The Paraguayan government fired a senior official after he signed a deal with the fictional country created by a Hindu cult leader who had fled India.
"They came and expressed a wish to help Paraguay," Arnaldo Chamorro, chief of staff for the Agriculture Ministry, told reporters. "They presented several projects, we listened to them and that was that."
Chamorro admitted this week that he fell for a con and signed a memorandum of understanding with representatives of The United States of Kailasa, a country supposedly established on a South American island, German outlet DW reported.
The representatives from Kailasa also met with Agriculture Minister Carlos Gimenez, but no one could determine the motives for trying to fool him.
Chamorro admitted he had no idea where Kailasa was on the map, and tried to explain that he signed the "memorandum of understanding" with the country because they offered to help Paraguay with a number of issues.
Kailasa is the fantasy of Nithyananda, a guru and self-anointed "Supreme Pontif of Hinduism" (SPH), who fled India while wanted on charges of abduction and rape. He established his new "nation," Kailasa, on an island off the coast of Ecuador in a supposed effort to "revive" the "great ancient enlightened Hindu civilizational nation" of Kailasa.
Nithyanada allegedly kidnapped multiple children and kept them locked away in order to help collect donations for his ashram, and he also allegedly raped one of his disciples. He had built up a significant spiritual following in India prior to his escape, The Guardian reported.
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He established Kailasa in 2019, claiming the country would be "the world’s greatest and purest Hindu nation," with only practicing Hindus able to apply for citizenship, which can only happen after an applicant makes a donation to the country.
Its website makes a clear claim to "immunity as head of state," citing the Queen of Britain and the President of the United States as examples, indicating that Nithyananda may have established his "country" as a means of shielding himself from prosecution.
The website also devotes a considerable amount of space to explaining the "protection and immunity as a traveling head of state" and cites various "proclamations" made to Nithyananda to try and establish some form of legitimacy to his claim.
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Such proclamations reportedly came from several American cities, including Buena Park, California; Brownstown Township, Michigan; Texarkana, Texas; and Deland, Florida, among others.
Nithyananda and representatives for Kailasa have tried to establish official ties with legal entities by attending two United Nations committee meetings in Geneva earlier this year. The U.N. had comments from the Kailasa representatives stricken from the record.
The country’s website also reports that representatives have expanded its "diplomatic network" across Africa and South Asia, including a "new bilateral agreement with the Republic of Ghana."
