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Towards the end of March, 1999, Paraguay's Vice-President Dr Luis María Argaña was assassinated.
By Michael McCaughan
PARAGUAY: Paraguay's parliamentary building remained under siege by thousands of indigenous people, workers and students yesterday, demanding the impeachment and trial of President Raul Cubas for his alleged role in Wednesday's assassination of the vice-president, Dr Luis María Argaña. There was no public transport and schools were closed throughout the country.
Dr Argaña belonged to a faction of the ruling Colorado Party. This party has run the country for the past 50 years, for many of them through the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, deposed by his own party in a bloodless coup 10 years ago. Dr Argaña was engaged in a bitter leadership struggle with President Cubas. The President in turn answers to frustrated presidential hopeful Gen Lino Oviedo, who passed on the nomination after the Supreme Court revoked his political rights last year because of his involvement in an attempted coup.
The impeachment of Mr Cubas appeared inevitable yesterday afternoon after a two-thirds parliamentary majority voted to initiate destitution proceedings.
Meanwhile, Gen Oviedo turned up at the presidential palace to "check his legal position" and was handed over to military authorities, most of whom are loyal to his presidential ambitions.
"Oviedo's self-detention is a bad joke," said Mr Martin Almada, a prominent human rights activist who discovered the "archives of terror" from the Stroessner regime. Paraguay's capital Asunción was bristling with rumours of an army coup yesterday after power blackouts occurred, telephone lines were cut and unusual troop movements continued. The country's borders, closed after the murder, are due to reopen today. (Friday). Suspicion for the murder fell immediately on Gen Oviedo who had previously issued veiled threats against Dr Argaña after allies of the vice-president had blocked his hopes of re-entering politics. An Argaña ally and former president, Mr Juan Wasmosy, narrowly escaped an attempt on his life on the day Dr Argaña was killed, suggesting a conspiracy. The incident spilled over the border into Argentina yesterday when Paraguayan senator Mr Juan Carlos Galaverna accused Argentinian President Carlos Menem of involvement in the crime, citing Menem business ties to Gen Oviedo and a billion-dollar binational hydro-electric project.
The crisis is a severe political test for Mercosur, the influential economic association comprising Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, which aims to become a Latin American equivalent of the EU, and claims that democracy and human rights are a cornerstone of its policies.