the world, with the decision to overcome in a humanist way this enormous crisis of capitalism.

As the document must be brief, we will not delve into descriptions of the structural - and therefore civilizational - crisis of the capitalist mode of production, although we will place elements to locate our country within this crisis and in the class struggle.

Context

The global projections are not encouraging at all. On the part of the establishment Think Tanks, the estimates of the post-pandemic world economy show an increasing tendency to develop in the shape of an L, since the fall we have been experiencing would be followed by a slowdown in economic activity and the subsequent stagnation of the world economy. Let us remember that 2019 was already closing as the third consecutive year of global economic stagnation and the one with the lowest growth in a decade, all this, before the emergence of the health crisis derived from COVID-19.

In June 2020, World Bank projections predicted a 5.2% drop in the world economy, while for the hegemonic economies a steep fall of the order of 7% is forecast, recalling that they had already been sustaining a drop in profitability of capital; while for Latin

America the projections forecast a drop of 7.2%, and through bond issuance. specifi cally Paraguay would be experiencing a drop of Added to this scenario is the fact that Paraguay has around 3%. 71% of its Economically Active Population (EAP) in-

The offi cial speech of the Paraguayan government volved in informal work -that is without job stability, proposes a growth of 5% for 2021. The IMF diff ers a social security, medical insurance or retirement-.Also point, placing the growth of the Paraguayan econo- with 84% liberalization of its economy, and domimy at around 4%, and clarifying that the forecast is nated by imperialist monopolies that cross agendas subject to the dynamics presented by the markets. with all kinds of illegal traffi cking sustained from mafi a We must add the projections made this year by the structures that for decades have dominated the social Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Na- relations of production in the country. tions (FAO), where the projec- At the beginning of tions in relation to the October, a wave of fi res behavior of the price of registered nearly 14,000 the main commodities outbreaks in our country, exchanged by the re- many of them caused by gion and the country in cattle ranchers and soy-the international mar- bean farmers, if not by ket, they tend to fall, at real estate speculators, least until 2028. deepening the climate

Today public debt crisis and drawing the represents 30.7% of GDP, represents 30.7% of GDP, dystopian landscape and is projected to reach and is projected to reach that anticipates a dire 35%, which is extremely 35%, which is extremely future absorbed by the risky for a small-volume risky for a small-volume maddening voracity of economy, with an extereconomy, with an exter- the parasitic ruling class. nal sector dependent on the production of commodities, whose characteristic is fl uctuation of prices in the international market.

Added to this is the low collection capacity, tax evasion that according to the Undersecretary of State for Taxation is around 30% and, of course, the low tax pressure that is around 14% according to the ranking prepared by the Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD).This places our country well below the regional average that exceeds 20%, favoring the conditions for a possible scenario of inability to pay debts.

What makes the debt unsustainable and dangerous is precisely the fact that the resources obtained by the placement of the securities in the international private fi nancial market are used in a large proportion to service the debt, that is, to contract debt to pay debts. According to data from the Ministry of Finance, at the end of 2018, USD 1,210 million of the resources obtained have been used to pay off debts, while some USD 1,877 were used to fi nance public works.

The low collection capacity presents as a counterpart the need to indebt the country to sustain the functioning of the economy in general and, of the structure of the State in particular, so the government decided to continue with the same debt dynamics

the pandemiC

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), the registry of unemployed for Latin America and the Caribbean reaches 41 million people, which is located as a record of unemployed, since there are records. Yet the Government of Fraud , faithful to its corrupted mediocrity, masks unemployment data in the country by enabling a new category called “circumstantial inactive people”.With 217,000 people, which almost equals the 256,882 unemployed people, according to the General Directorate of Statistics, Surveys and Censuses (DGEEC) , thus hiding the exponential growth of unemployment in our country.

On March 11, the quarantine began in Paraguay, generating a signifi cant paralysis of economic, fi nancial and commercial relations. Our Party was one of the fi rst organizations that presented a 12-point proposal to face the crisis, which included: raising an additional tax on banks, taking into account their large profi ts and low taxation; insisting on work permits without discounts; care and subsidy for informal workers; review of the employer’s contribution to guarantee medical care; opening for compulsory and free care in private health centers, subsidy for micro and small companies aff ected by the suspension of activities, adjustment of 40% of the minimum wage

106 to alleviate the loss of purchasing power, provide all the necessary security measures to workers, suspension –without discounts- of work contracts, of all work activities that concentrate people; severe penalties for pharmacies and distribution companies that speculate with prices; special attention for the suspension of all work activity, with pay, of people over 60 years of age, as well as people with chronic diseases and pregnant and lactating mothers; guarantee the distribution of food and drinking water for workers in the informal sector and people living in extreme poverty. Undoubtedly, our proposals were presented so that the worker, peasant and popular social alliance reinforces its arguments and its morals in the fi ght to avoid that the costs of the crisis are completely turned on its shoulders, attending to the total incapacity of the State and the government, to deal with ernment, to deal with the situation. From the beginning, a From the beginning, a large part of the populalarge part of the population accepted the quartion accepted the quarantine with discipline, out antine with discipline, out of total awareness about the terrible state of the public health system. There were people who believed that the government would take a loan of 1,600 million dollars, framed in the Sanitary Emergency Law, to provide the health system with minimal infrastructure, to face the pandemic, but the looting inertia was stronger. In the midst of the largest economic crisis of capitalism in the world, with millions of unemployed, a pandemic and a rapid loss of purchasing power of the working class, the bosses continued to take advantage of every minute to forge their robberies, protected by the speed that the moment demanded.They made wrong and simulated purchases, with adulterated invoices, smuggling, appropriating land with false titles, evading millionaire taxes, corruptly arranging tenders with the State, violating environmental protection regulations, in addition to breaching the current Labor Force Code, operating with permanent and criminal violence. Our forces focused their energies into denouncing multiple abuses against the working class, setting up complaint phone lines and accompanying each case in union and legal terms. In addition, we work closely with communities for the organization of popular pots that guarantee the feeding of the most aff ected and excluded sectors, promoting the realization of community vegetable plots, bakery workshops, school reinforcement, self-management fairs and mobilizations, direct actions and complaints against State institutions for not meeting the right to adequate food.

The workers’ struggles had victories and defeats in this crisis, with an accumulation in the key of class organization, which is embryonic and at the same time signifi cant, within the framework of the process of reorganization of the working class.With a growing communist protagonism, in the search for the necessary combination between breadth and depth, to contribute to the development of the revolutionary subjective factor. In the organization of the popular pots, awareness and the example of solidarity of the working class grew, in addition to the constant complaints and mobilizations of the territorial organizations. Therefore, they managed to present and pass a law that guarantees the support for the pots with supplies that ensure adequate food, coordinating the purchase with peasant organizations that carry out sustainable production.

Disputes over territory continue, both in the countryside and in the city, with peasant movements and homeless movements resisting, occupying and contesting the common sense of the majorities, seeking to demonstrate that those who usurp territories are the exploiters, attending to the millions of ill-gotten hectares that have existed in our country since the times of Stroessner’s military-fascist tyranny. In this sense, our Party has been working with resistance in some territories and insisting from various organizations on the need for Trial and Punishment of looters and torturers, as an unavoidable step to establish in an exemplary way what our society tolerates and promotes, as well as what it does not tolerates and fi ghts, raising our voice for Never Again State Terrorism!

In fact, the absence of Trial and Punishment has its weight both in the election as President of the Republic, of the son of the former Private Secretary of the tyrant Stroessner, as in the continuity of the re-

the Challenges of working maJorities

This militarization multiplied costs by creating a Joint Task Force (FTC in Spanish), which since 2013 has not made signifi cant progress in fi ghting the Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP), which they consider a criminal gang. On the contrary, crimes and abuses multiplied in the north, because actually, the Brazilian landowners and the First Capital Command (PrimeiroComando da Capital - PCC) cross interests in that area.Taking into account the geo-economic advantages that include the Port of Concepción, and at the same time the possibility of territorial control for a safer drug traffi cking corridor, with all the richness in biodiversity in the area. Within this in the area. Within this entire drug-dealing and entire drug-dealing and predatory scheme, Parapredatory scheme, Paraguayan landowners, polguayan landowners, politicians, police and miliiticians, police and military also make part.

As a decadent and terrorist expression of the Paraguayan State, on September 2, the FTC made an incursion into the area, the fi rst report of which was the murder of two members of the EPP’s fi rst ring. President Abdo went to the area to celebrate the success of the military and police, saying that they were hot on the heels of the aforementioned organization. The hours passed and it became known that they had actually murdered two 11-year-old girls, of Argentine nationality, who were in the area to see their relatives, related to the armed organization.

Days later, aft er the international embarrassment, under the nose of the government and in a militarized zone, the indigenous worker Adelio Mendoza and his boss, the leader of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, Oscar Denis, were kidnapped. Mendoza was released thanks to pressure from family members and indigenous peoples who entered the wooded area in his search. Denis is still kidnapped.

All the looting and surrender mediocrity of the fraud government leaned towards the eff ort to establish that the critical situation was the responsibility of communism, of Marxism, which continues to articulate on a global scale to harm humanity, recovering 107the old anti-communist and criminalizing discourse against social and political dissent.

The bosses are re-sprouting an anti-communist discourse as a form of ideological pressure for sectors of the popular and revolutionary fi eld to demarcate positions and renounce the traditions of struggle, within the framework of the continuity of ideological disarmament to deactivate any eff ort to strengthen the subjective revolutionary factor.

Our eff ort throughout this time has been to accentuate an economic-vindictive and ideological base work, strengthening ties based on the continuity of tasks and the fulfi llment of agreements.Seeking to regain the confi dence of the working class in their own strength, and, at the same time, conducting a study of our revolutionary theory submitting our experiences in the light of its categories. The deepening of the civilizational crisis of the capitalist mode of production, taking into account the projections of various organizations, pushes us to understand that another capitalism for Paraguay is not possible.The ruling class is not interested in a class conciliation that enables the possibility of a progressive management of capital. Quite the contrary, is promoting a State reform to pulverize labor conquests and make the working class even more precarious.

They seek the reform of the law of public service, making believe that the Paraguayan State is very large, when in reality it uses only 19% of its GDP for public spending, which at the same time is wasted in a prebendary policy. At the same time, they carry out maneuvers to use the retirement funds and dynamite them, divide the payment of the Christmas bonus, reduce all types of social security, transferring all the responsibility and protection to each worker.

Our response to this situation is the articulation of a unit of action to confront the off ensive of capital over labor. As well as fi ghting for the unmasking of those responsible for this whole situation, for a just and necessary General Budget of the Nation.Showing that we need another State to conquer rights and social justice.In the understanding, that this other State must be led by a worker, peasant and popular alliance, capable of radiating trust and identity in the

108 other social layers that are objectively harmed by this situation. We are aware of our limited and insufficient strength, as we also value our theoretical-practical effort in sustaining tasks. The elaboration of a common revolutionary strategy, capable of encompassing the multiplicity of national forms with the depth of international class content is the great challenge of our Party, as well as of all Communist and Workers’

Parties. The great challenge is to build a powerful, broad and deep unity, whose backbone is the worker, peasant and popular alliance, with total clarity about the simultaneity of the anti-imperialist struggles and those for socialism-communism. In that sense, we will continue working with revolutionary vigilance, criticism and self-criticism, with humility capable of giving birth to greatness, the revolutionary subjective factor framed in the strategy capable of mobilizing the working majority in the recovery of what belongs to them. Collaborating with the liberation of humanityfrom the dictatorship of capital, to inaugurate that new society without exploiters or exploited: the communist society.

October, 2020