On June 25th community leader of the campesino organisation MAP (Movimiento Agrario y Popular) disappeared from the community of Pariri in Paraguay.

According to witnesses, Perfecto Irala, was kidnapped by an official of the National Police named Vázquez of the commissariat of Santa Clara, in the district Vaqueria. Various people and representatives of the MAP have been trying to obtain information in the local commisariats, without any result so far. They denounced the disappearance in the Human Rights Commission of the Paraguayan Congress.

Perfecto Irala lives together with his wife and two children in a land occupation brought forth in Pariri on Februari 26th. Community members in support of Campesino Organisation MAP occupied 14 hectares of genetically manipulated to denounce the illegal transfers of public lands in their community to Brazilian soy producers. According to the Paraguayan Agrarian Statute, state Institution INDERT (responsible for land reform) Paraguayan families are entitled to these lands but by means of corruption many of these lands end up in the hands of large scale producers.

The MAP demands the government the immediate release of Perfecto Irala and a sentence for those  responsible for these acts. As well as the immediate handover of the occupied lands to the landless   campesinos of the MAP.

Photo: Placido sitting in front of his house prior to land ocupation in Pariri. His children are helping to move their few belongings (march 2007).

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See www.lasojamata.org and  Brutal Murder of Paraguayan Campesino for more information.