Exodus

I just got back from about a month traveling, and I’ll be sharing all of those stories as soon as I can devote some time to telling all the great stories. I just wanted to update the situation here in site since I left. As I mentioned earlier, there was a kidnapping that has spooked the folks at Peace Corps here and in Washington. The guy that got kidnapped was a rich landowner, and now it’s been a few months since any news has emerged about him. There is some debate among people here as to whether or not the group that took him, (the Paraguayan Peoples’ Army), should be considered a “terrorist organization” or not. At this point, Paraguayan officials are saying they are, and have begun military operations to catch them.

As you may have read in my last post, all of this business – the kidnapping, plus the ensuing game of hide-and-go-seek in the woods with automatic rifles – is all going down in my part of the country. At first, this only meant putting volunteers in the north on stand-fast, meaning we were to remain in site and avoid travel while the government soldiers formed a big circle around our area and moved inwards to try and find the kidnappers. However, the US Embassy here began pressuring Peace Corps to move volunteers out of the area. The US State Department website now even recommends Americans avoid the north of Paraguay altogether. Shortly before I left for my trip, volunteers from my VAC were called into Asuncion for a security briefing. What basically came out of that meeting was information about the group, and why officials were worried about us. Volunteer security relies heavily on your community members offering their protection. The fear now is that the PPA will be acting like a mafia, which is to say selling “protection” to Paraguayans, which would undermine Americans’ security if we were sold out to the group. Peace Corps expressed their beliefs that Americans would not be targeted by this group because the PPA would not want the repercussions of any American military force. In that same breath, however, they also reminded us about the American non-negotiation policy with terrorists, which makes how the government would classify the group that much more important.

I found out just a few days into my trip that Peace Corps had made the decision to move most of the volunteers out of the north. Six volunteers would move to new sites elsewhere in the country, while four, (myself included), would remain in their original sites. I got back from vacation to find that those who were assigned to new places had already left.

The decision to move those volunteers, as well as the decision to leave some of us, is somewhat complicated. Firstly, I would say that not a single volunteer agreed with the decision to move anyone. Our biggest criticism of the decision-making process was that not a single official from the embassy came up here before recommending a change. Peace Corps was slightly more informed in their decision, but we still feel as though none of our input was considered. Secondly, they left those of us who are staying because they considered us to be in less dangerous areas, but we all lived within a bus ride from each other. We have a hard time seeing where the the line on the map was drawn for “hot spots” versus “safe zones.” If someone was interested in harming one of us, they could just have easily gotten to anyone in the department.

The implications of this exodus of volunteers for their communities are unfortunate, to say the least. Projects had to be dropped suddenly without proper closure, and they will not be receiving new volunteers anytime soon. For me, the implications are depressing. Most of those who left lived nearby, relatively speaking, (they were about an hour by bus). My vocational program that I am getting off the ground was going to depend on having volunteers from different project areas come in on a monthly schedule to teach skills like gardening and woodworking. Perhaps the most disappointing factor for me is the idea that any of the projects that I complete over my remaining service time will probably not ever receive a follow-up volunteer to take over the reins. Sustainability for the Paraguayans I work with remains a goal as always, but I had hoped to get a new volunteer to take my place once I left to continue guiding any project I felt was important to keep alive. If I end my service as it is scheduled in April of 2011, I and just one other volunteer will be all that is left in our region of the country.

All of this said, let me assure family and friends back home that staying here in my site is what I want, even though this now means I am far more isolated up here. I will certainly miss having those neighboring volunteers around, both for the company and as it was my only opportunity to use my ever-deteriorating English skills. I think it is important also to know that security here is higher than ever because of steps taken by Peace Corps and Paraguayan national forces. If anything, I and the other remaining volunteers are safer than ever now that the government has stepped up its security in the wake of the kidnapping, which is sort of ironic in the wake of all the moving.

Tagged as: EPP, Paraguayan Peoples' Army