Paraguay in a spin about Bush's alleged 100,000 acre hideaway

The Guardian UK
Tom Phillips in Cuiab
Monday October 23 2006

Meeting the new couple next door can be an anxious business for even the most relaxed home owner.
Will they be international drug traffickers? Have they got noisy kids with a penchant for electronic music? As worries go, however, having the US president move in next door must come fairly low on the list
Unless of course you are a resident of northern Paraguay and believe reports in the South American press that he has bought up a 100,000 acre (40,500 hectare) ranch in your neck of the woods

The rumours, as yet unconfirmed but which began with the state-run Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, have triggered an outpouring of conspiracy theories, with speculation rife about what President Bush's supposed interest in the "chaco", a semi-arid lowland in the Paraguay's north, might be

Some have speculated that he might be trying to wrestle control of the Guarani Aquifer, one of the largest underground water reserves, from the Paraguayans

Rumours of Mr Bush's supposed forays into South American real estate surfaced during a recent 10-day visit to the country by his daughter Jenna Bush. Little is known about her trip to Paraguay, although officially she travelled with the UN children's agency Unicef to visit social projects. Photographers from the Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color tracked her down to one restaurant in Paraguay's capital Asunción, where she was seen flanked by 10 security guards, and was also reported to have met Paraguay's president, Nicanor Duarte, and the US ambassador to Paraguay, James Cason.
Reports in sections of the Paraguayan media suggested she was sent on a family "mission" to tie up the land purchase in the "chaco"

Erasmo Rodríguez Acosta, the governor of the Alto Paraguay region where Mr Bush's new acquisition supposedly lies, told one Paraguayan news agency there were indications that Mr Bush had bought land in Paso de Patria, near the border with Brazil and Bolivia.
He was, however, unable to prove this, he added

Last week the Paraguayan news group Neike suggested that Ms Bush was in Paraguay to "visit the land acquired by her father - relatively close to the Brazilian Pantanal [wetlands] and the Bolivian gas reserves"

The US presence in Paraguay has been under scrutiny since May 2005 when the country's Congress agreed to allow 400 American marines to operate there for 18 months in exchange for financial aid

At the time many viewed the arrival of troops as a sign that Washington was trying to monitor US business interests in neighbouring Bolivia, after the election of Evo Morales, a leftwing leader who promised to nationalise his country's natural gas industry

..
The Last Aryans In Paraguay - Sometime In Late 19th Century, A Handful Of German Families Settled In A Remote Jungle Of Paraguay, Where They Intended To Create A Racially Pure Utopian Settlement Called Nueva Germania - The Experiment Failed, The Settlers Were Unprepared For The Devastating Diseases And Other Hardships Of Jungle Life, And Their Descendants.
Some Of Whom Inter-married With The Darker, Skinned Locals, Are Among The Poorest People In One Of The Poorest Countries In South America, Today, According To "The Vogue Book Of Blondes" By Kathy Phillips, A Version Of The Colony Still Exists In Paraguay, Many Of The Inhabitants Have Blonde Hair And Blue Eyes But Are Predominantly Poor, Inbred And Diseased, Hardly The Race Of Super Men And Women Nietzsche And Forster First Envisaged For Their New Germany, This Is Another One From Vice

Bush Family Paraguay Hideaway - Paraguayan sources have confirmed that George W.
Bush recently bought 42,000 hectares (over 100,000 acres) of land in Paraguay's northern "Chaco" region

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The Bush's Family Bad Latin American Real Estate Investment


Blame It On Paraquay!

Counter Punch
By DAVE LINDORFF
May 3 / 4, 2008

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff05032008.html

Back in late 2006, it was widely reported in the Latin American media that President Bush, or perhaps his old man, had bought a 100,000-acre farm in a remote area of Paraguay

What struck people at the time was the choice of country. Paraguay, of course, has gained a certain Club Med status among the world's villains and criminal elements as the place to go when the law's on your tail. The country, ruled for six decades by the dictatorial and fascist Colorado Party of Gen.
Alfredo Stroesser, an almost cartoon charicature of a Latin American dictator, has no extradition treaty with any nation

That's why it has long harbored aging Nazis, bank robbers, and a string of ousted or retired Latin American dictators and their assistants over the years

Given that President Bush, once he leaves office on January 20, 2009, will no longer have the diplomatic immunity conferred upon heads of state, or the Constitutional protection against indictment by domestic prosecutors, it makes sense that he would be looking for a safe haven from the long arm of the law

After all, they guy is guilty of a huge laundry list of international crimes, from the Crime Against Peace and Conspiracy against Peace in the UN Charter, to Geneva Convention violations like approval of torture of prisoners, collective punishment of civilians, the killing of children and child soldiers, the failure to protect occupied citizens, the use of banned weapons, etc., etc.
, and also of domestic crimes, ranging from political use of government employees, conspiracy, treason, lying to federal officials, defrauding Congress, etc

No wonder he wants to do what Klaus Barbie, Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichmann did, and hole up in Paraguay

Only trouble is, Paraguay may not be such a safe haven for long

Last month, a former Roman Catholic Bishop with leftist, populist tendencies, Fernando Lugo, surprised almost everyone in Paraguay, and no doubt President Bush, by winning the national presidential election, ousting the Colorado Party for the first time in 61 years.
There is talk that among other things, Lugo is thinking of returning Paraguay to the community of nations, by signing some of those extradition agreements

If he does that Bush may be stuck having to hide behind his rump squad of Secret Service agents down at the Crawford Ranch, hoping they can keep the process servers from Brattleboro and Marlboro, VT, with their war crimes arrest warrants, at bay

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition).

His work is available at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net