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Illegal narcotics organizations operating in East Paraguay are using the local Indigenous population as “drug slaves”, Paraguayan Attorney General Christian Roig said on Thursday.
“The Indigenous peoples are used as drug slaves. With very little money they are forced to cultivate marijuana because they lack institutional support from the state. The local criminal organizations take advantage of this,” Attorney General Roig told EFE on Thursday.
Paraguay is the primary producer of marijuana in South America and one of the largest suppliers in the world after Mexico.
The Paraguayan official went on to blame corrupt political officials for allowing the continuation of illegal drug smuggling.
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“The institutions of the state are very weak, and speaking generally, police are pressured by immoral politicians that abuse their position of power,” Roig stated
Paraguayan marijuana, is mostly produced in the department Caninedyu, then distributed and sold in the urban markets of Brazil and Argentina.
Caninedyu is home to an estimated 6,000 hectares of marijuana plantations.
A report of the Brazilian Federal Police published in August 2012 stated that Paraguay supplied 80 percent of all marijuana consumed in Brazil
Paraguay’s eastern border with Brazil, which is hotspot for trans-border crimes such drug smuggling, is also home to a large percentage of the country’s Indigenous population.
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