TROUBLE IN PARADISE
Edgar Emmett
September 22, 2012
Landlocked and bordered by Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina, the great Paraguayan writer,
Augusto Roa Bastos, wrote, “Paraguay is an island surrounded by land.” Moving at the pace
of an ox cart, sipping the herbal tea “terere” from silver straws in sub-tropical heat under
broad-leaf shade trees, delighting in “polkas” and “guaranias” rippling with harp and
“requinto” riffs, passionate for its football clubs that claim fierce loyalties, the heart of
South America beats proud, melancholy and isolated. For many of its inhabitants, Paraguay
is the Guarani Paradise: Yvy Marane'y - The Land of No Evil - a land of plenty graced by
flowering trees and nourishing rivers. For others, Paraguay is a green hell of poverty,
illiteracy and disease ruled by thieves. Linked to the world by its rivers, Paraguay is mostly
forgotten by the world until a political event such as the impeachment of President
Fernando Lugo draws the world’s attention.
When the Paraguayan Senate impeached President Fernando Armindo Lugo Mendez in less
than five hours on June 22, 2012, the little country found itself in the glare of the world’s
spotlights. Lost in the heart of South America, Paraguay is a forgotten paradise off the
beaten track, rarely visited even by backpackers on the “Gringo Trail.” Paraguay’s sleepy
capital of Asuncion emerges from the muddy banks of a brown river, built on seven hills
with narrow cobblestone streets lined with crumbling Spanish colonial buildings and a
handful of high-rises piercing the drowsiness. On the day of the impeachment the “lapacho”
trees were beginning to burst lavender petals, while the orange trees were heavy with fruit.
Everything seemed peaceful in this neglected Garden of Eden. Why then should a political
event in a small underdeveloped country draw so much interest, fury and condemnation
from the world? Why should what Paraguay does matter?
When you’re in the eye of a hurricane everything seems calm and quiet while the world
rages all around. Paraguay just had a bloodless change of government in a very civilized
manner and the world started screaming insanely about a parliamentary coup, disruption
of the democratic order, and illegitimate government. Paraguayans were stunned. What
had shaken their peaceful slumber? It seemed that the fray of national politics, normally
boisterous and often burlesque, had been ratcheted up a few notches and all of a sudden
had turned into something serious and of consequence. The realization that the actions of
politicians could affect the normal life of Paraguayans became evident when the Congress
removed the President of the country and replaced him with the Vice-President only an
hour after the final vote for impeachment. The day after the trial, six million Paraguayans
awoke to political instability, economic uncertainty, and diplomatic isolation.
Shock Waves from a Bullet
The storm in Paraguay began exactly a week before the impeachment trial, on Friday, June
15, when six policemen and 11 squatters were killed in a firefight in a remote 2,000 hectare
property called Campos Morombi by the reputed owners and Marina Cue by the state.
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Located in eastern Paraguay, in the department of Canindeyu, near the town of Curuguaty,
on the road to Brazil, the property had become a bone of contention between two classes of
Paraguayans: the rich and the poor - with the government in the middle. Blas N. Riquelme,
a wealthy businessman, large landowner and a former Senator from the Colorado party,
claimed the land. The circumstances of ownership, however, were suspect, as Riquelme did
not show a title and claimed ownership through uninterrupted possession over six years.
The land had been originally deeded to the state by the Paraguay Industrial Company, but
the state had never legalized the transaction. The present government accused Riquelme of
taking advantage of the irregularity to illegally seize the land. The issue of land ownership
is highly sensitive in Paraguay, as in most of Latin America, where a few families control
large swathes of territory and peasants work the land as virtual serfs. According to a 2008
report published by Paraguay’s Truth and Justice Commission investigating abuses of
power in the Stroessner dictatorship from 1953-1989, nearly 6.75 million hectares of land
were illegally awarded as political favors. Many of the recipients were Brazilian land
speculators, soy farmers and cattle ranchers. Their descendants, called “Braziguayos,” had
become the target of land invaders and anti-Brazilian nationalists.
The police had been sent to the property to investigate whether there were any subversive
elements among the squatters and to deliver a court-ordered eviction notice. The squatters,
called “sintierras” because they claimed to be landless peasants, or “carperos” because they
lived in tents, were part of an agrarian land reform movement with various factions and
leaders. They argued that the land legally belonged to the state, and it was their right to
claim the land as landless citizens. Their leaders drove fancy Toyota Hi-Lux wagons and
their followers were known to resell the expropriated land they received and rejoin the
movement. This particular group was reputed to belong to an extreme faction prone to
violence. There were rumors that a priest had been associated with this group, suggesting
the influence of leftist ideologues and proponents of liberation theology. Others reported
that this extreme faction of “carperos” had ties to the EPP, the Paraguayan People’s Army, a
terrorist group supposedly trained by Colombian FARC militias.
When the chief of the police, an experienced and well-liked veteran of the Special
Operations Group, approached the squatter encampment, calling for calm in the indigenous
Guarani language, a squatter reached out to grab him. The policeman drew back and a shot
pierced his neck and killed him. The squatters and the police erupted in a hail of bullets
that left 17 dead. The police claimed that well-trained snipers had fired high-powered rifles
at a distance, as the killing shots targeted vulnerable areas outside of the body armor worn
by the police. Suspicion grew that foreign-sponsored terrorists had infiltrated the
Paraguayan squatter community and ambushed the police in a well-coordinated plot to
trigger the massacre and create insecurity in the country. Conspiracy theories proliferated
to the point that the Colorado Party was blamed for staging the tragedy in order to
discredit Lugo’s government. The discovery of nine thousand kilos of marijuana on the
property two months later led others to suspect that the squatters were probably just
protecting their “stash.”
The bullet that killed Captain Edwin Lovera in Curuguaty on June 15, 2012, ricocheted out
into time and space, with rippling consequences in the region and beyond. A week after the
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tragedy, on June 22, Fernando Lugo, the President of Paraguay, was blamed for the event
and impeached over a 48-hour period. On June 29, a week after the impeachment,
Paraguay’s neighbors – Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay – accused the Paraguayan Congress
of “disrupting the democratic order.” As punishment, they suspended the country from
Mercosur, the Southern Common Market that Paraguay had helped to found. At the same
meeting in Mendoza, Argentina, the Mercosur Presidential Summit composed of the
presidents of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay announced that it would receive Venezuela as
a full member of Mercosur, a move Paraguay had opposed for six years. Also meeting in
Mendoza, another regional bloc, Unasur, the Union of South American Nations, sanctioned
the new Paraguayan government. At that point, only two states in the world, the Vatican
and Taiwan, recognized Federico Franco as the new Paraguayan President. In the space of a
week, Paraguay had become a pariah in the international community. What had caused this
chain reaction of world-shaking events?
A Fall from Grace
In the immediate aftermath of the massacre at Curuguaty, President Lugo showed a
surprising disinterest and lack of compassion for the victims and their families. He did not
attend the funerals of the fallen police officers. While he accepted the resignations of his
Minister of the Interior and the Chief of Police, he replaced them with infelicitous
appointments. He named a former Attorney General, Candia Amarilla, a member of the
opposition Colorado Party, as the new Minister of Interior. In the place of Chief of Police, he
appointed the same police officer who had ordered the raid on the squatter community in
Curuguaty. The Liberal Party, who had supported Lugo in the 2008 presidential elections,
screamed bloody murder at the appointment of a rival Colorado for a Cabinet position
without consulting them.
When President Lugo announced the formation of a committee of “notables” to investigate
the tragic events at Curuguaty, thereby sidestepping an official congressional investigation,
the leadership of the Congress decided to take action. The head of the Authentic Radical
Liberal Party (PLRA) met with the leadership of their rival parties, the Colorado National
Republican Association (ANR), the National Union of Ethical Citizens (UNACE), and the
Beloved Fatherland Party (PPQ), to form a united front for the purpose of impeaching Lugo.
The stage was set for a dramatic and risky overthrow of a growingly unpopular president.
Unpopularity however could not be a substantial reason for changing a government.
Stronger charges had to be leveled.
Article 225 of the Paraguayan 1992 Constitution, which gave expanded powers to the
legislative branch of government in reaction to former abuses of executive power, allowed
for Congress to impeach the President, the Vice-President, Cabinet Ministers, Supreme
Court Justices, the Attorney General, the Superior Tribunal of Electoral Justice, and other
executive and judicial positions. The reasons for impeachment were limited to the “poor
performance of their functions, for crimes committed in the exercise of their charge, or for
common crimes.” The lack of a precise definition of “poor performance of their functions”
left the floor open for Congress to assemble any number of charges.
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The charges leveled against President Lugo were officially five: the use of the military’s
Engineer Command facilities for a political rally by a leftist party in 2009; supporting land
invasions by squatters in the Ñacunday region with military transport and military land
surveyors encroaching without authorization on private property; signing without
consultation the Ushuaia II democratic protocol that violated Paraguayan sovereignty;
negligent in the police operation in Curuguaty where 17 people were killed; and causing
insecurity in the country by failing to capture the EPP terrorists in two “states of
emergency” that mobilized large scale, expensive military and police operations. The
insinuation in all these charges was that President Lugo was incompetent to lead the
country.
While not stated directly, the underlying indictment was the perception that Lugo was
taking the country in a leftward direction, a drift that was seen as causing social unrest by
his critics. His support of leftist political parties, sympathy with land invaders who
disregarded private property, alliance with neighboring leftist presidents who disregarded
Paraguay’s sovereignty, and supposed ties with terrorist guerrillas operating in the region
where Lugo had served as bishop, conspired to discredit the President. He had failed to
shore up his other alliances with the traditional political parties. He had ignored the
concerns of industrialists, ranchers, and the economic elite by appearing to favor the poor.
On the other hand, his promises to the poor were too few and far between. In short, Lugo’s
inability to exert strong leadership in any one given direction, and his indecisiveness,
became political liabilities.
Other accusations were later dredged up in order to strengthen the popular case against
the president. He was accused of being fiscally irresponsible. His critics argued that a third
of his time in office was spent being a tourist around the world. It was pointed out that
during his almost four years in office, Lugo made 75 trips overseas, including to Taiwan,
Japan, India (to see the Taj Mahal), the Caribbean, Europe, and the neighboring countries.
The outbreaks of hoof and mouth disease in two separate occasions in late 2011 and early
2012, that had reduced global demand for Paraguayan beef, were attributed to the
negligence and incompetence of official inspectors. Together with a drought that affected
the soybean harvest, Paraguay’s economy had been dented following years of
unprecedented growth. These acts of human negligence and climactic vagary were also laid
at Lugo’s feet.
Lugo’s presidency had started with promise, and lots of them. The circumstances of his
candidacy had seemed miraculous at the time. A former Roman Catholic bishop of the
northern department of San Pedro, a follower of liberation theology who had given up his
vows to run for political office, Lugo was charismatic and fluent in Guarani, the indigenous
language favored in rural areas. He was popular with the poor, and had strong ties with the
leftist parties. As an outsider among the traditional political parties he did not receive the
same disdain reserved for the political class. Despite his lack of experience in politics or
governing, he had political capital and the support of the people. During the campaign, he
effectively leveraged his appeal as an outsider to attract the support of the PLRA and other
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traditional parties in order to overturn the long-running dominance of the Colorado Party.
Once in office, his governing strategy defaulted to delegate the functions of government to
his cabinet ministers and advisors, chosen mainly from the left flanks of the political class.
His main rivals in the 2008 elections were Blanca Ovelar of the Colorado Party, the first
woman to run for president of Paraguay, and Lino Cesar Oviedo, a former army general
who had been jailed for an attempt to overthrow the government in a coup d’etat in 1996.
Running on a ticket of the Frente Guazu (Big Front), a coalition composed of an assortment
of 20 plus socialist and leftist parties, Lugo won with backing from a union of Liberals and
Leftists, with many disaffected Colorado voters throwing their support behind the
unknown candidate. His Vice-President, Federico Franco, a leader from the Liberal Party,
received the second highest number of votes after Lugo. Their victory broke the hold of the
Colorado Party after 35 years of Stroessner’s dictatorship, and 61 years in power. It was
the first time an outsider had broken through the byzantine corridors of Paraguayan
politics to become President.
When Lugo won as the candidate of change, comparisons were made to Barack Obama’s
presidential race. Lugo was quickly hailed as the newest member of the left-leaning
presidents of Latin American countries, joining the fraternity of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela,
Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Lula da Silva
of Brazil, Pepe Mujica of Uruguay, Michelle Bachelet of Chile, and Manuel Zelaya of
Honduras. His administration was hailed as a harbinger of reform and change. At the same
time expectations remained that he was not a wild and wooly leftist who would impose a
radical restructuring of Paraguayan society along socialist lines. He did not have noticeable
anti-American sentiments like Chavez, Correa or Ortega. Unlike Mujica who had belonged
to the Uruguayan Tupamaro terrorist group, or Morales who had expelled the DEA and
USAID from Bolivia, Lugo’s leftist leanings were moderate. He was a friend and admirer of
Brazil’s Lula da Silva, a moderate left of center socialist who supported capitalism, and with
whom he shared a battle with cancer and visits at the Syrian-Lebanese hospital in Sao
Paulo where both received treatment.
As an outsider, Lugo failed to play the traditional political game of exchanging favors. His
inexperience in managing the political class and a polarized society led to a succession of
blunders. Four years into Lugo’s administration, the people were showing a growing
disappointment. Shortly before the Curuguaty massacre, newspapers published new
revelations of Lugo’s sexual indiscretions as a bishop in San Pedro. While two paternity
suits had surfaced after Lugo’s election, the people had made their peace with their initial
disappointment. At that time the Catholic Church had refrained from excommunicating
Lugo for his behavior. However, four years later, when additional claims of two new
women accusing Lugo of being the father of their children were brought to light,
Paraguayans reacted in disgust. The church condemned the immorality of a bishop
violating his vows of chastity. Cartoons ridiculing the President’s brood of illegitimate
children appeared in the newspapers.
One of the first groups to call for Lugo’s resignation when the impeachment process began
was the Council of Catholic Bishops. A delegation had visited the President at his residence,
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“Mburuvicha Roga” (the “house of the big chief” in Guarani) on the evening of June 21 and
urged him to resign to avoid bloodshed. A little more than two months later, the same
Council issued a pastoral letter asking the country for forgiveness in case anyone thought
the bishops had committed a cardinal error and interfered in political matters. Their act of
remorse had been spurred by the perception that they had supported the impeachment
process and the removal of Lugo, thus splitting the Church into factions. Immediately after
the impeachment, a bishop in Colonel Oviedo had told parishioners during his Sunday
sermon that Congress had interrupted Lugo’s “fine administration.” Another bishop of
Misiones, Monsignor Mario Medina, preached that Lugo had been removed for fighting for
the poor and seeking social equity. He claimed that parliamentary and capitalist structures
wouldn’t allow Franco to accomplish anything in his new government. Ironically, two
months later, President Franco interrupted Medina’s homily to rebut the bishop’s criticism
of genetically modified organisms. As President Lugo later commented in an interview with
Uruguayan TV, “the Catholic Church has a right and a left and I was sold out by the right.”
A Cannibal Congress
One could ask, where is the rupture when two branches of a democratic government, both
voted by the people through fair elections, follow a constitutional process and come to an
agreement by that process so that the executive branch will cede before the decision of the
legislative branch? A leader who was accused of incompetence - bad performance in his job
– was deposed in a legal impeachment process, without the use of force, without bloodshed.
To call an orderly change of government in which the executive government accedes to the
decision – “a parliamentary coup” – is hyperbolic to say the least. Especially when the
Constitution specifically accords that power to the legislative branch of government over
the other branches in an effort to control the abuses of executive and judicial power
exercised in previous governments.
But what if the elected representatives of the legislature were not voted in directly by the
people? Would that discredit the authority of the legislative branch? The actual voting
method in Paraguayan politics for a legislator to enter government is to lobby for their
name to enter a “lista sabana,” a list of names on a sheet that represents the party
candidates. The people then vote for that party list, rather than for the individual. Party
leaders can then decide which positions to give to the party faithful. In this way the political
class can make deals, play at back room politics to add their name to the list, exchange
favors with voters and backers, and conduct business behind closed doors. The Congress
can then vote to apportion more funds from the Treasury to fund their election campaigns,
increase their salaries and benefits, and buy their votes with political largesse. The system
reinforces the worst excesses of political cronyism, including links to crony capitalism.
Ultimately it erodes the social trust between the governed and the governors and creates
inefficiencies in a country’s economics. Attempts have been made to remove, or “unblock,”
the “lista sabana” by allowing voters to choose individual candidates to the legislature, but
so far these attempts have failed.
When the Paraguayan Congress voted to increase funds for their political operatives, funds
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that the Economy Minister said didn’t exist, the measure was vetoed by President Lugo. A
popular movement to limit the powers of Congress and unblock the “lista sabana” resulted
in a siege of the Congress building by angry activists, and the Congress spooked. They saw
both President Lugo and the popular reaction that had his support as threats to their way
of living, to their very survival as a political class. The Congress in many ways is no friend of
the people. They are perceived as a robber class and a threat to the welfare of the state, at
least as much as the President was portrayed as an enemy of security by the Congress.
Graffiti terms for congressmen include “Dipu-chorros” (Thieving Deputies) and “Senaratas” (Senate Rats). The president of the Paraguayan Senate, Cesar Matto Oviedo, had
frequently excluded the media from important meetings, restricting the freedom of the
press from reporting the actions of the government. “Que se vayan todos!” (Let them all go)
responded the Paraguayan people, who perceived both the Congress and the Presidency,
not to mention the Supreme Court, as riddled with corruption. In this area the Paraguayan
democratic system needs more transparency and a constitutional reform could set the
balance right between the branches of government.
Cannibalism had once been a feature of indigenous culture in the River Plate region. Like
the Garden of Eden, Paraguay had lost its innocence early in its pre-history. Cannibalism
was rife among native peoples when Portuguese and Spanish explorers first visited these
lands in search of the fabled “El Dorado,” the Inca Empire called “Candire” in Guarani
legends. The first European explorer to venture into Paraguay, a Portuguese called Alejo
Garcia, was killed and most likely eaten in the Chaco by Guaycuru Indians, the mortal
enemies of the Guarani. The Paraguayan Congress also had a reputation for political
cannibalism. The political battles between political parties were not as fierce as the infighting within the parties. Leaders from the same political party were ruthless in their
scramble for a position, a favor, or a voter. When they weren’t fighting within the party,
they were looking for victims outside their domain. The Congress had been looking for his
impeachment since Lugo was elected. Previous attempts to impeach Lugo dated back to
2009, a year after his election, but the Congress had never gathered the necessary votes. A
few months before the Curuguaty massacre, Congress had been sharpening their knives in
an attempt to impeach seven Supreme Court judges for claiming to have life terms. The plot
had failed, but from that point the smell of blood was in the air.
Impeachment Express
The actual impeachment proceedings unraveled uncharacteristically fast. According to
“Pepe” Mujica, President of Uruguay, "not even a chicken thief is prosecuted in such an
expeditious way as it has been done in Paraguay." A Brazilian diplomat pointed out that an
offender has five days to contest a traffic violation but the President is given two hours to
keep his job. In a country where the wheels of government roll inordinately slowly, the
impeachment, or “juicio politico,” took place over a period of two days, in less than 38
hours. First, on Thursday, June 21, the Chamber of Deputies with 80 members met and
voted 76 to 1 with 3 abstentions to impeach the President – a 95% majority. The next day
the Senate with 45 members voted 39 to 4 with 2 abstentions to “condemn” Lugo – an 87%
majority. According to the Paraguayan Constitution, only a two-thirds majority of both
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houses is needed to remove an executive from government. The overwhelming majority
voting in favor of Lugo’s impeachment, perceived as collusion by critics and democracy by
supporters, was hailed as vindication for the process. During the final debate after the
defense had presented their position, the PPQ Senator, Miguel Carrizosa, at the last minute
attempted to introduce a motion to extend the time given to the defense. He was countered
by the Colorado Senator Juan “Cale” Galaverna who requested a motion to stop the debate
and vote immediately. The Senate chose to second Galaverna’s motion and the die was cast.
The main concern for most observers was the short time given for Lugo’s defense and the
short-circuiting of due process. Some would later say that the outcome was pre-ordained.
Despite the fact that Lugo was given two hours to present his defense, his three lawyers
argued for an hour and a half. They used their time to criticize the process, warn the
Congress of setting a dangerous precedence, and call on the “higher nature” of the Senators
to absolve the President and let him finish his elected mandate. Despite their legal
eloquence, the arguments for the defense seemed half-hearted. Perhaps if they had had
more time the defense team could have mounted a stronger case. Others argued that to give
Lugo more time would have allowed him wiggle room to buy the votes of congressmen,
create a resistance movement against the Congress, or create the conditions for a bloody
civil war. On March 26, 1999, a similar impeachment attempt against a Paraguayan
president had ended in the death of eight students and the resignation of the president.
Violence was to be avoided by a swift stroke of justice and a legal, constitutional process.
In between the vote of the Chamber of Deputies and the vote of the Senate, leaders of the
international community met with both the legislative and executive branches. The Papal
Nuncio hosted a meeting with President Lugo and the diplomatic community. Shortly after,
the U.S. Ambassador, James H. Thessin, hosted Lugo to a lunch at the U.S. Embassy, though
the content of the meeting was never divulged. Rumors abounded that Lugo was seeking
asylum in the USA. The U.S. Ambassador, in an exclusive interview with leading circular
ABC Color, admonished the Senators to consider the consequences of an impeachment,
advising them that what was legal was not always wise. Other diplomats approached
individual legislators in futile attempts to dissuade them from carrying through with the
impeachment.
A delegation of twelve Unasur foreign ministers, led by the Venezuelan Prime Minister,
Nicolas Maduro, left the “Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development” that was taking
place at the time, and flew to Asuncion in a chartered plane. On June 21, they urged the
Paraguayan Congress to desist from their action of grave consequence, but they were
rebuffed. After the impeachment, the new Paraguayan Defense Minister accused Maduro
and the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister, Patiño, of having tried to incite the military to rise up
against the Congress and stage a counter-coup to restore Lugo to power. Videotapes of the
Venezuelan and Ecuadorean Foreign Ministers entering a room in the Government Palace
surfaced later to indicate that there had been a meeting of some kind. At a later hearing,
several Paraguayan generals accused the Foreign Ministers of convening them in a room
and challenging them to be patriotic and defend their President. The military leaders
refused, though some who were loyal to Lugo lost their positions when the accusations
came to light. Lugo and his supporters denied that they had schemed a military uprising,
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accusing the new government of fabricating the incident and tampering with the
videotapes.
During the investigation into the incident, the Minister of Tourism, Liz Cramer, who had
survived three prior administrations, gave a sworn deposition to the contrary. Her account
reported that at a Cabinet meeting convened on the afternoon of the impeachment, Lugo
told his advisors that the military were in another room in the Palace, ready to sign a
document supporting him as President. Cramer said she advised President Lugo from her
experience as a general’s daughter, that asking the military to support a person rather than
a position was unconstitutional. She warned the beleaguered President that the military
would rally to the new President because a constitutional process had been followed by the
Congress. The military’s decision to respect the Paraguayan Constitution and not rise up
against the new government in defense of Lugo was also praised by US Southern Command
Chief General Douglas Fraser during a visit to Brazil.
To his credit, Lugo declined to roll tanks down the central street called “El Paraguayo
Independiente” and squash the "Paraguayan Winter." In two public speeches broadcast to
the nation from the Government Palace, “the bishop president” agreed to submit to the
impeachment process and abide by the decision whatever its outcome. Lugo bowed out
peacefully with a measure of dignity and decorum. His last words as President were:
“Tonight I leave by the biggest gate of the Homeland, by the gate of the heart. From the
heart of my compatriots, to the companions and citizens, men and women who today are in
the squares, in the roads, in the fields, in the cities, in the unions, to all Paraguayans of good
heart who dream of a different Paraguay, I simply tell them that they can always count on
Fernando Lugo.” Although he was given the option to stay in the presidential residence for
two weeks, he chose to move directly to his private home in a suburb of Asuncion, but not
without being accused later of cleaning out the palace of any valuables.
The impeachment wasn’t a process of two days, according to his critics; Lugo’s trial began
even before he was elected four years ago, and the proofs of his incompetence began to
mount soon after he began governing. The fact was that former President Lugo had
exhausted his political capital, distracted by several paternity suits and straying into
Bolivarian socialism. Lugo’s administration had been marred by ambiguity and indecision.
Unfulfilled campaign promises and incompetence, especially dealing with land invaders, led
to the final straw with the massacre at Curuguaty. There was a sense from many sectors
that Lugo had it coming. Imagine the ambivalence of Jimmy Carter wrapped into Bill
Clinton’s womanizing with the abuse of power exercised by Richard Nixon, and you get an
idea of Lugo’s wrongs in the eyes of his critics.
The day after the impeachment the country was in shock. That Saturday dawned clear and
sunny, a cool winter day in Paraguay. The streets were deserted, stores were closed, and
even the birds seemed to stop singing. A few Lugo supporters assembled outside the Public
TV office in downtown Asuncion to protest the decision of Congress. In other parts of
Paraguay, leftist and worker groups met to plan a strategy of resistance against the
removal of President Lugo and his administration. Within two days after Lugo accepted the
decision of Congress and abdicated his presidency, the former President formed a shadow
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cabinet, sought the support of the international left, and had his former Cabinet Chief call
his faithful to resist in the streets and in the workplace.
In the aftermath, the pro-Franco crowd, mostly businessmen and the middle class, rallied
round the cry of “Paraguay Soberana” (Sovereign Paraguay), with flag decals on cars and
buses, and graffiti on crumbling walls, proclaiming their jingoism. The radicalized
“campesinos” and the landless squatters, mobilized by “Luguistas,” followers of Lugo,
formed a movement called “Paraguay Resiste.” Graffiti on walls called the Congress and the
new government “Golpistas” (Coup Instigators). Their voice has grown more muted as their
numbers dwindle from those searching for new opportunities offered by the new
government. Eventually the leaders of the peasant movements turned against Lugo, who
had to remain content with a forum on reform. However, the landless squatters continue to
occupy land, including territory claimed by indigenous tribes, and resist calls for their
eviction.
Defenders of the new government claimed that the impeachment had followed the
Constitution and President Lugo was allowed enough time to defend his case, without
prolonging the process and risking bloodshed. "It's impossible for Lugo to return to power
because the sovereign and autonomous decision of Congress is irreversible. It doesn't allow
for appeal because it was a political process, not a judicial one," Eusebio Ayala, a lawyer for
Franco, told AP reporters in a story published on June 26. From outside the country, critics
accused the Paraguayan Congress of behaving in a most undemocratic fashion by removing
a chief executive without due process, and therefore meriting the free world’s censure, the
rejection of the new government and calls to return Lugo’s administration to power.
Paraguay in the Dock
About two weeks after President Lugo’s impeachment, a delegation from the Organization
of American States (OAS) visited Paraguay and delivered a report declaring that despite the
unusual speed of the impeachment trial, there was no violation of the constitution, no
disruption of the democratic order, and no institutional coup. The delegation, led by
Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza, a former Chilean foreign minister, included
representatives from Canada, USA, Haiti, Honduras and Mexico. To obtain a clear
understanding of the events surrounding the impeachment of President Lugo the mission
met from July 2-3 with a full range of political, economic, and social leaders in Paraguay.
They reported to the OAS Permanent Council on Monday, July 9. The report recommended
avoiding sanctions on Paraguay and sending a permanent commission of observers to
guarantee the absolute transparency of the upcoming 2013 presidential elections.
However, the OAS neglected to vote on whether to accept the report and recognize the new
government, and Paraguay remained in diplomatic limbo.
The OAS delegation was strongly criticized by Roy Chaderton Matos, the Venezuelan
Ambassador to the OAS. He lamented that Insulza’s report did not include novel elements.
He argued that, “A huge amount of money has been spent to send the delegation, when
buying a few newspapers from the last two or three weeks would have cost less than one
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hundred dollars, including the coffee.” He went on to scoff at the OAS as ineffective. “This
institution,” he said, “always lukewarm and sometimes cold, is like cold onion soup without
the crust of melted cheese.” He also reproached Insulza for not including members from a
Mercosur or Unasur country in the mission. Given the lack of an initial hearing by Mercosur
and Unasur countries, it’s questionable whether Paraguay would have been given a fair
hearing from her South American neighbors. With friends like Mercosur or Unasur a
country wouldn’t need enemies. After Lugo’s impeachment, Ecuador’s President Rafael
Correa had called for the closure of Paraguay’s borders. After recalling its ambassador to
Paraguay, Cuba stated that it would not recognize any government that had not been
elected, forgetting that Cuba has not held elections since Castro overthrew the Batista
government in a military coup in 1958.
The difficulty of Latin American governments to modulate the balance of powers between
the executive, legislative and judicial branches, and the free press, is part of the dynamics of
recent political events in Honduras, San Salvador, and Paraguay. Latin America’s history of
colonial rule, military coups, the rapid succession of caretaker governments, outside
meddling by the US and international organizations, and distortions of democratic
governments, have given the region a healthy distrust of political machinations and
“ruptures in the democratic order.” The knee-jerk reaction to Paraguay’s change of
government, forsaking dialogue and direct negotiations, reflected the prevailing fear of
progressive governments that conservative forces would threaten their socialist reforms.
It’s helpful to understand that Paraguayan politics doesn’t exactly have a record of stable
governments or consistent democracy. Following the War of the Triple Alliance, from 1870
to 1954, Paraguay was ruled by 44 different men, 24 of whom were forced from office.
After taking over the government in a military coup in 1954, General Alfredo Stroessner
ruled with an iron hand for 35 years until 1989, when he was in turn deposed in a military
coup by his son’s father-in-law, General Andres Rodriguez. Since Stroessner was given a
golden parachute to live in exile in Brazil, Paraguay has voted for six presidents, including
General Rodriguez who had legalized the parties in opposition to the dominant Colorado
party. Although Rodriguez had restored democracy, only four of the six elected presidents
finished their term in office. Raul Cubas Grau of the Colorado party was elected in 1998 and
lasted 7 months in office. Democracy was finding Paraguayan soil rocky and thorny, with
endemic corruption and pernicious cronyism.
The OAS included a “democratic clause” in its founding charter in 1951, requiring its
member states to preserve democratic order. At the Third Summit of the Americas, on April
20-22, 2001 in Quebec City, the OAS members adopted the Inter-American Democratic
Charter to establish democracy as “a right of peoples” in the Western Hemisphere.
Mercosur and Unasur also have similar requirements. According to the “democratic clause”
in Mercosur’s Ushuaia Protocol on Democracy signed in 1998, and the Unasur Additional
Protocol on Democracy signed in 2010 in Guyana, the full force and validity of democratic
institutions became essential conditions for the integration of the members into their
respective organizations. In the case of a rupture in the democratic order, Article 4 of the
Ushuaia Protocol bound the member states to carry out appropriate consultations with the
offending state. If the consultations failed to restore democratic order, then, and only then,
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did the organization have the right to suspend the state.
Prior to the Ushuaia Protocol, Mercosur’s constitutional documents laid out procedures in
case of controversies. In Article 2 of the Brasilia Protocol, signed by the four founding
Mercosur countries in 1991, nine months after the Treaty of Asuncion established the
Southern Common Market, the procedure stated quite simply, “The State Parties to any
controversy will first attempt to resolve it through direct negotiations.” Article 37 of the
Ouro Preto Protocol, signed in 1994, stated that, “The decisions of the Mercosul organs
shall be taken by consensus and in the presence of all the States Parties.” However, neither
Mercosur nor Unasur engaged in dialogue, direct negotiations, nor consulted with Paraguay
prior to the Presidential Summit’s unilateral decision to suspend it. Mercosur had
suspended Paraguay for providing Lugo with only two hours for his defense without
offering a minute for Paraguay's defense. The decision to suspend Paraguay, as much as the
decision to incorporate Venezuela, were based on political expediency rather than rule of
law, and enacted by fiat rather than a judicial process. In effect, Mercosur had violated its
own treaty conditions, and conducted a virtual “coup d’etat” against Paraguay.
The Unasur Protocol did not require dialogue or consultations, allowing a council of heads
of states or foreign ministers to meet in an extraordinary session, and “consider by
consensus, the nature and scope of the measures to be applied, taking into account the
relevant information gathered based on the provisions of Article 4 of this Protocol and
respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the affected State.” In addition to
suspending the disrupted state, Article 4 gave the organization the authority to close land
borders, limit trade, air and maritime traffic, communications, and restrict the “provision of
energy, services and supplies” as well as “advocate the suspension of the affected State in
the ambit of other regional and international organizations.” Unasur has taken democracy
very seriously, extending its authority over individual national sovereignty, and
appropriating the right to protect an executive head of state from abrupt removal.
At the time of signing the Unasur Protocol in 2010, the Paraguayan Congress had delayed
its ratification, arguing that it violated the country’s sovereignty and independence.
Although Paraguay eventually ratified its accession to Unasur in August 2011, a year later
the Congress dusted off the Protocol and decided to reject it. At that time, they also rejected
Venezuela’s accession to Mercosur, a belated symbolic gesture that seemed to energize the
new government. According to Paraguayan legislators, the country was still a member of
Mercosur, despite the arbitrary and illegal suspension. The country had been suspended,
not expelled. Since Article 20 of the constitutive Treaty of Asuncion established that a
consensus of all the founding members was needed to incorporate a new member,
Paraguay’s absence meant that the other nations could not on their own accept the
accession of Venezuela to Mercosur.
Still in deliberation is the so-called Ushuaia II Protocol, signed in Montevideo in December
2011 by President Lugo and the other Mercosur presidents. Similar to the Unasur Protocol,
it contained language that would allow the closing of borders and other sanctions in the
case of a rupture in the democratic order. After the signing, Lugo and his Foreign Minister
Lara Castro had failed to pass the document to the legislature for ratification, probably
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fearing it would stir a discussion that would put the executive on the defensive. Although
the new foreign minister eventually transferred the document, the Congress decided to
postpone the decision for further study. It was better to wait for the new government
expected to take over in August, 2013, to deal with the far reaching consequences of
staying or leaving the Mercosur. There were strong forces in Paraguay arguing that
Mercosur had never benefitted the country. They claimed that the economic bloc had
become a means by which the big and powerful countries, Brazil and Argentina, could
dominate the poor and powerless countries, Paraguay and Uruguay. Sergio Abreu, an
Uruguayan presidential candidate who spoke at a forum on what Paraguay should do with
Mercosur, said, “nations don’t pursue friendships but mutual interests.” In effect, the big
boys do what the big boys want, and damn the rules.
Marco Aurelio Garcia, Brazilian presidential advisor on foreign affairs and national security,
had wagged a finger at Paraguay and said the country would have to submit to the
Mercosur rules, including accepting Venezuela’s accession, when it returned from its
suspension in 2013. In an interview, he argued that Mercosur with Venezuela is a new
reality that Paraguay would have to accept; that Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur would
strengthen democracy in the region because the same rules would apply to Venezuela that
led to Paraguay’s expulsion, and that in defense of Venezuela "each country has the right to
interpret the nature of its democracy." With this logic Chavez could withdraw from the
Inter-American Human Rights Commission, jail opposition leaders, control courts, change
the constitution, extend his rule indefinitely, hold fraudulent elections, politicize the
military, and close newspapers, radios and TVs and still call his regime democratic. With
this logic the former Paraguayan dictator, Alfredo Stroessner, could claim that his regime
that had ruthlessly fought Communism represented the "full force and validity of
democracy in Paraguay." However, Marco Aurelio Garcia did not allow Franco’s Paraguay
to call its constitutionally sanctioned change of government a democratic process. He
allowed other countries to define what democracy should mean for Paraguay. The rules
that Paraguay had to submit to were also not clear. Were they the rules of petroleum
politics that trump protocols, the rules of presidents flouting their own bylaws, or the rules
of bullies shouldering aside weaker countries in their own interests?
Since Paraguay’s suspension from Mercosur, Paraguayan delegations have been barred
from attending Mercosur meetings in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, including a forum on
regional public health. Paraguay’s new Foreign Minister Fernandez Estigarribia, nicknamed
“El Mariscalito” for his short stature and bossy style, was expelled from the Latin American
Association of Human Rights (Aldhu) for lending his reputation to disguise an illegitimate
government with feigned legitimacy. Paraguay was excluded from participating in the third
Summit of South American-Arab countries (ASPA) to be held in Lima in October. Paraguay
was not invited by Spain to the annual Ibero-American Presidential Summit to be held in
November, 2012, in Cadiz. Spain’s rationale was that if the new Paraguayan president
showed up, the presidents of other countries such as Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina,
Bolivia, and even Brazil would not. In an interview with EFE, the Spanish news agency,
President Franco said he would not attend if he wasn’t invited, since he had been brought
up with good manners. Franco ironized that Paraguay had not expropriated any Spanish
companies, alluding to Argentina’s nationalization of the Spanish oil giant Repsol without
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compensation. On the contrary, Paraguay was eager for a closer relationship with Spain
and welcomed Spanish companies, offering a favorable investment climate and conditions.
Ironically, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had declined to attend last
year’s Ibero-American Summit held in Asuncion, in an apparent slight to President Lugo.
From inside Paraguay it seemed that the country had been unceremoniously kicked aside
like a street dog by its bullying neighbors without a chance to explain its actions. According
to one editorialist, democracy had been evicted so that a dictatorship could be
accommodated. It became obvious to the Paraguayan press that the country was a pebble
in Brazil’s big shoes marching towards a “brilliant” future of “Order and Progress,” Brazil’s
national motto sewn on its flag. The rest of the quote from Auguste Comte, “l’amour pour
principe, et l’ordre pour base; le progrès pour but" ("Love as a principle and order as the
basis; progress as the goal"), was missing the component of love. There was no love lost
between Brazilians and Paraguayans, who called Brazil, “the other Empire.” Commentators
and editorials even resurrected the specter of the War of the Triple Alliance, fought from
1864 to 1875. In that “second American genocide,” Paraguay took on Argentina, Brazil and
Uruguay, and lost more than half its population and 90% of its men, as well as a third of its
territory. In the current crisis, the new Triple Alliance was trampling Paraguay’s dignity
and sovereignty. The only recourse for Paraguay was to appeal to the international
community, at least those not dominated by the left.
A New Cold War
Appealing to the international community to act as arbiter between Paraguay and the new
“Triple Alliance” was considered a risky move by legal experts, without much hope for a
satisfactory resolution. For starters, an appeal to the International Court of Justice at the
Hague would be expensive and lengthy, extending beyond the mandate for Franco’s
government. Few countries, including the United States, Argentina and Brazil, have
consented to the jurisdiction and rulings of the International Court. When in 1984 the
International Court ruled against the United States in a case brought by Nicaragua, the
United States refused to abide by the ruling that its support of the Contras and mining of
Nicaragua’s harbors contravened international law. After vetoing the resolution in the
Security Council, the United States refused to pay compensation to Nicaragua, and the case
was dropped in 1992, after both sides had expended costly legal fees. The Mercosur
Standing Review Tribunal had already set a precedent for refusing to deal with Paraguay’s
claims of a “violation of signed treaty rights” on procedural grounds. Over an extended
period, Argentina and Brazil could play a legal game with more resources than Paraguay,
stalling the case to an indeterminate conclusion.
In addition, the international community had sprouted a vocal leftist fringe that was
whipping up an international campaign to shun Paraguay. When President Lugo was
impeached it looked like the Cold War had resurrected from the grave of history’s end.
Leftist intellectuals from Europe and the Americas were lining up to inveigh invectives
against the “right-wing coup” in Paraguay. Soon after the impeachment, a delegation of
Nordic Green Left Party, Communist and European Left Parliamentarians descended on
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Asuncion to join the protesters at the TV Publica. Marxist cliches and Cold War epithets
were dusted off and hurled against the thieving Paraguayan Congress (the “Dipu-chorros”
and “Sena-ratas”) that had robbed the people of their freely elected leader, against the
bourgeois oligarchs, the “latifundistas,” and cattle barons that had monopolized the land
and industry at the expense of the peasants and the workers. The capitalist media barons,
who had railed against the incompetence and leftward drift of President Lugo during his
administration, were now labeled the bad guys for manipulating the press for their devious
political ends. An ABC Color editorial summarized the reaction of the mainstream, "How
many more foreigners, many of them insignificant and without a defined legal occupation,
will the 'caviar left' bring to hurl diatribes against the Paraguayan people? Obviously, the
members of this group so favored by Lugo lack seriousness and dedicate themselves to
insult the whole world for the sole purpose of appearing in the media."
An Al-Jazeera article claimed that Paraguay’s new President Federico Franco was a
dictator. The hyperbole was egregious. To characterize Franco as a dictator would be akin
to calling Al-Jazeera the voice of jihadi extremists. In fact, Franco has far less power than
Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin, or Hugo Chavez for that matter. Another Al-Jazeera article
written by Benjamin Dangl, a “progressive” writer and unabashed Chavez admirer, claimed,
“The coup gave birth to new corporate agreements, repression of citizens' rights and
crackdowns on press freedoms.” The “new corporate agreements” was code for conspiracy
theories that multinational “bad guys” had engineered the impeachment.
It was true; since Lugo’s left-leaning government bowed off stage several multinational
companies have sought concessions from the new right-leaning government. The USheadquartered company Monsanto recently won approval to introduce genetically
modified corn and cottonseed, after a series of setbacks under Lugo’s administration.
Canada’s Rio Tinto Alcan is trying to ink a deal to build a giant aluminum smelting plant in
Paraguay after much opposition from the former Minister of Mines, the daughter of the
President of Frente Guazu, the leftist alliance that backed Lugo. At least two North
American companies are bidding for oil drilling permits in the Chaco. Yet the hypocrisy of
Dangl’s assertions was opprobrious. Brazil and Argentina have approved Monsanto’s GMO
products without so much as a squeak from the left. Rio Tinto claims to have cleaned up its
environmental act with new technology, and the oil spills of Venezuelan, Ecuadoran,
Brazilian and Argentine drilling operations have had more serious environmental impacts
than any Paraguayan oil industry.
Citizens’ rights to protest have been more protected under Franco than they ever were
under Lugo. There was a brief moment on the eve of the impeachment when a police water
cannon was turned on protesters, but the singular incident could hardly be called a
“repression of citizens’ rights.” Since the impeachment Lugo supporters and Franco critics
have been vociferous in their opposition to the new “Golpista” government, without any
reprisals from the government or its supporters. The head of Frente Guazu, Ricardo Canese,
has even published an editorial column critical of Franco in ABC Color, Paraguay’s leading
daily that had sharply criticized Lugo during his administration. The only crackdown on
press freedom occurred when a group of approximately thirty leftists protested in front of
the ABC Color editorial office on the occasion of the newspaper’s 45th anniversary. The
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protesters harangued guests, assaulted the Foreign Minister and exchanged blows with a
reporter critical of their leftist message. A camera from the Venezuelan national TV
channel, Telesur, was rolling and covered the scuffle.
Showdown at the OAS
Despite the positive verdict from Insulza’s delegation, the OAS had dragged its feet in
recognizing the new government of Paraguay. Countries that originally agreed to abide by
an OAS decision, including the USA, had to freeze their diplomatic relations with Paraguay
indefinitely. Financial institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund and the International Development Bank had also hitched their wagons to the OAS
decision in order to determine future relations with the new government of Paraguay. In
the two months and six OAS meetings it took to debate Paraguay’s change of government
the discussions polarized into ideological rather than substantive questions. Urging the
immediate suspension of Paraguay from the OAS were Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and the
“Bolivarian” countries of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador.
The venerable OAS, founded in 1948 to fight communism in the Western Hemisphere, has
been influenced by the United States since its inception. With the advent of Hugo Chavez to
power in Venezuela in 1999, the OAS has been on the defensive in the face of the populist
leader’s anti-American attacks. Chavez founded the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas
– People’s Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) in 2004 as an alternative to the US Free Trade
Agreement of the Americas. ALBA was formed by Venezuela signing an agreement with
Cuba to exchange medical and educational resources and supply the island with oil.
Inspired by Cuba’s resistance to the US boycott, and Castro’s ability to forge a society in his
image, Chavez began to remake Venezuela along socialist lines, a “Socialism of the 21st
Century.” He branded his movement with a blend of ruthless repression of critics, caustic
humor against his “bourgeois” opposition, high profile social programs and largesse to the
poor, and an engaging folksy personality that charmed the populace. With his petro-dollars,
Chavez was able to export his new socialist revolution into other countries in Latin
America. Among the recipients of Chavez’s largesse, Argentina has been a prime target.
Since 2005, Venezuela has bought $5 billion dollars worth of Argentine bonds to bail out
the faltering economy, in effect exchanging diesel for milk, and earning Cristina Fernandez
de Kirchner’s undying gratitude.
Chavez later spurred the formation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean
States (CELAC) and Unasur with the express purpose of excluding the United States and
Canada from hemispheric politics. He has hosted Iran’s Ahmadinejad, courted China’s
companies, purchased Russian and Belarussian arms, and called Castro his mentor, while
thumbing his nose at “Yanqui imperialists.” Chavez’s attempts to bring Venezuela into
Mercosur had been blocked by the Paraguayan Congress, who accused him of
undemocratic rule. With ideological allies in place in Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil, it took
the sudden removal of Paraguay’s President Lugo, another Chavez ally, to open an
opportunity for Mercosur to admit Venezuela into the bloc. Acting outside of their
foundational rules, the presidents of Mercosur took an executive, political decision at the
16
expense of judicial process. To quote current Paraguayan President Franco, Mercosur had
turned from an economic trade bloc into a “club of ideological friends”.
In 2009, the 34 OAS members had been polarized by the sudden removal of Manuel “Mel”
Zelaya, the President of Honduras, by the Honduran military. Zelaya had been bundled out
of bed in the middle of the night and whisked off to Costa Rica, still in his pyjamas. His
crime had been to seek a popular referendum to change the constitution to extend his term
in office in defiance of a court order to desist. At the time, President Zelaya had also tried to
incorporate Honduras into the ALBA. The Bolivarians decried the military coup as a right
wing attempt to remove a leftist president. The OAS eventually suspended Honduras but
not without criticism for delaying the decision and not doing more to support the return of
Zelaya. The Bolivarians had been vociferous in their condemnation of the Honduran
military, their scorn of the OAS sluggishness, and their criticism of US efforts to bring
stability to the country. Advocates of suspending Paraguay from the OAS, especially the
ALBA countries, pointed to the parallels with Honduras. Their voices in Mendoza on June
29 had spurred the Unasur and Mercosur decisions to suspend Paraguay.
The moderate camp at the OAS eventually prevailed, accepting the Canadian and Mexican
proposal to give time to the member governments to study the Insulza report and to vote
on a decision in another special session. Later, the Paraguayan Ambassador to the OAS
accused Argentina, Brazil, and the Bolivarian countries of continuing to lobby OAS
members to delay the vote or vote to suspend Paraguay from the OAS. On August 22, fully
two months after the impeachment, the OAS met to decide Paraguay’s status and fate. After
five hours of heated discussion, no vote was taken and no binding decision was made.
However, the deliberations resulted in a clear majority that favored keeping Paraguay in
the organization and not imposing sanctions. In a haphazard process, Paraguay emerged
unsuspended and unsanctioned, and declaring victory against the Bolivarians.
At the OAS meeting on August 22, a consortium of countries led by Brazil, Venezuela and
Argentina argued in favor of rejecting Insulza’s report. They recommended not sending a
mission to observe the Paraguayan electoral process and support democracy in Paraguay.
In contrast, the Mexican ambassador, Joel Hernandez, spoke for the majority when he
proposed that the OAS mission expand its scope and include support of political dialogue,
the strengthening of democratic institutions, and reform of the judicial system in Paraguay.
The Mexican also proposed accepting Insulza’s report but was vetoed by the countries in
opposition. During the debate, the U.S. Ambassador to the OAS, Carmen Lomellin, went as
far as to suggest that the OAS mission could consider helping Paraguay conduct
constitutional reforms. Instead of taking the resolutions to vote, which would have
polarized the members, the OAS agreed to table the motion and “take note” of the various
positions pro and con regarding Paraguay. The Argentine ambassador, Pablo Bustamante,
opposed “taking note,” arguing that this action in itself was in fact making a decision to
accept Paraguay. He suggested not “taking note” would be a better measure of disapproval
of Paraguay’s rupture of the democratic order and institutional coup.
Venezuelan officials have a flair for the histrionic. Speaking of the OAS decision not to
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sanction Paraguay, Roy Chaderton said, “The bishop president has been crucified in the
Golgotha of the parliamentary coup… In the lap of Golgotha, or Calvary, the OAS prepares in
its dreamlike complacency the ratification of this novel State coup which is none the less a
coup that occurred in Paraguay.” Chaderton’s conclusion was that “Justice was violated and
the OAS doesn’t even know it.” If the definition of a “coup” involves force, then Paraguay’s
change of government would not qualify. No force, military or otherwise, was used to
remove the president. In fact the Paraguayan generals assembled on the day of the
impeachment refused to respond to the incitement of the Venezuelan Foreign Minister and
restore Lugo to power. There was no erosion of democratic freedoms as the media
continued to broadcast the views of Lugo’s resisting supporters, and justice was not
violated since the Supreme Court upheld the action of the Congress that followed a
constitutional process to vote by a clear majority to condemn the president for the “poor
performance of his duties.” To suggest that failed legislative and judicial branches wronged
the executive branch is to question the structure of an established republic. However bad
Paraguay's democracy, it does not merit becoming fair game for hypocritical bullies on the
block. Paraguay did not violate human rights in the political process, it did not trample on
free speech, no one was jailed for their ideology or beliefs.
The two-month delay in the OAS non-decision seemed to be a deliberate way of punishing
Paraguay for its hasty impeachment. Ironically, the OAS treatment of Paraguay was in
marked contrast to the celerity with which its members convened to support Ecuador’s
diplomatic immunity. The OAS vote to condemn the United Kingdom for its empty threat to
storm the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and render Wikileaks founder Julian Assange
into the hands of Swedish justice was unanimous and included Paraguay’s vote. The
ostracized country was desperately seeking to ingratiate itself by offering its vote to
support Ecuador in exchange for some crumb of diplomatic recognition. The meeting to
discuss Ecuador’s asylum of Assange in their London Embassy required the presence of
foreign ministers, a level not accorded to the discussion of Paraguay. Still, the contrast
between the methodical deliberation of the OAS to review the circumstances of Paraguay’s
change of government, and give it the benefit of the doubt, and the expeditious decision of
Mercosur and Unasur to suspend Paraguay without dialogue highlighted the differences
between the regional organizations.
The Gorilla in the Room
On July 31, a little more than a month after Mercosur suspended its founding member
Paraguay, the trading bloc officially received Venezuela as a full member at an
extraordinary meeting in Brasilia. A smiling Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela for the
past 13 years, held hands with Cristina Kirchner, Dilma Rousseff, and Jose “Pepe” Mujica,
Presidents of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay respectively. Deposed Paraguayan President
Lugo taunted his successor, Federico Franco, that what he had failed to accomplish in four
years, Franco had succeeded in a month. During Lugo’s administration, the Paraguayan
Congress would never have given him the votes to receive Venezuela into Mercosur. But
after six years of the Paraguayan Congress blocking the accession, Venezuela slipped in
through the window while Paraguay was hog-tied and sidelined. The cartoonist for ABC
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Color showed Chavez as a smiling gorilla pushed from behind through the Mercosur
window by Presidents Kirchner, Rousseff, and Mujica. Opposition politicians and captains
of industry in Uruguay and Brazil have criticized their governments for suspending
Paraguay without a hearing and admitting Venezuela without the consensus of the
founding states. Critics accused Brazil of getting rid of the poor nephew to invite the rich
uncle. Brazil appeared to emerge as the clear winner in Venezuela’s accession to Mercosur
as a new market opened to Brazilian products. In this light what was the loss of 6 million
Paraguayans compared to the gain of 28 million prospective Venezuelan consumers?
The advantages of bringing Venezuela into Mercosur were highlighted by the presidents,
while businessmen and opposition politicians in each of the founding countries protested
that the act was illegal, unfavorable commercially, and placed political power over legal
process. Venezuela, which imports the bulk of its food products, would access Argentina’s
and Brazil’s agricultural economies at cheaper prices, while Brazil and Argentina would
add the weight of petrodollars to their regional bloc. Uruguay and a Paraguay restored after
elections in April 2013 would also supposedly benefit from the new 155 million people
Mercosur market for their agricultural products. With the largest oil reserves in the
Western Hemisphere, Venezuela was strengthening Mercosur’s bargaining power as the
fifth largest economy in the world, after the United States, China, Japan and Germany.
However, the real elephant, or “gorilla,” in the Mercosur room was Brazil that on its own
had overtaken Britain as the sixth largest economy in the world.
At the Mercosur extraordinary meeting on July 31, Venezuela and Argentina formed an oil
alliance with Venezuelan state oil giant PDVA investing in newly nationalized Argentine oil
company YPF. Argentina had expropriated controlling shares of YPF from Spain’s oil
company Repsol, and was now offering the prize at generous terms to Venezuela. There
was something symbolic about this gesture, as if re-enacting the historic meeting in
Guayaquil, Ecuador, on July 26, 1822, when Argentine Liberator General San Martin and
Venezuelan Liberator Simon Bolivar decided the future partition of South America’s
Spanish colonies. After that meeting San Martin abdicated any pretensions to power and
left the fate of Peru to Simon Bolivar. Just as his hero Bolivar had prevailed over San Martin,
Chavez was now overshadowing his hosts in Mercosur. As a token of his good will, Chavez
agreed to purchase 20 Embraer passenger jets from Brazil at a cost of $20 million. Chavez
was showing his appreciation for letting Venezuela join the economic trade bloc that under
his influence was quickly becoming a political force for leftist socialist politics and
nationalist economic policies.
Chavez’s anti-Americanism politics has alarmed conservatives and the traditional elites,
including US Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who warned that the US should “take
note of who is warming to Chavez’s repressive visions” and “deny any concessions, trade
preferences, or other U.S. benefits to those whose actions undermine U.S. interests and
threaten regional stability.” She also claimed that Chavez “has turned Venezuela into an
economic basket case with his zest for the failed policies of a centralized command
economy. He has chipped away at liberty, individual freedoms, and human rights in this
once prosperous South American nation, and now seeks to have Venezuela leave an
important human rights regional body.” The fear is that behind the Venezuelan goons lurk
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Iranian ayatollahs lending missile technology, the Belarussian dictator promising weapons,
and Russian and Chinese arms dealers selling submarines and bombers. A Brazilian
politician worried that Iran would be invited as an observer nation in Mercosur. Sadly, the
new Cold War would not be televised by the new Bolivarian Socialism, since their TV
stations were being systematically shut down by the caudillos of Venezuela, Ecuador,
Nicaragua, and Bolivia, following the lead of their mentor, Fidel Castro of Cuba.
Martial Poets and Meek Warriors
After two weeks of stony silence on the Paraguayan crisis from the U.S. government,
Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs, Roberta Jacobsen, sided with
the OAS report prepared by Secretary General Insulza, which she commended as “really
quite well done”. Despite concerns over the speed of the impeachment process, the OAS
report’s findings led the Assistant Secretary to conclude that, “at this point there really
doesn’t appear to be a reason to suspend Paraguay from the OAS.” She also added that, “we
have no interest in promoting a base or military presence in Paraguay separate or apart
from some sort of our normal interaction with the Paraguayans on counter-narcotics
issues, on training issues, on counterterrorism. We have engaged in that kind of
cooperation very transparently for years, and we hope to continue to do that. That is very
different than this notion of building bases, which I really want to dispel, because it does
keep coming up, which I find somewhat bizarre.”
What was Jacobsen talking about? Surprisingly, Paraguayans have nurtured a persistent
urban myth that the United States built an air force base near Mariscal Estigarribia, deep in
the Chaco wilderness. The purpose of this base, according to the myth, is to steal the water
from the Guarani aquifer, one of the largest subterranean fresh water reserves in the world.
Tourist guidebooks on Paraguay perpetuate the myth of the U.S. military base as a tourist
fact. Most recently, the head of the Chamber of Deputies’ committee of National Defense,
Lopez Chavez, claimed he had spoken to US generals about the possibility of building more
military bases in the Chaco. Both Jacobsen and General Douglas Fraser, head of the US
Southern Command (Southcom) quickly denied any substance to the possibility. However,
the myth has continued to surface at odd moments when Paraguay’s sovereign status is at
stake. Proponents of the bases believe the U.S. could safeguard Paraguayan sovereignty
against the other “empire” of Brazil. Opponents of the base idea fiercely decry any presence
of imperialistic America on the sacred and sovereign territory of Paraguay.
The story began with an article in an Argentine newspaper, written after Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld’s visit to Paraguay in August 2005, and it will not die. Two months after
Lugo’s impeachment, Brazil investigated the possibility that the US was planning bases in
the Chaco. Coincidentally, Brazil also mobilized troops along the Argentine, Uruguayan, and
Paraguayan borders to interrupt the smuggling of explosives used in bank robberies, and
suppress other transborder crimes such as weapons and drug trafficking, smuggling of
animals and undeclared goods. Given the proliferation of contraband and narco-traffic into
Brazil from its neighbors, the Brazilian military operation, codenamed “Agatha 5,” was
deemed routine and necessary. Although the Brazilian military maneuver was standing
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practice, in the context of the current political situation, the exercise exacerbated tensions,
disrupted commerce in the Tri-Border area, and elicited the protest of a delegation from
Ciudad del Este, the contraband capital of Paraguay.
At the same time as Brazil was marching to Paraguay’s borders, the Bolivian Defense
Minister, Ruben Saavedra, accused Paraguay of enlisting the U.S. to build bases within
shooting distance of their border. The day before, Juan Lanchipa, head of the Bolivian
Strategic Directorate for Maritime Vindication of Bolivia (DIREMAR), also accused the
Chileans of militarizing and denying them access to the Pacific Ocean, a claim argued ever
since Bolivia lost land to Chile in the 1879 War of the Pacific. After losing another war with
Paraguay over possession of the Chaco wilderness in 1935, Bolivia lost its route to the
Paraguay River and its access to the Atlantic Ocean. The Chaco War had pitted the Bolivian
Aymara Children of the Sun against the Paraguayan Guarani Children of the Moon over
possession of desert scrub, armadillos and dust. The Chaco War, like most senseless wars,
was fought for national pride, hidden natural resources, and the whims of politicians. Oil
was supposed to lie hidden under the sands and thorns, but to date no oil has been found.
However, many nationalist Bolivians still consider the Chaco rightfully theirs, as they do
the strip of land lost to Chile.
The new Paraguayan Defense Minister, Maria Liz Garcia, in an interview with ABC Color,
the leading Paraguayan daily, accused Bolivia of an arms buildup with aid from Venezuela.
She speculated that tensions in the region were escalating very fast and claimed that
Paraguay “must prepare for war in order to live in peace.” Paraguayan proponents of
armament accused President Evo Morales of indoctrinating his officers in Marxist theory
and Bolivarian ideology in preparation for empire building. Paraguayan legislators called
for more funds to arm the country against possible incursions from a new Triple Alliance or
a newly militarized Bolivia reclaiming the Chaco. Opposing legislators argued that it would
be less expensive for Paraguay to enlist the United States as its protector in case of
neighborly aggressions. Extreme nationalists ventured to argue that if Argentina could lay
claim to the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, then Paraguay could raise a claim to the lands lost
to Argentina and Brazil during the Triple Alliance War, including the Iguazu Falls. The new
Cold War seemed to be spawning an arms race between regional rivals, defying efforts to
integrate the region through mechanisms like Mercosur, Unasur, Aldhu, Aladi, and others.
To his credit, President Franco has tried to quell a legislative motion to increase funds to
the Paraguayan Armed Forces using proceeds from the Itaipu hydroelectric dam shared
with Brazil. In a rebuke to militaristic elements in his government, mostly stemming from
the UNACE Party led by presidential candidate and former general, Lino Cesar Oviedo,
Franco has tried to draw the line to political pressure from his allies in government. Since
Lugo’s impeachment, the UNACE Party has called in its favors for having supported the
PLRA and Franco’s presidency in those early, uncertain days following Lugo’s
impeachment. In exchange for their support, UNACE received the appointment of the
Defense Minister, a position on the Central Bank, and the restitution of Lino Oviedo in
public events, such as the celebration of “Army Day” on July 25. The alliance between the
PLRA and UNACE has made many nervous, remembering Oviedo’s attempt at a military
coup in 1996 and his subsequent sentence of ten years, his involvement during the 1999
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“Paraguayan March” constitutional crisis and his association with the murder of VicePresident Argaña, his exile in Argentina and Brazil, and his imprisonment for three years
on returning to Paraguay. There are fears that Oviedo’s presidential ambitions and
pretensions to power could trigger a real “coup d’etat” supported by his military
sympathizers and nationalists.
The sharp contrast between the quick decisions taken by Mercosur and Unasur to suspend
Paraguay, without any deliberative process that included dialogue with Paraguay, was not
lost on the US and other regional governments. As Jacobsen pointed out, “I see Paraguay in
some ways as a way for us to come together as a region to support Paraguayan democracy,
not as an issue which will exacerbate divisions.” Jacobsen’s view of the Paraguayan crisis
was an “opportunity to work together on an issue that concerns all of us, which is
strengthening democracy and strengthening dialogue in Paraguay…. The most important
thing at this point is to look for constructive ways moving forward to engage with the
Paraguayans, including with the Franco government, to get to the elections next year.”
Although at the time her words could have been taken as a tacit recognition of the new
Paraguayan government, the U.S. government decided to wait for the OAS vote before
officially recognizing Franco as the new President.
When the OAS finally met on August 22 and decided not to vote on whether to recognize
the new Paraguayan government, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Asuncion retreated into a
state of limbo. Despite having invited both members of the Lugo and Franco government to
the traditional July 4th party at the Embassy in an effort to keep the peace on all sides,
relations between Embassy officials and the new ministries of the Franco government were
frozen until further notification. Paraguayan elites seemed surprised at this lack of support
from what they had assumed was their consistent ally. The U.S. Ambassador had always
been intimately involved during previous crises. When Paraguay approached the brink of
anarchy in March 1999, Ambassador Maura Harty had shuttled between the Congress and
the Presidential palace to hammer out a peace deal and avert a disaster. This time
Ambassador James H. Thessin had declined to come to Lugo’s aid, and had maintained his
distance from Franco’s government. On the other hand, the Paraguayan former foreign
minister, Lara Castro, an unapologetic Cuban supporter, took the Embassy’s silence and
aloofness as proof that the United States was tacitly endorsing the new Franco regime. It
seemed the Embassy could not win either way. After three months of diplomatic isolation,
Paraguayan hopes were pinned on President Franco’s visit to the United Nations General
Assembly on September 25. There seemed to be an air of expectation that an invitation to a
dinner hosted by President Obama would unclog the diplomatic logjam and secure some
kind of recognition for the new Paraguayan government.
Neglect of Latin America by the next U.S. administration runs the risk of creating conditions
for strengthening anti-Americanism and reducing American influence in hemispheric
decisions. In addition it leaves a region open to interference from American rivals, such as
Russia and China, and the influence of enemies, such as Iran and Cuba. The Bolivarians
would wish away the Monroe Doctrine and integrate Latin America into a socialist power
bloc with authoritarian regimes in command, inviting the enemies of the United States to
set up shop in their back yards. At the heart of South America, surrounded by hostile
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neighbors, Paraguay is safely ignored, yet presents a strategic base for influence in the
region. The lesson learned in Afghanistan was that the USA cannot afford to ignore a region
of conflict. Although not in the same conditions as Afghanistan, Paraguay is also a small,
landlocked country with meddling neighbors that cannot be ignored.
The world’s awareness of the crisis in Paraguay did not last past a short news cycle. Sadly,
despite Paraguay’s bravado and claims of sovereignty, it has little choice but to placate its
hostile neighbors. It would be easy for the United States to overlook the transitional
government, freeze diplomatic relations with Paraguay, and ignore the bullies while they
beat up their neighbor. On the other hand, in keeping with its vaunted democratic ideals,
the United States would do well to recognize Paraguay’s new government and support the
process of free and fair elections set for April 21, 2013. At the same time, whichever new
US administration takes over in January 2013, they should test Latin American waters and
define a strategy that would defuse any hot wars and warm up the escalating cold war. The
US needs to strengthen its allies in the region, mainly with Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, and
Peru, expose the inconsistencies of authoritarian governments such as Cuba, Venezuela,
Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Argentina, and show the benefits of free trade and
democratic principles to its Bolivarian and leftist hemispheric neighbors. The most delicate
relations will need to be negotiated with Brazil, the largest country in South America, and a
member of the developing BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).
With Dilma Rousseff as the new President of Brazil since 2010, Lula da Silva’s former Chief
of Staff continues to steer the hybrid of a socialist government driving a capitalist economy.
Her left of center government is eager to establish its influence in the region and demand
respect from the developed world. Brazil has lobbied to gain a permanent seat on the
United Nations Security Council, together with the other “big boys”: the United States,
Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom. Brazil has always regarded Paraguay as the
giant’s “back yard,” and within its zone of influence. In turn, the United States has invested
considerable resources and exercised diplomatic good will to woo Brazil from its leftist
alliances and bring the South American dominant power to align with American interests.
Ironically, Brazil’s suspension of Paraguay without due process does not paint a pretty
picture of a country committed to the Rule of Law. Its image as a proud host of the 2016
Olympics may be tarnished by its bullying actions against its small neighbor.
Brazil’s efforts to pressure the United States not to interfere in its zone of influence
hearkens back to the days of the War of the Triple Alliance. In 1865, an American warship
sailed up the Paraguay River to deliver the United States Legate, Charles Washburn, to his
diplomatic post in Asuncion. The naval vessel was met by a Brazilian flotilla blockading
access to Paraguayan waters. Despite American entreaties and presenting of official papers
authorizing passage, the Brazilian navy refused to open the way for the Americans. Finally,
by calling the Brazilian bluff, the American navy ship was able to steam past the blockade
and diplomatically recognize the Paraguayan government in its isolation. Brazil, as well as
Argentina, have jealously guarded the world’s access to Paraguay ever since. Unfortunately,
Brazil and Argentina have tried to isolate Paraguay in counter-productive ways. Their
bullying tactics have led Paraguay to adopt a passive aggressive posture. Paraguay will
retreat into itself, as it had before when Portuguese bandeirantes came from Sao Paulo to
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hunt Guarani Indians for the slave markets; as it did when threatened with absorption into
the Brazilian Empire or the newly independent River Plate Republic in the nineteenth
century. Paraguay is used to curling up like an armadillo, or retreating into its shell like a
tortoise, as it did after the debacle of the Triple Alliance War, or during the long
dictatorship of General Stroessner.
The shock waves from Curuguaty continue to expand with surprising consequences,
exposing fault lines and fractures in the region. The shot from a squatter that killed a
policeman in Paraguay sharpened the polarization of geopolitics in Latin America between
the “left” and the “right,” between the Bolivarian states led by Venezuela’s strongman Hugo
Chavez and the democratic states with stronger affinities to the USA. By the end of August,
two months after the impeachment of President Lugo, the “lapacho” trees had dressed
Asuncion with a springtime burst of purple, rose and lavender petals. Vendors were selling
oranges by the bushel on the streets. A trickle of foreign ambassadors had returned to their
missions. Blas Riquelme, the owner of Campos Morombi, where it had all started, had died
of a cerebral embolism and the land was still in dispute. Economic indicators were on the
rise again, after a slump in June and July. Russia and Israel were buying Paraguayan beef
despite the outbreaks of hoof and mouth disease. The “carperos” were still invading lands,
the leftists still protested in front of the TV Publica and ABC Color, and the political parties
were still wheeling, dealing and horse-trading favors. It seemed that the democratic order
was intact in Paraguay. The lost paradise had suffered an expulsion but Paraguay would
persevere and prevail against all odds.
In early September, an OAS delegation arrived to help prepare the country for its electoral
season that had officially launched on August 21. The presidential candidates were
preparing for primaries in December, national elections on April 21, and the inauguration
on August 15, 2013. Paraguayans began looking to the future, anticipating the outcome of
the presidential elections and hoping to put behind the unpleasantness of Lugo’s
impeachment. Although Lugo had been elected as the new president of Frente Guazu, the
party was fractured, without allies, and too weak to win a new election. The big race was
set between the PLRA’s candidate, Efrain Alegre, and the ANR Colorado’s, Horacio Cartes.
Cartes, a tobacco and soft drink magnate labored under a cloud, struggling with internal
divisions in his party. A U.S. Embassy cable released by Wikileaks and published widely in
Paraguayan newspapers claimed that Cartes had been investigated by the DEA for money
laundering, smuggling, and ties to narco-traffickers. His strategy to deny the claims by
traveling frequently to the USA to sell his “Pulp” soft drink seemed to be paying off. His
travel was proof that the U.S. government had found him innocent of the charges. Although
Cartes’ primary rivals did not have his deep pockets they were prepared to give him a run
for his money. However, despite their popular majority, a divided and fractious Colorado
Party could not hope to win at the ballots. On the other hand, at their 125th birthday bash
on July 10th, the PLRA put on a great show of party unity and began searching for an ally to
put them over the top. For the first time in seventy-two years the PLRA hoped to regain the
presidential seat in a free and fair election.
The horrors of two devastating wars with neighbors have forged Paraguayans into a nation
of “martial poets and meek warriors,” to quote Roa Bastos again. In one of his last prose
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poems, “Yo Nací Aquí” (I was born here), Roa Bastos wrote that Paraguayans are, “a
gallantly mixed race and proudly sovereign. Here time has reaped heroes and ears of
wheat, because it has sown equally prodigious blood and fecund seed.” The task of
repopulating the devastated nation led to the evolution of sensual women and taciturn
men. Firm in their Christian faith, this is a people half in love with easeful death, whose
national anthem chorus resounds with the immortal cry, “Paraguayans, Republic or Death!”
This is a land where the Guarani still search for Yvy Maraney, and where the Catholic
Church fights the encroachment of corrosive modernity and sermonizes against the sins of
abortion and homosexuality. Paradise will be regained, according to Pentecostal preacher
Emilio Abreu, who heads a 12,000 member church and hosted a National Day of
Reconciliation on August 15 with the members of the new government. To hear the true
believers, Paraguay will once again be a light on a hill, calling the nations to peace. But will
the nations of the world listen or will they crucify the country?
The answer partly lies in the choices Paraguay makes. To quote from Ambassador Thessin’s
Independence Day speech,
“We are all imperfect. And at times these imperfections threaten to
overwhelm us. But it is especially then that we need to remember what our
great President Abraham Lincoln said at the darkest moment in my nation’s
history, that we can recover our sense of ourselves as a people and a nation
when we listen to the better angels of our nature.”
If Paraguayans will listen to “the better angels” of their nature, there may be a hope for the
country’s future to stabilize and prosper. The path to stability lies through a process of
reflection and dialogue between the people and their government. That process must heal
the wounds inflicted by a corrupt dictatorship and correct the habits of a weak democracy.
Paraguayans must define a new Paraguay with the will to make necessary reforms in
government that will grant the people a way to express and build the promised land, the
paradise regained. With the Curuguaty shock waves still expanding, land reform will need
to be at the center of that process. With the elections of April 21, 2013, Paraguay can return
to the community of nations and become the source of hope for its people as well as its
neighbors.
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