They report the disappearance of a cousin of the two …

In Paraguay, not everything seeks to make the government of Mario Abdo Benítez look like. 14-year-old girl goes missing and is treated like belligerent. The victims – even minors – are presented as perpetrators. Woman who lives across the border in Puerto Rico in Misiones is considered a guerrilla fighter of the Paraguayan People’s Army (PPE). The Joint Task Force (JTF) – a mix of soldiers and police – is confirmed by the president as if it has a redemptive mission in the north of the country. The only thing that seems certain is that there is a scene of internal political violence where the state takes the lead and complaints of human rights violations are starting to circulate with increasing force internationally.

Argentina has become a platform from which criticism of Asunción and successive requests for explanations from human rights organizations come in. The last one concerned Where is Carmen Elizabeth Oviedo Villalba, 14, daughter of EPP activists Carmen Villalba and Alcides Oviedo detained since 2004. Their families have been systematically persecuted by all governments since the Guevarista peasant uprising began in the north of the country. An old practice reminiscent of the Southern Cone dictatorships supported by the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.

Last Saturday, the enforced disappearance of Oviedo Villalba was denounced in Buenos Aires. The Paraguayan girl is a cousin of the two little Argentines who were murdered by the FTC on September 2. Lilian Mariana Villalba and María Carmen Villalba were 11 years old. When their deaths were known, one had received seven bullets and the other two. They had been shot from behind, from the front and from the side. Their bodies were face down in an area of ​​dense vegetation, near a dismantled EPP encampment. Paraguayan media cited the explanation of Cristian Ferreira, the forensic expert who examined them: “The position in which the bodies were found indicates that they were clearly fleeing” the troops who attacked the guerrilla stronghold .

President Benítez – son of the historic private secretary of dictator Alfredo Stroessner – put in scene a scene in which he gave an account of the “successful operation against the EPP” and specified that “after a clash, two members of this armed group were killed”. The “falls in combat” were the two girls. December 2 from Washington, lHuman Rights Watch noted that “Paraguayan authorities destroyed critical evidence related to the death of two Argentinian girls of 11 years caused by agents of the state security forces and violated both their own investigative protocols and international human rights standards ”.

The Paraguayan government is said to have organized an investment to fight the EPP of 67,641 million guaraníes (around 9.6 million dollars) which it has included in the general budget of the nation (PGN) for 2021, according to information from of Asunción. A sum which, according to its detractors, does not sympathize with the meager progress it shows in its campaign against the guerrillas operating in the departments of Concepción and San Pedro. With such resources available, it would appear that the ruling Colorado Party is not enough and it appealed through the official deputy Raúl Latorre for a request for help from the United States on September 14, a few days later. the kidnapping of the former vice-president by the guerrillas. of the Nation Oscar Denis, asked Congress “for the military cooperation of the United States in the fight against the EPP” on the basis that his country “has always been a strategic ally” of Washington.

Paraguay’s historic ties with the United States prove Latorre right. LUSAID, a CIA surface organization, funded training programs for the military and police between 2005 and 2010, even under the presidency of Bishop Fernando Lugo, dismissed by a legislative coup d’état on June 22, 2012 with the support of the United States Embassy, ​​the initiative of the member for Colorado is part of this policy. In this context and Following the murder of the two girls on September 2 and the disappearance of their 14-year-old cousin this month, the national and international campaign of solidarity with the Villalba family was born in Buenos Aires. He demands the “living appearance now” of the daughter Carmen Elizabeth and the “freedom” of Laura Villalba. The reason is obvious: their life is in danger.

The female nurse was arrested on December 23 while searching for her niece. The government accuses him of providing logistical support to the EPP. The official Paraguayan News Agency published that FTC commander Oscar Chamorro said she was arrested in the Cerro Guazú region, Concepción department, where the last clash between the military took place. and the EPP on November 21. . But Villalba has lived in the province of Misiones for more than ten years with his large family.

In an in-depth interview that journalist Alejandro Spivak gave on September 14, for the site https: //misionesplural.net/, Myrian Villalba, the mother of Lilian Mariana, said: “I asked for a political refuge for my mother. , for my sister (Their names have not been released) and for me because I fear for our lives and those of the children we raise on our farm. »The property is located in the San Alberto district of the Municipality of Puerto Rico, in Misiones.

This Tuesday at 4 p.m. there will be a mobilization at CABA which will leave from Callao and Corrientes to the Paraguayan embassy. The demonstration will report the disappearance of Carmen Elizabeth and the arrest of Laura. The latter declared from Asunción that “the young girl is injured” and that she lost contact with her “on November 30”.. Villalba was looking for her until the FTC met her. She learned that “a group of men in uniform had taken her by force” although the information was not confirmed. The Guild of Lawyers and Lawyers of Argentina announced that “it will not allow an instance to appear, nationally and internationally, for the girl to appear alive”. In her complaint, she was accompanied by Nora Cortiñas from Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, the Social Platform for Human Rights, Memory and Democracy (Paraguay) and the Argentine League for Human Rights. ‘man who expressed their “concern about the situation of Carmen Elizabeth, having no official information on this subject”.