The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

paraguay, brazil, argentina: the “united soy republic” 283soybeans is based on the pure and simple elimination of human communitiesand ways of life.”“Is the phenomenon reversible?”“Unfortunately, no. Even if small farmers could one day recover the land,it would be so contaminated by chemical products that it would take yearsfor the initial quality of the soil to be restored. Transgenic soy is really adeadly enterprise against which we’ve decided to fight, whatever it costs.”Soy’s Musclemen and RepressionIn contrast to Argentina, where transgenic expansion has met little organizedresistance, in Paraguay collective action against RR soybeans proliferatedstarting in 2002. Joined together in the National Front for Sovereigntyand Life, peasant organizations such as Galeano’s MAP and the MCP(Movimiento Campesino Paraguayo) and civil society organizations such asConamuri, to which Petrona Talavera belongs, have been conducting campaignsagainst the takeover of the country by soybeans. A week does not goby without a demonstration, a blocking of roads, or an occupation of land toslow the “advance” of Monsanto’s GMOs.The government of President Nicanor Duarte chose to respond to this situationwith repression and the criminalization of the anti-soy movement.Hundreds of peasants have been incarcerated since 2002 and a dozen assassinated.In some cases, the local police openly conduct themselves as anarmed militia in the pay of the sojeros, with no qualms about shooting opponentson sight. For example, one day in February 2004, a truck carrying fiftypeasants that had blocked mosquitos in the department of Caaguazú wasfired on by M16s, killing two and seriously wounding ten. All around thecountry, with the approval of President Duarte, armed thugs have been recruitedto protect the spraying machines and the large soybean properties.Confident in their impunity, some sojeros have revived the proven techniquesof the long Stroessner dictatorship and simply eliminated peasantleaders who are too troublesome. For example, on September 19, 2005, twopolicemen attempted to assassinate Benito Gavilán in Mbuyapey in the departmentof Paraguari by shooting him in the head. He miraculously survivedbut lost an eye. Almost everywhere in the areas bordering the “soyfrontier,” violent actions have been conducted aimed at dislodging recalci-