The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

paraguay, brazil, argentina: the “united soy republic” 281spected in Spain. The cases were brought before the European Court inBrussels and Monsanto lost. If successful, these maneuvers could be a seriousthreat to Argentine exports, because in order to avoid disputes with uncertainoutcomes, European dealers have begun to turn to other sources ofsupply. “It’s unjust,” says Campos, “because Monsanto has greatly profitedfrom the boldness of Argentina, which authorized its seeds when they werevery controversial. And it’s thanks to Argentina that the company was able tomake inroads into other countries on the continent.”The New ConquistadoresBack in Paraguay, the inroads Campos spoke of rather euphemistically haveassumed the shape of an ecological and social catastrophe. “It’s a new conquest,”according to Jorge Galeano, president of the Agrarian and PopularMovement (MAP). “Nothing seems to be able to stop the sojeros, who usethe same brutality as the conquistadores to increase their empire.” When Iwas in Paraguay in January 2007, the peasant leader was eager to show methe latest line of the “soy frontier,” which was constantly progressing towardthe interior of the country. We left in a four-by-four from Vaquería, a smalltown 125 miles northeast of Asunción, in the department of Caaguazú. Wedrove on red dirt roads through a hilly and forested landscape of astonishingbeauty. Along the way we passed Guarani Indians carrying bundles of wood;here and there thatch-roofed houses were lost amidst luxurious vegetation,with naked children splashing in a river under the burning sun. “Everythinggrows here,” Galeano said, “corn, cassava, sweet potatoes, all kinds of beans,sugarcane, citrus fruits, bananas, maté. Families feed themselves from a tinyplot of land, because we’re still waiting for the agrarian reform that is permanentlythreatened by soybeans.”He spoke of the history of his country, one of the poorest in Latin America,where 2 percent of the population owns 70 percent of the land, a glaring injusticethat goes back to the Spanish conquest but that was accentuated bythe 1870 war against the Triple Alliance, in which Paraguay was defeated byArgentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. To pay for the reparations demanded by thevictors, the Asunción government sold off public land, privatizing 57 millionacres between 1870 and 1914 for the benefit of Brazilian and Argentine citizensand companies. Fabulous estates of 175,000 acres still survive from that