Worldfocus has chronicled Liberia’s struggles to recover from a bloody civil war that spanned 14 years in the signature series Liberia’s Long Road Back.
Some of the biggest victims of that era were young women who were often taken prisoner and forced to fight, or made into sex slaves. As Worldfocus special correspondent Lynn Sherr and producer Megan Thompson report, many of them are now struggling to recover and struggling to forget.
Only in Latin America. The very popular not even in office a year President of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, admitted to fathering a child out of wedlock and while still a Bishop in the Catholic Church.
From McClatchy News Service:
Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo admitted Monday that he’s the father of a 2-year-old boy who was conceived when Lugo was still a Catholic bishop.
Lugo made the surprise announcement five days after the boy’s mother, Viviana Carrillo, filed a paternity suit against him that contained more than just the explosive claim about the father’s identity.
In it, the 26-year-old Carrillo said they began having sexual relations when she was 16. As bishop of San Pedro, Lugo sometimes stayed at the rural home of her godmother, where Carrillo also lived, she said.
McClatchy obtained a copy of the nine-page paternity suit on Monday.
Carrillo said that she first met Lugo when she was studying in preparation for the sacrament of Confirmation in her church, and that their personal relationship began one night shortly thereafter.
She said she’d just brought bed sheets to his room at her godmother’s house and then asked him if he needed anything else.
“He told me yes,” Carrillo wrote, “that he needed me.”
Carrillo said he began to pursue her “until, because of my youth and inexperience, I was seduced by the way he talked, his pretty words, his beautiful expressions and by his promises that he would resign his position for me, that he would spend his life with me, that we would have many children together and form a household.”
She said that Lugo had been “my first and only man.”
The President heads where he has never been before, south of the border into Latin America. ¡Bienvenido a América Latina!
Today the President gave an interview to CNN en Español:
“Times have changed,” Obama told CNN en Español Wednesday. Referring to his planned meeting later this week with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, he said, “My relationship with President Lula is one of two leaders who both have big countries, that we are trying to solve problems and create opportunities for our people and we should be partners.
“There’s no senior partner or junior partner.”
Obama and Lula da Silva are among leaders scheduled to attend the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.
Obama refused to criticize the leaders of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, who have taken measures to change their constitutions to extend their holds on power.
“I think it’s important for the United States not to tell other countries how to structure their democratic practices and what should be contained in their constitutions,” he said. “It’s up to the people of those countries to make a decision about how they want to structure their affairs.”
True, the question is whether the United States will let Latin America structure their own affairs. It’s all fine and good to pay homage to democracy but it’s still hard to forget that as recently as last year an American Ambassador was expelled from Bolivia for interfering in that country’s internal affairs. And what’s worrisome from my point of view is that while the United States pretends to listen, the US is not actually listening. Until American actions match American rhetoric, Latin America will remain skeptical of American intentions in the region.