Timeline Paraguay
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1537 Aug 15, Juan
de Salazar, Spanish pioneer, founded Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, Z3 p.4)(PC, 1992, p.181)
1542 150 Spanish colonists settled
Asuncion, capital of Paraguay.
(TL-MB, p.16)
1811 Aug 14, Paraguay declared
independence from Spain.
(PC, 1992, p.373)
1859 The US was party to a
Friendship, Commerce and Navigation Treaty [with Paraguay]. The treaty
was cited in 1998 (along with the 1963 Vienna Convention) as
protecting the right of individuals jailed in a foreign land to contact
their national consulate.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.A3)
1862 Francisco Solano Lopez
(c1826-1870) became president of Paraguay following the death of his
father.
(http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/L/Lopez-Fr.html)
1865-1870 South America’s War of the Triple Alliance
saw Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay aligned against Paraguay. The Triple
Alliance believed Paraguay was undermining the region’s political
stability. The war ended in crushing defeat of Paraguay with 90% of its
adult male population killed.
(HNQ, 6/22/99)(WSJ, 4/10/00, p.A1)
1866 Mar 1, Paraguayan canoes sank
2 Brazilian ironclads on Rio Parana.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1870 Mar 1, Francisco S. Lopez
(43), President of Paraguay (1862-70), was killed in the War of the
Triple alliance.
(http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/L/Lopez-Fr.html)
1878 Nov 12, US Pres. Rutherford
B. Hayes was called upon to arbitrate a dispute between Paraguay and
Argentina over the Chaco grasslands, a land area about the size of
Colorado. He ruled in favor of Paraguay and became a national hero.
(WSJ, 4/10/00, p.A1,20)
1886 A handful of German families,
led by Elisabeth Nietzsche-Foerster (1935), founded the Aryan colony
Nueva Germania in the jungles of Paraguay. The idea had been originally
suggested by composer Richard Wagner in 1880. The colony fell apart in
1893 and Elisabeth Nietzsche-Foerster, described by her brother,
Friedrich Nietzsche (d.1900), as a “vengeful anti-Semitic goose,”
returned to Germany where she edited and promoted the work of her
brother.
(SSFC, 3/13/05, p.C6)
1912 Nov 3, Alfredo Stroessner
(d.2006), dictator of Paraguay (1954-89), was born.
(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A10)
1928 Dec 5, Paraguay initiated a
series of clashes, which led to full-scale war with Bolivia in spite of
inter-American arbitration efforts. Both belligerents moved more troops
into the Chaco Boreal, a wilderness region north of the Pilcomayo River
and west of the Paraguay River that forms part of the Gran Chaco. By
1932 war was definitely under way.
(www.onwar.com/aced/data/charlie/chaco1932.htm)
1932-1935 The Chaco War was fought between Paraguay
and Bolivia. The war was waged over disputed territory in the Chaco
Boreal, a plain shared by both South American countries. Although
outnumbered and poorly equipped, the Paraguayan army won every major
engagement with the Bolivians. Some 90,000 people were killed in the
war. A commission of neutral nations awarded most of the disputed
territory to Paraguay in 1938.
(HNQ, 7/18/98)(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A10)
1933 May 10, Paraguay declared war
on Bolivia.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1933 Dec 11, Reports said Paraguay
had captured 11,000 Bolivians in the war over Chaco.
(HN, 12/11/98)
1935 Jun 14, A commission of
neutral nations (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and the
United States) declared an armistice in the Chaco War between Bolivia
and Paraguay. A definite settlement was finally reached in 1938.
(http://countrystudies.us/bolivia/15.htm)
1945 Feb 14, Peru, Paraguay, Chile
and Ecuador joined the United Nations.
(AP, 2/14/98)
1947 The Colorado Party began its
rule over Paraguay.
(Econ, 1/10/04, p.31)
1947 In Paraguay a failed military
insurrection left some 8,000 people dead.
(AP, 8/2/04)
1948 Alfredo Stroessner was exiled
by Paraguay dictator Higinio Morinigo, who was soon toppled by other
military officers. Stroessner returned.
(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A10)
1951 May 30, Fernando Lugo,
elected president of Paraguay in 2008, was born in a village of the San
Pedro del parana district.
(SSFC, 5/24/09,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Lugo)
1951 Alfredo Stroessner was chosen
to head the army of Paraguay.
(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A10)
1954 May 5, There was a military
coup by General Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay. Thomas Romero Pereira
came to power in a military coup that lasted for three days. He is best
known for giving up power three months later to Alfredo Stroessner who
then became the dictator of Paraguay for 35 years.
(SFC, 5/11/98,
p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3%A1s_Romero_Pereira)
1954 Aug 15, Alfredo Stroessner
(b.1912) named himself president of Paraguay. This ended a 27-year
chaotic period in which 22 presidents came and went.
(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A10)
1957 Paraguay began receiving
economic support from Taiwan in exchange for supporting Taiwan at the
UN.
(AP, 9/1/08)
1959 May 30,
President-Generalissimo Alfredo Stroessner disbanded Paraguay's
parliament and established a dictatorship. Josef Mengele became a
citizen of Paraguay.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1962 Dec, In Paraguay army captain
Napoleon Ortigoza was imprisoned by Alfredo Stroessner's security
apparatus on charges of conspiring to topple the right-wing military
strongman. He spent the first 18 years of confinement chained in a
police holding cell and later escaped house arrest and made his way to
the Colombian embassy.
(AP, 1/20/06)
1964 Sep 16-1964 Oct 20, French
Pres. Charles de Gaulle visited South America with stops in Venezuela,
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay
and Brazil. He was the 1st head of state from outside Latin America to
visit Paraguay.
(http://gaullisme.free.fr/GEChronologie.htm)(Econ,
10/1/05, p.36)
1967 Aug 25, Paraguay
accepted its constitution.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1968 Mar 20, Pres. Lyndon Johnson
held talks with Paraguay’s Pres.-Gen. Alfredo Stroessner in Washington
DC.
(Econ, 2/14/04,
p.34)(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=28747)
1973 Paraguay’s Pres. Stroessner
led a $20 billion joint venture with Brazil to build Itaipu, at this
time the world’s largest hydroelectric dam.
(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A10)
1976 Gen’l. Juan Jose Torres,
ousted as president of Bolivia in 1971, was kidnapped by a death squad
in Argentina and killed. He was a victim of the Condor Plan, a South
American military pact between Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and
Paraguay to exchange intelligence information and help each other hunt
down suspected leftists.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A16)
1980 Sep 17, Former Nicaraguan
president Anastasio Somoza was assassinated in Paraguay. Enrique
Gorriaran Merlo, Argentine super-guerilla, claimed responsibility.
Merlo was captured in Mexico in 10/95 and extradited to Argentina where
he had multiple charges against him.
(AP, 9/17/97)(WSJ, 4/25/96, p.A-1)
1985 Auguste Ricord, French heroin
kingpin, died in Paraguay.
(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A10)
1987 Pres. Alfredo Stroessner
lifted the state of siege in Asuncion, Paraguay.
(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A10)
1988 Feb 14, Alfredo Stroessner
was re-elected president of Paraguay.
(www.mongabay.com/reference/country_studies/paraguay/GOVERNMENT.html)
1989 Feb 3, Gen’l. Andres
Rodriguez (d.1997 at 73) staged a coup to oust Gen’l. Alfredo
Stroessner. Stroessner, president of Paraguay for more than three
decades, was overthrown in the military coup. Some 300 people were
killed.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A3)(AP, 2/3/99)(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A10)
1989 May, In the first free
presidential elections in 35 years Andres Rodriguez was elected
president.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A15)
1991 Mar 26, The Treaty of
Asuncion established the southern common market: (Mercado Comun del
Sur) Mercosur, between Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
They were later joined by associate members Chile (1996), Bolivia
(1997), Peru (2001) and Venezuela (2004). Mexico was granted observer
status in 2004.
(www.itcilo.it/english/actrav/telearn/global/ilo/blokit/mercoa.htm)
1991 Dec 1, In Paraguay the
Colorado party won parliamentary elections.
(www.atlapedia.com/online/countries/paraguay.htm)
1992 Paraguayan secret police
archives first revealed the 1976 Condor Plan.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A16)
1993 May 9, Paraguay held its 1st
presidential and parliamentary elections in 50 years. A democracy was
established in Paraguay. Juan Carlos Wasmosy was elected president.
(WSJ, 4/24/96, A1)(MC, 5/9/02)
1996 Feb 4, Twenty-four people
were killed when a Colombian cargo plane in Paraguay caught fire
shortly after takeoff and crashed into a suburban neighborhood.
(AP, 2/4/01)
1996 Apr 22, In Paraguay General
Lino Oviedo was fired for insubordination by Pres. Juan Carlos Wasmosy.
Oviedo defied the orders of Wasmosy to abandon his command.
(SFC, 4/24/96, p.A10)(SFEC, 12/6/98, p.A28)
1996 Apr, Mark Jimenez, Philippine
computer businessman residing in Florida, warned the Clinton
administration of an impending military coup in Paraguay.
(WSJ, 2/20/97, p.A1)
1996 May 2, Some 20,00 workers
marched in Asuncion, Paraguay, demanding improved wages and working
conditions. Police broke up groups of strikers and detained 16 union
leaders.
(SFC, 5/3/96, A-18)
1996 Argentina, Brazil and the US
acted to forestall a coup in Paraguay.
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.35)
1996 A plot to bomb the US Embassy
in Asuncion was broken up. It was planned by Marwan al Safadi, a
Lebanese national, in revenge for the arrest of Omar Abdel Rahman.
(WSJ, 11/16/01, p.A10)
1997 Apr 21, Andres Rodriguez
(b.1923), Paraguayan president (1989-93), died.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9114869?tocId=9114869)
1997 Oct, Lino Oviedo, a retired
army gen’l., accused Pres. Wasmosy of corruption. Wasmosy ordered his
arrest, but Oviedo went into hiding for 44 days. He turned himself in
on Dec 12, and was expected to serve a 30-day sentence.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A14)
1998 Mar 9, A military tribunal
sentenced Lino Oviedo to 10 years in jail for leading an attempted coup
in 1996 and for insulting Pres. Wasmosy in 1997.
(SFC, 3/10/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 27, Argentina, Brazil and
Paraguay signed a pact to heighten security on their triple frontier.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 27, The Supreme Court
ratified Lino Oviedo as the ruling Colorado Party’s candidate, despite
his jail sentence.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998 May 10, In Paraguay the
ruling Colorado Party with Raul Cubas, initially the running mate of
Lino Oviedo, won the presidential elections with 52% of the vote.
(SFC, 5/11/98, p.A10)(SFC, 5/12/98, p.A12)
1998 Aug 15, In Paraguay Raul
Cubas Grau took the presidential oath and promised to rejuvenate the
economy.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A24)
1998 Aug 18, Pres. Grau freed
Linio Oviedo, the leader of a 1996 coup attempt, and soon faced a move
by Congress for impeachment.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 23, Transparency Int’l,
an int’l. good-government advocacy group, said that Cameroon is viewed
as the most corrupt of the 85 countries rated. Nigeria, Tanzania,
Honduras and Paraguay filled out the bottom five. Denmark, Finland and
Sweden were seen as having the cleanest political systems.
(WSJ, 9/23/98, p.B17)(WSJ, 1/27/00, p.A1)
1998 Dec 4, Pres. Cubas decided to
ignore the Supreme Court ruling to send Lino Oviedo back to jail.
(SFEC, 12/6/98, p.A28)
1998 Dec 5, The ruling Colorado
Pary expelled former army chief Lino Oviedo and accused Pres. Raul
Cubas of defying the constitution for failing obey a Supreme Court
ruling to send Oviedo back to prison.
(SFEC, 12/6/98, p.A28)
1999 Feb 11, In Paraguay the
Congress voted to begin impeachment proceedings against Pres. Raul
Cubas for freeing Lino Oviedo.
(SFC, 2/12/99, p.A18)
1999 Mar 23, Vice President Luis
Maria Argana was shot to death in Asuncion. Paraguay later tried
without success to extradite Lino Oviedo from Argentina for involvement
in the assassination. In 2000 Fidencio Vega Barrios and Luis Alberto
Rojas were ordered to be extradited from Argentina for their role in
the killing.
(WSJ, 3/24/99, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/99, p.A13)(WSJ,
4/6/00, p.B1)
1999 Mar 24, Legislators began
impeachment proceedings against Pres. Raul Cubas, a bitter rival of
slain vice president Argana. Meanwhile the 3rd day of a labor strike
continued.
(SFC, 3/25/99, p.A4)(SFC, 3/26/99, p.A12)
1999 Mar 27, At least 5 people
were killed and some 100 injured in Asuncion as protestors called for
the resignation of Pres. Cubas.
(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.A21)
1999 Mar 28, Pres. Raul Cubas
resigned and ended a week of political turmoil. Senator Luis Gonzalez
Macchi was sworn in as president. Gen'l. Lino Oviedo was granted asylum
in Argentina.
(SFC, 3/29/99, p.A9)(SFC, 3/30/99, p.F2)
1999 Mar 29, Paraguay's ousted
president, Raul Cubas, was given asylum by Brazil. Cubas returned to
face charges in 2002.
(WSJ, 3/30/99, p.A1)(SFC, 2/23/02, p.A12)
1999 Jul 27, It was reported that
Paraguay had raised $400 million through 2 bond issues arranged by the
government of Taiwan with 20-year maturities and an interest rate of
about 6.8%.
(WSJ, 7/28/99, p.A20)
1999 In Paraguay the EPP rebel
group began to operate as the armed wing of the leftist Patria Libre
party. It focused at first on bank robberies and ransom kidnappings,
and later attacked small police and military posts, making off with
weapons. It resurfaced in 2008 and 2009, kidnapping two ranchers and
receiving a total of $645,000 in ransom.
(AP, 1/17/11)
2000 Apr 16, The winners of the
Goldman Environmental Prize included: Oscar Rivas (45) and Elias Diaz
(54) of Paraguay for their work in defeating government plans to
reconfigure the Paraguay and Parana rivers for shipping at
environmental expense.
(SFC, 4/17/00, p.A2)
2000 May 19, Pres. Luis Gonzalez
Macchi announced that an attempted coup by soldiers and police was
stopped.
(SFC, 5/20/00, p.A8)
2000 Jun 11, Gen. Lino Oviedo of
Paraguay was arrested in Foz do Iguacu.
(SFC, 6/13/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 18, In Argentina 2 men,
suspected in the assassination of Paraguayan Vice Pres. Luis Maria
Argana, escaped from jail.
(SFC, 9/19/00, p.A10)
2000 Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s
Unification Church of South Korea purchased a 1.48 million-acre
property in Paraguay.
(WSJ, 7/18/05, p.A10)
2001 Sep 24, It was reported that
at least 16 Syrian, Jordanian and Lebanese citizens were arrested in
Paraguay in the wake of the Sep 11 terrorist attacks in the US.
(SFC, 9/24/01, p.B1)
2001 Nov 1, It was reported that
the tri-border area of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil had a
long-standing presence of Islamic extremist organizations.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.A3)
2001 Nov 28, It was reported that
Hezbollah’s TV channel, al-Manar, was one of 4 Arabic language cable
stations available in Paraguay.
(WSJ, 11/28/01, p.A10)
2001 The leftist Paraguayan
People’s Army (EPP) was founded.
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.42)
2001 In Paraguay Benigna
Leguizamon (17) was allegedly raped by Fernando Lugo, head of diocese
of San Pedro. In 2009 she said Pres. Lugo was the father of her
6-year-old child and told Magnificat radio in Ciudad del Este that she
was a 17-year-old cleaning woman for the diocese of San Pedro at the
time of the initial rape.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2002 Feb 22, Raul Cubas, former
president, returned to Paraguay to face charges in the 1999
assassination of vice-president Luis Maria Argana.
(SFC, 2/23/02, p.A12)
2002 Jul 15, Nationwide
demonstrations in Paraguay called for the ouster of Pres. Luis Gonzalez
Macchi, who imposed a state of emergency.
(SFC, 7/16/02, p.A4)(SFC, 7/17/02, p.A9)
2002 Jul 17, In Paraguay Pres.
Macchi announced the lifting of a state of emergency following 2 days
of protests over his economic policies.
(SFC, 7/18/02, p.A15)
2002 Sep 17, In Paraguay police
fired tear gas and water cannons to clear thousands of anti-government
demonstrators from the capital's main square, injuring at least 40
protesters.
(AP, 9/17/02)
2002 Oct 16, Paraguay's vice
president Julio Cesar Franco resigned after months of political
feuding, to meet a deadline to run for the presidency.
(AP, 10/16/02)
2003 Feb 11, In Paraguay Pres.
Luis Gonzalez Macchi survived an impeachment trial as the Senate failed
to muster enough votes to strip him from power over corruption charges.
(AP, 2/12/03)
2003 Apr 27, In Paraguay elections
were held for a successor to Pres. Luis Gonzalez Macchi, a former
Senate leader appointed president in March 1999 after the resignation
of Raul Cubas amid a political crisis stemming from the assassination
of the country's vice president. Colorado Party leader Nicanor Duarte
(49) extended his party's 55-year grip on power, winning a presidential
election by handily defeating two challengers seeking to tap building
anger over the country's deepening economic crisis.
(AP, 4/26/03)(AP, 4/28/03)(SFC, 4/28/03, A12)
2003 Aug 15, Nicanor Duarte was
inaugurated as Paraguay's 47th president. Presidents from Colombia and
other countries in the region gave Duarte his first official business
as they signed the "Declaration of Asuncion" pledging a political
alliance in the war on drugs.
(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Oct 13, Paraguay's president
named a new interior minister, in a change spurred by a contraband
scandal.
(AP, 10/13/03)
2004 Aug 1, In Paraguay a
fast-spreading fire killed 420 people. Survivors of the inferno in a
crowded supermarket on the outskirts of Asuncion said that locked doors
slowed their escape. In 2008 a father and son who owned the supermarket
were sentenced to prison for manslaughter and endangerment. In 2009
Supreme Court voted 2-1 in favor of a sentence of 12 years for Juan Pio
Paiva and 10 years for his son Daniel Paiva. In 2009 a court upheld a
two-year prison sentence for architect Bernardo Ismachowiez, designer
of the supermarket.
(AP, 8/2/04)(AP, 8/6/04)(AP, 2/3/08)(AP, 8/6/09)(AP,
8/29/09)
2004 Sep 21, In Paraguay Cecilia
Cubas (31), the daughter of former Pres. Raul Cubas, was kidnapped. Her
body was found stuffed down a well at a house on the outskirts of
Asuncion, in February 2005.
(Econ, 10/23/04, p.36)(AP, 4/5/08)
2004 Oct 14, Thousands of
Paraguayans took to the streets to protest increasing crime, spurred on
the two high-profile kidnappings.
(AP, 10/15/04)
2004 Nov 24, Paraguayan police
captured Ivan Mezquita, a leading Brazilian drug trafficking suspect,
after a gunbattle with occupants of a cocaine-laden plane near the
border with Brazil.
(AP, 11/25/04)
2004 Nov 30, Clashes between
landless farmworkers and Paraguayan security forces left a police
officer dead and 20 other people injured in a resurgence of violence.
(AP, 12/1/04)
2004 The Paraguayan Finance
Ministry doled out $2 million to compensate some 400 people persecuted
by the Stroessner government (1954-1989).
(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A10)
2005 Feb 16, In Paraguay the body
of Cecilia Cubas, the kidnapped daughter of former President Raul
Cubas, was dug up from behind a house months after she was abducted by
heavily armed gunmen.
(AP, 2/17/05)(Econ, 3/12/05, p.40)
2005 Feb 23, Paraguay President
Nicanor Duarte sacked his interior minister and 31 police officers,
shaking up his security forces a week after the kidnapped daughter of a
former Paraguayan leader was found dead.
(AP, 2/23/05)
2005 Apr 26, Augusto Roa Bastos
(88), one of South America's most celebrated novelists whose fictional
writings often examined Paraguay's social and political struggles,
died. Bastos was best known for his book "I, The Supreme," a novelized
version of the career of Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, who ruled
Paraguay with an iron fist from 1814 until 1840.
(AP, 4/26/05)
2005 Jul 17, In Paraguay some 360
villagers marched on Asuncion to lobby for the expropriation of 128,500
acres of land containing their town of Puerto Casado, owned by Rev. Sun
Myung Moon’s Unification Church. The South Korean based church had
purchased a 1.48 million-acre property in 2000.
(WSJ, 7/18/05, p.A10)
2005 Aug 17, In Paraguay US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met with President Nicanor Duarte
Frutos and was meeting with Minister of Defense Roberto Gonzalez
Segovia, in part, to gauge their views on the escalating involvement of
Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug, Paraguay’s Pres. Nicanor
Duarte Frutos backed a bill to seize some land and buildings held by
Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.32)
2005 Sep 30, South American
presidents committed themselves to establishing a continental free
trade zone. The South American summit was attended by the presidents of
Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil and
Argentina.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Paraguay’s population was
about 6 million.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.36)
2006 Jan 17, Napoleon Ortigoza
(73), a former army captain who spent a third of his life in Paraguay
jail as a political prisoner, died in a hospital. Ortigoza was
imprisoned in 1962 by Alfredo Stroessner's security apparatus on
charges of conspiring to topple the right-wing military strongman.
(AP, 1/19/06)
2006 Mar 22, In Brazil the US
Embassy said agents from the US Department of Homeland Security will
soon be helping Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay combat money laundering
and terrorism financing.
(AP, 3/23/06)
2006 Aug 16, Alfredo Stroessner
(93), anti-communist dictator of Paraguay (1954-1989), died in exile in
Brazil. He used the right-wing Colorado Party to rule with a blend of
force, guile and patronage for 35 years before his ouster in 1989.
During his rule membership in the Colorado Party was compulsory for all
teachers, doctors, engineers, officers or those who hoped for
government service. Party dues was docked from salaries.
(AP, 8/16/06)(Econ, 8/26/06, p.71)
2006 Oct 2, Foreign Minster Ruben
Ramirez said that Paraguay and Washington would not renew a
defense-cooperation agreement for 2007 over the South American
country's refusal to grant US troops inside Paraguay immunity from
prosecution by the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Nov 20, A Paraguayan court
dropped corruption charges against former President Luis Gonzalez
Macchi, acknowledging it had failed to meet a deadline for hearing full
testimony on accusations he maintained a secret Swiss bank account.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2006 Nov 26, Paraguay's Pres.
Nicanor Duarte unexpectedly fired the armed forces chief and 58
military and police officers, calling it a routine reshuffling of the
military high command and dismissing suggestions it was politically
motivated.
(AP, 11/26/06)
2006 Dec 1, In Paraguay a court
convicted and sentenced 15 members of a radical leftist group to prison
for the 2004 kidnapping and murder of Cecilia Cubas (31), a former
president's daughter.
(AP, 12/1/06)
2006 Dec 26, The Vatican called on
retired Bishop Fernando Lugo to give up his plans to run for Paraguay's
presidency or face canonical sanctions. Lugo said he had already
resigned from the priesthood to lead a planned opposition alliance and
challenge conservative President Nicanor Duarte of the Colorado Party
in elections scheduled for May 2008.
(AP, 12/26/06)
2007 Mar 1, Paraguay declared a
state of emergency following a wave of dengue fever cases as concerns
over the mosquito-borne illness rise across Latin America. Health
officials have reported some 14,000 cases of the disease this year,
with four deaths.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 13, Brazil announced that
it will build a wall on a small portion of its border with Paraguay in
an effort to combat contraband and smuggling.
(AP, 3/13/07)
2007 Apr 20, In Paraguay Japanese
businessman Hirokazu Ota, the leader of Sun Myung Moon's Unification
Church in Paraguay, was freed following a 19-day abduction and a
140,000-dollar ransom payment.
(AP, 4/20/07)
2007 May 21, Paraguayan President
Nicanor Duarte and Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met in Paraguay's
capital, Asuncion, and vowed to boost legitimate trade and to
strengthen cross-border cooperation in fighting smuggling in the Triple
Border.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 Jun 29, Mercosur, South
America’s biggest trade block (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay),
held a presidential summit in Asuncion, Paraguay.
(Econ, 7/7/07, p.40)
2007 Sep 6, In Paraguay former
Gen. Lino Cesar Oviedo (67) was released from prison after serving 5
years of a 10-year sentence. He quickly declared his ambition to govern
the country.
(SFC, 9/7/07, p.A3)
2007 Sep 14, Officials in Paraguay
said fires have scorched 3 million acres and forced the evacuation of
some 15,000 people. Protracted drought was cited along with illegal
loggers, illicit hunters and clandestine marijuana farmers.
(SFC, 9/15/07, p.A3)
2007 Oct 30, Paraguay's Supreme
Court annulled the mutiny conviction of former army Gen. Lino Cesar
Oviedo, clearing the way for him to compete in April's presidential
election.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 In Paraguay former Pres.
Gonzalez Macchi (1999-2003) was acquitted of illegally transferring $16
million from Paraguay's Central Bank to a US account.
(AP, 12/12/09)
2008 Jan 21, Paraguay's ruling
party nominated Education Minister Blanca Ovelar as its presidential
candidate, a first for the South American nation, but her candidacy of
still faces a court challenge.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Feb 14, Brazil flew 50,000
doses of yellow fever vaccine to Paraguay following an outbreak there,
the first in 34 years.
(SFC, 2/15/08, p.A4)
2008 Feb 28, Neil Bush, younger
brother of US President George W. Bush, called on Paraguay's Pres.
Nicanor Duarte as the guest of a business federation founded by the
Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
(AP, 3/1/08)
2008 Apr 4, Interpol issued a "red
notice" for the capture of Colombian rebel leader Rodrigo Granda,
wanted in connection with the 2004 high-profile kidnapping and killing
of Cecilia Cubas (31), the daughter of former Paraguay Pres. Raul Cubas.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 17, Former Roman Catholic
Bishop Fernando Lugo asked thousands of supporters at his final
campaign rally to help him end 61 years of one-party rule in Paraguay
and to build a new nation for the poor and indigenous.
(AP, 4/17/08)
2008 Apr 20,
Paraguay held elections. The Colorado Party, in office since
1947, had the longest current run of uninterrupted governance in Latin
America. Fernando Lugo (56), a former Roman Catholic bishop, won over
Blanca Ovelar, a protege of President Nicanor Duarte. She had sought to
become Paraguay's first woman president. 43 percent of the country's
6.5 million people lived in poverty.
(AP, 4/20/08)(AP, 4/21/08)
2008 Jun 20, Paraguayan prisoners
rioted to press a list of demands including more sex. Inmates seized
the Esperanza prison's director and other administrators, demanding
nighttime conjugal visits and an end to mistreatment by guards.
(AP, 6/20/08)
2008 Jul 30, The papal nuncio said
Paraguay's president-elect Fernando Lugo (57) has received
unprecedented permission from the pope to resign as bishop, ending a
dispute over his priestly status.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Aug 15, Leftist ex-bishop
Fernando Lugo was inaugurated as Paraguay's president, ending six
decades of one-party rule in a key step in the poor South American
nation's democratic transformation.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 31, Paraguay’s Pres.
Fernando Lugo said Paraguay will reverse its historic support for
Taiwan (since 1957) at the upcoming UN General Assembly, and also is
reconsidering its relations with communist regimes. In return for
Paraguay's 51 years of support, Taiwan has sent millions of dollars to
the impoverished country for low-income housing, agricultural
development and scholarships.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Oct 24, In Paraguay a small
plane crashed shortly after takeoff in Asuncion, killing all five
people on board. The plane belonged to the private hospital Asismed and
was used to transport patients. Hospital President Miguel Figueredo
said the pilot had said he would be conducting a test flight, and did
not tell officials he would have passengers.
(AP, 10/24/08)
2009 Mar 6, In Paraguay about 100
women disrobed in a square in downtown Asuncion to protest nuclear
weapons.
(AP, 3/6/09)
2009 Apr 8, In Paraguay lawyers
filed a paternity suit against President Fernando Lugo, alleging that a
son was born to the former Roman Catholic bishop five months after he
abandoned the church for politics.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 13, Paraguay’s Pres.
Fernando Lugo admitted that he is the father of a child conceived while
he was still a Catholic bishop in San Pedro.
(SFC, 4/14/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 20, Paraguay's Pres.
Fernando Lugo (57) was hit with another paternity claim, just a week
after the former Roman Catholic bishop acknowledged fathering a
different illegitimate child while still subject to his vows of
chastity. Benigna Leguizamon, an impoverished soap-seller, said Lugo's
previous admission inspired her to go public about her 6-year-old.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 24, Paraguay’s President
Fernando Lugo asked for forgiveness for a paternity scandal in which
three women claim the former Roman Catholic bishop fathered their
children. He vowed not to let the current scandal distract his
government from pressing reforms, and said he would step down only when
his term ends in 2013.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr, Paraguay’s Pres. Lugo
signed a $30 million agreement with the US ambassador to bolster the
country’s judiciary, public administration and national police force to
help reduce endemic corruption and patronage.
(SSFC, 5/24/09, p.A9)
2009 May 1, In Paraguay Sabino
Montanaro (86), who served as interior minister under ex-dictator
Alfredo Stroessner, arrived in Asuncion after nearly two decades of
self-imposed exile in Honduras. He faced six pending trials for the
disappearance and killings of government opponents in the 1970s and
1980s.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 20, Paraguay President
Fernando Lugo dismissed the heads of his army, navy and engineering
corps for allowing nearly 1,000 Marxist youth to host a congress on
military grounds.
(AP, 5/2009)
2009 Jul 25, Brazil agreed to
triple its compensation to Paraguay to operate the huge Itaipu
hydroelectric dam on their shared border, ending a decades-long dispute
between the neighbors. President Fernando Lugo persuaded Brazilian
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to sign a deal tripling Brazil's
payments from $120 million to $360 million a year. On Apr 6, 2011,
Brazil's lower house of Congress finally approved the deal.
(AFP, 7/25/09)(AP, 4/21/11)
2009 Aug 6, In Paraguay Social
Development Minister Pablino Caceres said he would meet with a 6
protesters who have hammered long nails through their hands and tied
themselves to crosses or laid in coffins in an appeal for land.
(AP, 8/6/09)
2009 Sep 29, Paraguay's interior
minister Rafael Filizzola said 3 police chiefs imprisoned for torture
have finally have been fired after collecting their salaries from
behind bars since 1995. Filizzola called it unfortunate that convicts
Camilo Almada Morel, Lucilo Benitez and Juan Martinez were able to
collect pay for so long.
(AP, 9/29/09)(SFC, 9/30/09, p.A2)
2009 Oct 14, In Paraguay human
rights activists gained access to a dictatorship-era military archive
that appears to contain long-held secrets about Paraguay's persecution
of opponents during Alfredo Stroessner's 1954-1989 rule.
(AP, 10/14/09)
2009 Oct 15, In Paraguay Fidel
Zavala, a wealthy rancher, was kidnapped by the guerrilla group, known
as the EPP for its initials in Spanish. It soon demanded $5 million for
his release, purportedly to finance what the band calls a revolutionary
movement for the poor. Zavala was released following a ransom payment
after 94 days.
(AP, 1/12/10)(Econ, 5/15/10, p.42)
2009 Oct 20, Representatives of
Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay announced a joint plan in Buenos Aires
to establish protected zones to halt deforestation in their countries
by 2020.
(SFC, 10/21/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 4, Paraguay President
Fernando Lugo fired his military chiefs, a day after denying he had
worries about a coup amid calls for his impeachment. Hortensia Damiana
Moran (40), a religious activist who worked on President Fernando
Lugo's election campaign, filed a petition asking a judge to order a
DNA test to prove Pres. Lugo is the father of her son Juan Pablo. She
became the third woman to file a paternity claim against Paraguay's
Roman Catholic bishop-turned- president.
(AP, 11/4/09)(AP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 15, In Paraguay 1,200
people escaped a fire that destroyed a supermarket on the outskirts of
Asuncion, killing two people.
(AP, 11/15/09)
2009 Dec 10, In Paraguay an
appeals court overturned the corruption conviction and prison sentence
for former president Luis Gonzalez Macchi, drawing criticism from the
current government. Macchi had been sentenced to eight years in prison
for stashing $370,000 in a secret Swiss bank account during his term.
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 16, In Paraguay President
Fernando Lugo’s lawyer said Lugo has agreed to take a DNA test
following a judicial request presented by Hortensia Damiana Moran (40),
the third woman to claim he fathered her child.
(AP, 12/16/09)
2010 Apr 21, In Paraguay an attack
by suspected leftist guerrillas killed a police officer and three
laborers at a farm. Deputy Interior Minister Carmelo Caballero blamed
the attack on the Paraguayan People's Army, a leftist group that has
been linked to bank robberies and kidnappings in the past decade. He
said guerrillas apparently were trying to steal animals.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 24, Paraguay lawmakers
gave Pres. Fernando Lugo and the army emergency powers resembling
martial law to pursue a guerrilla group known for its kidnappings in
the north of the country.
(AP, 4/24/10)
2010 May 3, Paraguay’s Pres.
Fernando Lugo and Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula Da Silva met
under a heavy police presence in a rough outpost called Pedro Juan
Caballero on the Paraguayan side and Ponta Pora in Brazil in a joint
effort to fight to drug-trafficking. Lugo's ministers were frustrated
by the Paraguayan Senate's vote last week to delay until 2013 a
personal income tax that would generate nearly $37 million a year that
Lugo desperately needs to fund troops and provisions of martial law he
has declared across five states in pursuit of the guerrillas.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 Jun 15, Interpol said it has
arrested Moussa Hamdan (38), a Lebanese national suspected of funneling
money to the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, in Paraguay in the
tri-border area with Argentina and Brazil.
(AFP, 6/16/10)
2010 Jun 17, In Paraguay two
police officers were killed in a confrontation with a guerrilla group
in the north of the country. The clash involved five or six members of
the Paraguayan People's Army. At least one guerrilla was wounded after
the confrontation with a team of about 50 special agents.
(AP, 6/17/10)
2010 Aug 9, In Paraguay a
presidential doctor said that Fernando Lugo's lymphatic cancer is more
advanced than initially thought, but the chemotherapy he will undergo
should not affect his ability to do his job.
(Reuters, 8/10/10)
2010 May 6, In Paraguay Jesus
Ortiz, alleged EPP logistics coordinator, was captured.
(Econ, 5/15/10, p.42)
2010 Oct 6, Paraguayan President
Fernando Lugo returned home and resumed his office after undergoing
treatment in Brazil for a blood clot that doctors say resulted from
chemotherapy for cancer.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2011 Jan 16, In Paraguay a bomb
injured five people just before midnight in the third bombing in a
week. It raised alarm about increasing activity by the self-styled
Paraguayan People's Army. The leftist guerrilla group EPP soon claimed
responsibility.
(AP, 1/17/11)
2011 Jan 18, Paraguay granted
political refugee status to Mario Cossio, a key opponent of Bolivia's
leftist President Evo Morales, sheltering him from corruption charges
across the border. Cossio fled Bolivia last month after provincial
lawmakers allied with Morales ousted him as governor of the natural
gas-rich state of Tarija due to charges of dereliction of duty and
causing economic damage.
(AP, 1/18/11)
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Subject = Paraguay
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