Paraguay calls in UK envoy over tweet on freed peasants
Pedro Servin, Associated Press
Updated 6:13 pm CDT, Monday, July 30, 2018
ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — The Paraguayan government expressed "discomfort" Monday over a tweet by Britain's ambassador that reacted to the acquittal of peasants convicted in the killing of police officers in a land dispute.
The Supreme Court overturned the 2016 conviction of the 12 poor farmers Friday citing a lack of evidence. Six police officers and 11 peasants were killed in 2012 when clashes broke out during the forced eviction of peasants occupying a disputed soy farm.
. . .
The area's poor residents allege the land was stolen from the state by Sen. Blas Riquelme, a leader of the Colorado Party that backed dictator Alfredo Stroessner from 1954 to 1989 and has dominated the nation's politics almost uninterruptedly ever since.
Riquelme, who died of a stroke in 2012 at age 83, took over the property in 1964, benefiting from a Stroessner law that granted free title to any adult male willing to farm fallow land. So many military officers, politicians and businessmen took advantage of the law that nearly all of Paraguay's rural state-owned land was in private hands by the end of the dictatorship.
More:
https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Paraguay-calls-in-UK-envoy-over-tweet-on-freed-13117898.php
Sen. Blas Riquelme
(helped himself to land belonging to the people of Paraguay)
He got by with it, of course. Because "white."
Wikipedia:
Blas Nicolás Riquelme Centurión (born 3 February 1929, Lambaré, died 2 September 2012; Asunción) was a Paraguayan politician and businessman.[1][2] He was a member of the Senate of Paraguay for the Colorado Party from 1989 to 2008, and was elected President of the party,[1] succeeding Luis María Argaña; he resigned in 1994.[3] He was a candidate in the Colorado Party's 1996 primary election for the 1998 presidential election, backed by Lino Oviedo.[4] He was leader of the Movimiento Tradicionalismo Democrático (TRADEM), and one of the major financiers of the Colorado Party.[5] He was President of the Chamber of Industry until 1984.[6]
As a businessman, Riquelme was director/president of a number of companies, including Cereales S.A. (flour and cereals); Cervecera Asunción S.A. and Cervecera Itapúa S.A. (beer); Cadena Real S.A. (supermarkets); Campo Morumbí S.A. (farming); and Cristalera Asunción S.A. (glass). He is also a major landowner. In 1985 he ordered the removal of 100 Mbayá people from his 75,000 hectare landholding in the Alto Paraná Department;[7] he had previously pressured them for ten years to leave their ancestral Paso Romero community, after he had purchased the property.[6] In 2012 the violent removal of occupying farmers from Riquelme's land in the Canindeyú Department sparked the impeachment of Fernando Lugo. He has been unsuccessfully sued by farmers alleging irregularities in his 1975 acquisition of land (under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner),[8] following Truth and Justice Commission conclusions of irregularities.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blas_Riquelme