Have you been wondering what W plans to do after his presidential term? Well..
I've been wanting to mention this story that has remained under the wire for two years now:
"The land grab project of US President George W. Bush in Chaco, Paraguay, has generated considerable discomfort both politically and environmentally.
His daughter Jenna, under the guise of a humanitarian trip, has secured the private purchase of 98,840 acres of land in Chaco, Paraguay, near the Triple Frontier (Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay), reportedly located in Paso de Patria, near Bolivian gas reserves and the Guarani indigenous water region, within the Triple Border.
Alto Paraguay Gov. Erasmo Rodriguez Acosta revealed he heard that part of the land purchase consists of an ecological reserve (Fundacion Patria), with which Bush is affiliated.
Concern increased with the arrival of Bush's daughter, Jenna, and a source from the Physical Planning Department saying that most of the Chaco region now belongs to private companies.
Luis D"Elia, Argentina´s undersecretary for Land for Social Habitat, says the matter raises regional concern because it threatens local natural resources.
He termed it “surprising” that the Bush family is trying to settle a few short miles from the US Mariscal Estigarribia Military Base.
Argentinean Adolfo Perez Esquivel, 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner, warned that the real war will be fought not for oil, but for water, and recalled that Acuifero Guaraní is one of the largest underground water reserves in South America, running beneath Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay (larger than Texas and California together).
In an article entitled "We Hate To Bring Up the Nazis, But They Fled To South America, Too", I found some interesting bullets:
* The Cuban news service reports that George W. Bush has purchased 98,840 acres in Paraguay, near the Bolivian/Brazilian border.
* Jenna Bush paid a secret diplomatic visit to Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte and U.S. Ambassador James Cason. There were no press conferences, no public sightings and no official confirmation of her 10-day trip.
* The Paraguayan Senate voted last summer to “grant U.S. troops immunity from national and International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction.”
* Immediately afterwards, 500 heavily armed U.S. troops arrived with various planes, choppers and land vehicles at Mariscal Estigarribia air base, which happens to be at the northern tip of Paraguay near the Bolivian/Brazilian border. More have reportedly arrived since then.
Yes, this was two years ago - and all executed very quietly and with little to no media coverage here in the U.S. but it was all over the South American press — and not just Venezuela and Bolivia.Here’s a version from Brazil.
Here’s one from Argentina.
"As far as we can understand, all the paperwork and deeds and such are secret. But somehow the news leaked that a new “land trust” created for Bush had purchased nearly 100,000 acres near the town of Chaco.
"And Jenna’s down there having secret meetings with the president and America’s ambassador to Paraguay, James Cason. Bush posted Cason in Havana in 2002, but last year moved him to Paraguay.
"Cason apparently gets around. A former “political adviser” to the U.S. Atlantic Command and ATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, Cason has been stationed in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama … basically everywhere the U.S. has run secret and not-so-secret wars over the past 30 years.
"Why might the president and his family need a 98,840-acre ranch in Paraguay protected by a semi-secret U.S. military base manned by American troops who have been exempted from war-crimes prosecution by the Paraguyan government?"
Here’s a little background on the base itself, which Rumsfeld secretly visited in late 2005:
U.S. Special Forces began arriving this past summer at Paraguay’s Mariscal Estigarribia air base, a sprawling complex built in 1982 during the reign of dictator Alfredo Stroessner. Argentinean journalists who got a peek at the place say the airfield can handle B-52 bombers and Galaxy C-5 cargo planes. It also has a huge radar system, vast hangers, and can house up to 16,000 troops. The air base is larger than the international airport at the capital city, Asuncion.Some 500 special forces arrived July 1 for a three-month counterterrorism training exercise, code named Operation Commando Force 6.
Paraguayan denials that Mariscal Estigarribia is now a U.S. base have met with considerable skepticism by Brazil and Argentina. There is a disturbing resemblance between U.S. denials about Mariscal Estigarribia, and similar disclaimers made by the Pentagon about Eloy Alfaro airbase in Manta , Ecuador. The United States claimed the Manta base was a “dirt strip” used for weather surveillance. When local journalists revealed its size, however, the United States admitted the base harbored thousands of mercenaries and hundreds of U.S. troops, and Washington had signed a 10-year basing agreement with Ecuador.
It is reported that Rev. Moon bought 600,000 hectares — that’s 1,482,600 acres — in the same place: Chaco, Paraguay.
Another twist: The senior George Bush is reported as the owner of the 98,840 acres in Moon’s neighborhood.
Bush 41 was the first bigshot politician to go prancing around with Rev. Moon in public. Especially in South America:
“In the early stages of the Reagan Revolution that embraced the Washington Times and Moon’s anti-Communist movement, it was embarrassing to be caught at a Moon event,” wrote The Gadflyer last year. “Until George H.W. Bush appeared with Moon in 1996, thanking him for a newspaper that ‘brings sanity to Washington.’” That was while on an extended trip to South America in Moon’s company. A Reuters’ story of Nov 25 of that year describes the former president as “full of praise” for Moon at a banquet in Buenos Aires, toasting him as “the man with the vision.” (And Moon helped Bush out with his own vision thing, paying him $100,000 for the pleasure of his company.) Bush and Moon then traveled together to Uruguay, “to help him inaugurate a seminary in the capital, Montevideo, to train 4,200 young Japanese women to spread the word of his Church of Unification across Latin America.”
"In one way, it makes sense: why not retire in the land where the US military has had a visible presence for over a year and that's ruled by a pro-market, Bush friendly president? Plus, Paraguay gives foreign investors all the same protections it gives its own: for people in Bush's income bracket, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agreement Agency (MIGA) "insures investors against risks such as expropriation, currency inconvertibility and damages caused by revolution, war or civil strikes."
But as corruption scandals pile up in the Bush administration and legal teams are assembled in anticipation of post-2008 life, perhaps this is the most telling fact about Bush's possible retirement getaway: while the US and Paraguay have an extradition treaty, there's one glaring exemption: "political offenses."
Both the Moonie and Bush land is located at what Paraguay’s drug czar called an “enormously strategic point in both the narcotics and arms trades.” And it sits atop the one of the world’s largest fresh-water aquifers.
