Event Summary
On 17 November 2025, three leaders of the Coordinadora de Sin Tierras del Norte – Ernesto Benítez, Rodolfo Zalazar and Sixto Cabrera – were arrested in San Pedro under the figure of “apology of crime”, after publicly announcing the intention to occupy the Lucipar ranch, a rural property seized from drug trafficker Luis Carlos Da Rocha (“Cabeza Branca“) and currently administered by the National Secretariat for the Administration of Seized and Confiscated Assets (SENABICO).
The organisations maintain that the arrests were arbitrary and that there was no evidence of a completed invasion, arguing that the announcement of a mobilisation constitutes part of the constitutional right to expression, petition and protest.
The case occurs in a context of a long-standing dispute over the distribution of land in Paraguay, linked to the phenomenon of ill-gotten lands documented by the Truth and Justice Commission (2008), and is also part of the growing tensions of criminalisation of farmers’ claims, intensified since the enactment of Law 6830/2021 (“Zavala/Riera Law“), which classifies the invasion of property as a crime, increasing the penalties and facilitating charges.
After the arrests, various sectors of students, trade unions, peasants, and human rights organizations expressed public solidarity with the detained leaders, who are now under house arrest.
The event represents a restriction on the rights of protest and participation of farmer organizations, and could escalate if effective mechanisms for dialogue between the State and the affected communities are not enabled.