Introducing The Paraguay Post
Some personal spiel, some chisme, and some special offers.
In late 1869, Richard Francis Burton stepped ashore in Southampton, fresh from a sightseeing tour of bone-strewn South American battlefields. The most lethal conflict ever fought on the American continent was still stumbling to its gory conclusion.
The War of the Triple Alliance saw Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay wipe out half of Paraguay’s population. The country was in ruins. ‘The Paraguayans exist no longer,’ wrote one eyewitness to the cataclysm. ‘There is a gap in the family of nations.’
But if Burton expected to be mobbed with reporters, he was disappointed.
The celebrity adventurer was ‘mortified’ to perceive how oblivious Britons were to Paraguay. Tales of Dr Francia, Paraguay’s iron-willed post-independence dictator, had once piqued public curiosity. But the country had since ‘dropped clean out of vision. Many, indeed, were uncertain whether it formed part of North or of South America.’
Burton found ‘blankness of face’ when Paraguay was mentioned, ‘and a general confession of utter ignorance and hopeless lack of interest’.
Over 150 years later, the amnesia persists. If South America is a forgotten continent, Paraguay has fallen clean off the map. Foreigners often confuse it with Uruguay, in many ways – a secular, liberal, World Cup winner – Paraguay’s opposite. The world takes Paraguay’s drugs, beef, soybeans, migrant labourers and midfielders, but has blanked out their distant source. In an aphorism that by now seems like a curse, Augusto Roa Bastos famously described his nation as an island surrounded by land.
This sense of mystery brought me to Paraguay in the sweltering summer of 2015. I cut my teeth as a rookie foreign correspondent, covering protests against plans to drill for oil in the Defensores del Chaco national park, and digging into the history of an ill-fated colony of Australian socialists. I tooled around Concepción with a cigar-chewing East German exile in search of EPP guerrillas and their victims.
I squeezed into a SENAD helicopter as they set fire to marijuana plantations, met the poor campesinos who grow the crop, and drove around Pedro Juan Caballero with a mob boss. I reported on why a public meeting between Pope Francis and LGBT groups meant so much in a country where being gay or transgender takes guts.
And I journeyed upriver aboard the Aquidaban, rubbing shoulders with cops and prisoners, missionaries and influencers, cowboys and Indigenous capybara hunters.
A short spell followed in London, analysing Paraguay for a forecasting firm. My colleagues were super-smart and friendly. I learned the difference between a fiscal deficit and a current account deficit, the relative merits of GDP and GINI, how to parse the minutes of the BCP monthly meeting to intuit an imminent 25bps hike.
But when the opportunity presented itself to return to South America to write an alternative history of the continent – out this November in all good bookshops in the UK and e-readers worldwide! – I didn’t take much persuading. I flew out to Argentina and jumped aboard a container ship on a ten-day voyage upriver back to Asunción.
I’ve since reported on Paraguay’s bitcoin boom, the scourge of child abuse and underage pregnancy, the country’s situationship with Taiwan, the burning of congress, two presidential elections, the takeover by the PCC, land conflict, the return of a boxing great, US sanctions against Horacio Cartes, the destruction of the Great South American Chaco – and the deadly consequences for its native peoples, including some of the last uncontacted tribes on the planet.
Now, nearly ten years since I first stumbled off the overnight bus from Buenos Aires, I’m just as intrigued by Paraguay.
And I’m convinced that Paraguay needs the eyes of the world on it more than ever.
Paraguay is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change. In recent days, much of Paraguay been smothered by smoke from man-made fires that have destroyed swathes of the Amazon and 1500 square kilometers of the Chaco.
After months of drought upriver, the Río Paraguay, which carries 90 percent of the country’s foreign trade, reached its lowest level at Asunción since records began in 1904 – and it’s still falling.
Meanwhile, the unresolved murder of anti-mafia prosecutor Marcelo Pecci, and the recent police shooting of an alleged “narco-diputado” worth $130m, have underscored just how permeated by transnational organised crime Paraguay has become.
Despite, or perhaps because of the sanctions, Cartes and his overmighty Colorado bloc in congress are lashing out against perceived enemies – the press, the opposition, NGOs – with worrying implications for Paraguay’s fragile democracy.
And, all of that said, Paraguay remains a shamefully under-touristed destination.
It still boasts stunning natural beauty, remarkable cultural and natural diversity, seriously friendly and laid-back people, a dogged countercultural arts scene, and a burgeoning gastronomic movement. But it can be hard to get editors abroad to sit up and take notice.
Paraguay is a tiny country, I’ve been told. In reality, it’s among the top third of nations by landmass; equal in size to California, and larger than the UK, Germany, Japan and Italy. Or, Paraguay is far away. In fact, Asunción is closer to the United States and Europe than Buenos Aires and Santiago.
Or, Paraguay doesn’t matter. Tell that to the US, whose fortress-like embassy grows by the day, or Israel, Taiwan and China, aggressively courting Paraguay’s favour, or the drug cartels, mafia groups and militias across the Americas, Africa and Europe made rich by handling Paraguay’s contraband cigarettes, weed, and the cocaine stashed in its soybean shipments.
There may be fewer Paraguayans than thought – see my recent Economist story – but Paraguay punches way above its weight.
Compounding the lack of interest overseas is the tendency of Paraguay’s three main media conglomerates to ignore anything related to inequality, land reform, Indigenous rights, or climate change. Some call it a cerco mediático: a press blockade, preventing Paraguayan reality from making the papers.
The world is seriously missing out. As the Paraguay-based Salvadoran writer Norma Flores Allende recently posted on Facebook, quoted here with her permission:
“It’s incredible how Paraguay is so underwritten and under-reported. It’s impossible to get bored here. Only people who lack the ability of observation could say that nothing happens. Everything happens here. The most Latin American of Latin America; a reality that couldn’t be more delirious. Infinite material for a Pulitzer.
A country as crazy as this one should fill bookshelves around the world, just like other Latin American countries do. There’s material here for news, stories, TV series, movies, etcetera, etcetera, to spare. There should be Paraguay-ologists by the thousand.”
Así mismo ko es.
Now for the good news: there’s loads of great journalism about Paraguay, made in Paraguay.
There are innovative outlets like El Surtidor, E’a, Hina!, and Ciencia del Sur. Then you’ve got the slick visuals of Latitud 25, the sharp analysis at Tereré Cómplice, and the seasoned investigative chops of ABC Color. That’s not to mention fellow substackers Consenso (on climate change and misinformation) and La Volanta (on environmental crime and corruption).
I could list more, but this post is already pretty long.
The Paraguay Post’s mission: to signal-boost the best of their work and help it get the global audience it deserves.
And, if we can secure the support of readers and advertisers, we plan to commission original reporting from local writers and visual journalists to help cover Paraguay in interesting and unexpected ways.
Our first weekly newsletter drops on Monday. It’s free.
Perhaps you’re an academic, journalist, or diplomat who follows Paraguay and wants to cut through the noise. Maybe you’re an expat who wants to break out of the bubble.
Maybe you’re thinking about moving here, and want to see what you’re getting into. Or maybe you’re Paraguayan, and interested in non-partisan analysis.
Whether it’s breaking news, politics, the economy, business, crime, corruption, climate, culture, travel tips, or just plain weird: we’ve got it covered.
Click the link here to sign up via email.
If you choose to pay a US$5 monthly subscription (or equivalent), you’ll get access to previous newsletters and the ability to comment on stories via Substack, as well as (from December) paywalled material like industry insights and exclusive interviews.
If you sign up for a full year, you’ll pay just $45 (a 25% discount). If you chip in $150, you’re officially a Founder, and will have my eternal gratitude and a regular invitation to talk all things Paraguay in person or on the phone.
For more regular updates and breaking news, follow The Paraguay Post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.
I’ve been thinking about creating something like The Paraguay Post for years, and I’m stoked to get it off the ground. As they say around these parts: jaha!
Thanks Laurence. Terrible what's happening in the Chaco now, you just have to look at Google maps satellite to see that most of it now has been lost...another 10 years or so and it will be just one big cattle ranch.
Nice article,I look forward to your post next week.