Paraguay ‘Coup’
has all the ‘Hallmarks of the CIA’ (El Telegrafo, Ecuador)
“Latin America is
now in danger. The powerful in the nation to the north have returned to their
old endeavor of dominating the peoples of South America. We know that they first
tried this in Cuba, but it went very badly for them. Then they had a go at
Venezuela, but they weren’t successful there either, although they did triumph
in Honduras."
Former Paraguay President Fernando Lugo: Was his ouster engineered by the CIA in league with Paraguay's long-standing plutocracy? Or was Lugo a political amateur whose inexperience led the ruling elite to move against him?
The powerful country to the north, with the help of the
traitors that are always on hand in Latin America, seems to have returned to
its old ways. And this time the victim is Paraguay. The events of Saturday,
June 23rd have all the hallmarks of the CIA and the pungent odor of a coup
d’état, planned and hatched in the Paraguayan parliament.
That is precisely where President Fernando Lugo had no
support and where far-right politicians had prepared a trap in plain view of
the whole world and acting like rabid hyenas and wolves lying in wait, 36
deputies [actually 39], acting under a previously prepared statement, impeached
a president that had been elected by almost 50 percent of the electorate, and
who had been in the process of developing an ambitious administration for the
benefit of the marginalized, particularly on health and education.
[Editors Note: The author’s characterization of the
statistics is somewhat misleading. According to Wikipedia and news accounts, President Fernando Lugo of the Patriotic Alliance for Change, won the 2008 presidential election with 45.04 percent of the vote, defeating his chief opponent, former education secretary and Colorado Party candidate Blanca Ovelar, who won 44.5 percent. ]
Without putting any evidence on the table - “because the
facts are a matter of public record and there is no need to present them,” they
said - without observing due process, leaving only a few hours for the
preparation of a defense and without identifying the crimes of the accused, the
representatives of the purest elements of the Paraguay oligarchy put an end to
a historic presidency that had made possible the greatest ever economic growth
of the Guaraní people [the indigenous inhabitants of Paraguay].
[Editor’s Note: According to The
New York Times, The Senate vote came after Paraguay’s lower house of
Congress voted Thursday to impeach Mr. Lugo over a clash this month between
squatters and police that left 17 dead. The clash led to the resignation of Mr.
Lugo’s interior minister and his chief of police. The Senate gave Mr. Lugo just
two hours to defend himself in a public trial; he declined to appear, sending
lawyers to request 18 days to prepare his defense. They were rebuffed by the
Senate president, Jorge Oviedo, leading to the vote of 39 to 4.]
The shameful trial took place in record time - under 24
hours. It seemed like a poor imitation of the well-known theater of the absurd The Trial by the Pole
Franz Kafka, in which the protagonist is detained and brought to trial, never
knowing what he was accused of, or who was accusing him, or why he was being
tried - even after his sentence.
[Editor’s Note: Franz Kafka was not Polish.
He was of German descent and in 1883 he was born in Prague, which was then part
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.]
From 1977 in his first days as a priest here in Ecuador in
Bolívar Province, specifically in Echandía, where he
was sent to do missionary work for five years, Fernando Lugo began to identify
with Liberation Theology. Later, in 1983, a year after his return to the
country, Paraguay’s police, an instrument of the ruling regime of the time,
expelled him from his country.
Posted
by Worldmeets.US
His career as a “rebel priest and friend to the poor” was the label affixed as the “great sin” of the prelate,
who shortly after returning to Paraguay before the fall of Stroessner
in 1987, won the sympathy of the vulnerable sectors of his nation. In this way,
having been invested as bishop in 1994 when he was sent to San Pedro, one of
the most economically depressed regions of Paraguay, he openly demonstrated his
support for the rural landless.
A man stands in front of graffiti that reads 'Franco - Coup - Dictatorship'
during a protest against newly-appointed President Federico Franco, in
Asuncion, June 24.
With a Bachelor in Religious Studies, a Masters’ in
Sociology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, from his moment he
began to identify with the poor of Paraguay, his interests went beyond the
priesthood, which he left in 2005 when Pope John Paul II accepted his
resignation.
Latin America is now in danger. The powerful in the nation
to the north have returned to their old endeavor of dominating the peoples of
South America. We know that they first tried this in Cuba, but it went very
badly for them. Then they had a go at Venezuela, but they weren’t successful
there either, although they did triumph in Honduras.
Then they tried to remove Rafael Correa in Ecuador. And
today, Evo Morales is suffering a serious revolt from
intransigent police. And in Argentina, Cristina Fernández
is committed to overcoming a general strike by truck drivers.
