Peasant Leader Arrested in Paraguay Amid Growing Criminalization

Featured image: Elvio arrested by the Paraguayan State troops. Source: A Nova Democracia.

Peasant leader Elvio Benítez was arrested on the morning of April 28 in the province of San Pedro, in eastern Paraguay, as A Nova Democracia (AND) reported. He is accused of “inciting crime” and has been under investigation since late 2025. This case is part of the growing criminalization against the struggle for land taking place in Paraguay, on which we have reported previously:

In November 2025, arrest warrants were issued for Benítez and another leader, Rodolfo Salazar, both leaders of the San Pedro Interdistrict Coordination of the Landless. Their “crime” was announcing that the 11,000-hectare Luispar latifundium would be occupied by landless peasants. The Luispar latifundium was confiscated from a Brazilian drug trafficker, Luiz Carlos da Rocha, and is currently managed by Senabico, the National Secretariat for the Administration of Seized and Confiscated Assets, which leases the properties to big landlords while thousands of peasants remain without land.

Numerous organizations have expressed their solidarity with Elvio Benítez, such as the Indigenous, Peasant, and Popular Unity Space, which denounced this arrest as “part of the systematic policy of criminalizing social protest and the struggle for land that the Paraguayan State has been applying.” They assert that “Elvio Benítez is a leader, not a criminal. His only ‘crime’ is organizing the people and demanding what is right to have: land, production, and a dignified life.”

The battle of Lusipar reached its peak in December 2025, when 50 vehicles carrying peasant families broke through a police barricade, two officers were injured, and several vehicles were damaged. The State responded by arresting 29 peasants.