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, Carlos Antonio Lopez.
(http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/L/Lopez-Fr.html)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.46)
1864 Brazil under Emperor Pedro II invaded Uruguay. In response Paraguay’s Pres. Francisco Solano Lopez attacked Brazil’s province of Matto Grosso.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.46)
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 as much as 90% of its adult male population killed.
(WSJ, 4/10/00, p.A1)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.45)
1866 Mar 1, Paraguayan canoes sank 2 Brazilian ironclads on Rio Parana.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1869 Aug 12, In Piribebuy, Paraguay, 1,600 poorly armed men, many of them mere children, spent 5 hours resisting the assault of 20,000 allied Brazilian, Argentine and Uruguayan forces intent on conquest, before finally being overwhelmed. At the end of the battle, in which the Hospital de Sangre was burnt down, along with all the wounded inside, many prisoners were decapitated.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.48)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piribebuy)
1869 Paraguay’s army surrendered to the Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Pres. Lopez refused to surrender.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.46)
1870 Mar 1, Francisco S. Lopez (43), President of Paraguay (1862-70), was killed in the War of the Triple alliance. The Brazilian army had cornered him at Cerro Cora. A rough post-war census counted just 29,000 males over the age of 15 left in Paraguay.
(http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/L/Lopez-Fr.html)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.46)
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)
1958 Authorities in Paraguay under Alfredo Stroessner arrested 108 people "of dubious moral conduct" who were subjected to public derision.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
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)
1974 Augusto Roa Bastos (1917-2005), Paraguay writer, authored “Yo, el Supremo" (I, the Supreme).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Roa_Bastos)(Econ, 8/2/14, p.27)
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)
1979 Apr 6, The US Alien Torts Claims Act (ATCA) of 1789, meant to combat piracy, sprang back to life when it was used to allow two Paraguayans to sue a former Paraguayan policeman in an American court for acts of torture committed in Paraguay.
(Econ, 10/6/12, p.34)(Econ, 4/20/13, p.34)
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. Col. Lino Oviedo (1943-2013) led the army unit that captured Stroessner.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A3)(AP, 2/3/99)(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A10)(Econ, 2/9/13, p.38)
1989 May, In the first free presidential elections in 35 years Andres Rodriguez was elected president.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A15)
1989 In Paraguay Horacio Cartes spent time in jail on suspicion of currency fraud. In 2013 Cartes was elected president.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.35)
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 20,000 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 In Paraguay a plane loaded with drugs was found on property owned by Horacio Cartes.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.35)
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)
2004 Brazil’s Congress accused Horacio Cartes of Paraguay of cigarette smuggling.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.35)
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 May 23, In Brazil 12 South American leaders gathered in Brasilia to set up the Union of South American Nations. UNASUR was expected to replace the South American Community, declared in 2004, and unite the Mercosur and Andean Community free trade areas. Members included Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNASUR_Constitutive_Treaty)(Econ, 5/31/08, p.41)
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 o utskirts 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)
2010 A leaked American embassy cable accused Horacio Cartes of Paraguay of laundering drug money.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.35)
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)
2011 May 8, It was reported that Paraguay’s national bank planned to drop 3 zeroes from its currency, the guarani, this year and rename it the new guarani. Exchange of old notes would continue to 2014.
(SSFC, 5/8/11, p.C3)
2011 Jul 15, A former military doctor was extradited from Paraguay to Argentina to face charges that include stealing babies from political prisoners during Argentina's dictatorship. Dr. Norberto Atilo Bianco allegedly helped run a clandestine maternity ward inside the epidemiology section of the Argentine army's Campo de Mayo military hospital in 1977 and 1978.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Sep 10, In Paraguay Sabino Montanaro (89), a former interior minister known as the "cruel right hand" of the late dictator Alfredo Stroessner, died at his home in Asuncion.
(AP, 9/11/11)
2011 Oct 9, Paraguay held a constitutional referendum on whether citizens living in Argentina, Spain, the U.S. and elsewhere outside the country can vote. The measure was supported by nearly 78% of the ballots counted.
(AP, 10/9/11)
2011 Oct 19, Brazil’s most wanted druglord, Alexander Mendes da Silva, was arrested in the Paraguayan city of Pedro Juan Caballero.
(AP, 10/19/11)
2011 Nov 28, In Paraguay Marciano Villagra (93), former leader of Paraguay Communist Party guerrillas in various actions, died. He led the brief takeover of the town of Piribebuy in 1947 and went into hiding after Gen. Alfredo Stroessner took power in 1954.
(AP, 11/30/11)
2011 Dec 7, The US government said it is giving Paraguay more than $1 million in equipment and training to help it combat a small guerrilla band in the north of the country.
(AP, 12/7/11)
2012 Jun 5, Paraguay’s Pres. Fernando Lugo (61) recognized a 2nd love-child, a 10-year-old boy born to Narcisa de la Cruz de Zarate, a nurse in a northern state.
(SFC, 6/6/12, p.A2)
2012 Jun 15, Paraguay deployed its army to resolve a violent land dispute in a remote northern forest reserve after 17 people were killed in gunbattles between police and landless farmers. The violence broke out as police tried to evict about 150 farmers from the reserve, which is part of a huge estate owned by Blas Riquelme, a Colorado Party politician opposed to Pres. Lugo.
(AP, 6/15/12)
2012 Jun 21, Paraguay’s lower house voted 76-1 to impeach President Fernando Lugo for his role in a deadly clash involving landless farmers. Hours later the Senate announced that it will begin his trial on June 22.
(AP, 6/22/12)
2012 Jun 22, In Paraguay 39 senators voted to dismiss Pres. Fernando Lugo after a five-hour trial, while four senators voted against and two were absent. Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop elected on a pledge to help the poor, said he would step aside following the Senate vote, even though he called it a blow to democracy. Federico Franco (49) of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party was sworn in to serve out the remainder of Lugo’s term.
(AP, 6/23/12)
2012 Jun 23, Paraguay's newly sworn-in president, Federico Franco, set about forming a new government as he promised to honor foreign commitments, respect private property and reach out to Latin American leaders to minimize diplomatic fallout and keep his country from becoming a regional pariah.
(AP, 6/23/12)
2012 Jun 29, In Argentina the Mercosur trade bloc held a summit. It suspended Paraguay's membership for having impeached and ousted its president but said it will not slap economic sanctions on it. The group also announced that Venezuela will become a full member starting July 31.
(AP, 6/29/12)
2012 Jul 24, In China Rosalia Amarilla (31), a clothes vendor from Paraguay, stepped into the international terminal of Beijing's cavernous main airport, wearing more than 7 pounds (3 kg) of cocaine stuffed into her underwear and bra. She was caught and later sentenced to death on drug trafficking charges.
(AP, 1/24/15)
2012 Jul, In Paraguay Pres. Federico Franco won passage of a bill to institute the country’s first ever income tax.
(http://bigstory.ap.org/article/paraguays-new-president-proving-effective) (Economist, 10/6/12, p.42)
2012 Sep 19, In Paraguay a powerful storm killed 5 people and left thousands without shelter.
(SFC, 9/20/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 1, In Paraguay gunmen murdered Vidaql Vega (48), one of the surviving leaders of a peasant movement whose land dispute with a powerful politician prompted the end of Fernando Lugo's presidency last June. He had lobbied the government for many years to redistribute some of the ranchland that Colorado Party Sen. Blas Riquelme began occupying in the 1960s.
(AP, 12/2/12)
2012 Dec 19, A new Gallup poll said seven of the world’s 10 countries with the most upbeat attitudes are in Latin America with Panama and Paraguay at the top. The people least likely to report positive emotions lived in Singapore.
(SFC, 12/20/12, p.A2)
2012 In Paraguay 80% of the population continued to speak the Guarani, an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí–Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.48)
2013 Jan 3, It was reported that Paraguayan police have rescued 211 blue-fronted Amazon parrots, which were taken from remote forests. More than 400,000 of the birds have been caught and sold.
(SFC, 1/3/13, p.A2)
2013 Feb 2, Paraguayan presidential candidate Lino Cesar Oviedo (69) was killed in a helicopter crash, ending a dramatic political career that included coups and repeated attempts to lead his impoverished country. His bodyguard and pilot also died in the crash.
(AP, 2/3/13)
2013 Apr 21, Paraguay held presidential elections to replace Federico Franco, who served out Fernando Lugo's term and is not eligible to seek a new one. Tobacco magnate Horacio Cartes of the Colorado Party was elected with 46% of the vote, returning the conservative Colorado Party to the presidency. Sen. Efrain Alegre of Franco's Liberal Party won 37%.
(AP, 4/21/13)
2013 Aug 15, Paraguay’s Pres. Horacio Cartes (57) made his inaugural speech saying "I promise to set an example with this government" by strengthening international ties and committing to human rights and fighting poverty.
(AP, 8/15/13)
2013 Aug 28, In Paraguay Maria Concepcion Candia joined five men in a crucifixion protest out of solidarity. Her husband, bus driver Juan Villalba, led a demonstration to protest a series of layoffs of union organizers at the Vanguardia bus company. He said eight drivers were fired after they asked for overtime pay, medical insurance and state pension contributions.
(SFC, 8/29/13, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/qakvfq8)
2013 Aug 30, Paraguay was welcomed back into a group of South American nations known as UNASUR meeting in Suriname.
(AP, 8/30/13)
2013 Oct 11, In Brazil an official report disclosed that the powerful PCC prison gang runs a nationwide criminal business worth $60 million a year with operations extending into neighboring Bolivia and Paraguay.
(AFP, 10/11/13)
2014 May 19, Uruguay said it will exempt marijuana production and sales from taxes in a bid to ensure prices remain low enough to undercut competition from black market pot smuggled in from Paraguay.
(Reuters, 5/19/14)
2014 Jun 27, Paraguay officials said floods caused by torrential rains have forced the evacuation of some 200,000 people living near the Paraguay and Parana rivers.
(SFC, 6/28/14, p.A2)
2014 Sep 25, Pope Francis forcibly removed conservative Paraguayan Bishop Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano who had promoted a priest accused of inappropriate sexual behavior and clashed with his fellow bishops on ideological grounds.
(AP, 9/25/14)
2014 Oct 16, A Paraguayan journalist was shot to death in a northern area that is a hotbed for drugs and arms trafficking.
(AP, 10/16/14)
2015 Jan 6, In Paraguay Albino Jara and Rocio Moraez of the Armed Peasant Association died in a firefight near the town of Cuero Fresco.
(AP, 1/7/15)
2015 Mar 6, Paraguayan radio journalist Gerardo Servian was reported shot to death in the Brazilian city of Ponta Pora, bordering a crime-ridden area that is a hotbed for drugs and arms smuggling.
(AP, 3/6/15)
2015 Jul 10, Pope Francis arrived in the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion on the final leg of his three-nation tour of South America's poorest countries that included Ecuador and neighboring Bolivia.
(AP, 7/11/15)
2015 Jul 11, In Paraguay Pope Francis received a very Argentine welcome at Paraguay's most important pilgrimage site, with thousands of his countrymen joining hundreds of thousands of Paraguayan faithful for a Mass that served as a makeshift homecoming for the Argentine pope.
(AP, 7/11/15)
2015 Jul 12, In Paraguay Pope Francis put into practice his call for the world's poor and powerless to not be left on the margins of society by visiting a flood-prone slum outside Asuncion on the final day of his 3-nation tour.
(AP, 7/12/15)
2015 Aug 13, In Paraguay an 11-year-old girl who was denied an abortion after being raped gave birth, the culmination of a case that put a spotlight on child rape in this poor South American nation and drew criticism from human rights groups.
(AP, 8/13/15)
2015 Dec 3, The Swiss justice ministry (FOJ) arrested two more top FIFA officials on a request from the US justice department. South American Football Confederation president Juan Angel Napout of Paraguay and Alfredo Hawit of Honduras, head of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean, were arrested at the five-star Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich.
(AFP, 12/3/15)
2015 Dec 24, Argentina authorities said that 10,000 people were evacuated in Entre Rios province after rains swelled the Uruguay River to its highest level in nearly a century. Flooding caused by heavy rains also has led to the evacuation of an estimated 100,000 people in Paraguay and more than 4,000 in Uruguay.
(AP, 12/24/15)
2015 The population of Paraguay was about 7 million.
(Econ, 5/30/15, p.36)
2016 May 1, Pacific Alliance members (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) eliminated tariffs on 92% of their trade with each other and planned to phase out the rest over 17 years.
(Econ, 5/14/16, p.26)
2016 Jun 12, Police in Spain, France and Paraguay have arrested around 14 people and freed up to 15 women as part of a 3-day joint operation against sex trafficking that began on June 7.
(AP, 6/12/16)
2016 Jul 26, Paraguayan authorities got a surprise when they raided the jail cell of Jarvis Chimenes Pavao, a Brazilian drug lord's jail cell, and found a three-room luxury suite complete with library, kitchen, conference room and plasma TV. Pavao had allegedly planned to use the plastic explosives to blow a hole in the prison walls and escape.
(AFP, 7/30/16)
2016 Aug 27, In northern Paraguay suspected members of the little-known Paraguayan People's Army killed 8 soldiers in an attack in Arroyito. The group was blamed last year in the killing of a German couple.
(AP, 8/28/16)
2017 Mar 30, In Paraguay the annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) opened in Asuncion.
(Econ, 4/8/17, p.30)
2017 Mar 31, In Paraguay protesters stormed and set fire to the Congress after the Senate secretly voted for a constitutional amendment that would allow President Horacio Cartes to run for re-election.
(Reuters, 4/1/17)
2017 Apr 1, In Paraguay opposition activist Rodrigo Quintana (25) was killed after violent clashes overnight sparked by a secret Senate vote for a constitutional amendment that would allow President Horacio Cartes to run for re-election. Police arrested 211 people.
(Reuters, 4/1/17)(Econ, 4/8/17, p.30)
2017 Jul 12, Paraguay’s Pres. Horacio Cartes and his delegation began a 3-day visit commemorating 60 years of ties between Taiwan and the landlocked nation, the island's only diplomatic ally in South America.
(AP, 7/12/17)
2017 Jul 24, In Paraguay a shooting at a nightclub left four Brazilians dead and ten people wounded at a launch party for the After Office club in Pedro Juan Caballero. Two unknown assailants fled.
(SFC, 7/25/17, p.A2)
2017 Oct, Paraguay’s education minister banned classes about sexual diversity in schools and even volunteered to help burn all books related to the subject. The ban was implemented after schools began using a UN Children's Fund guidebook for teachers on avoiding discrimination between girls and boys and achieving gender equality.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 13, Paraguay police arrested Marcelo Fernando Pinheiro Veiga, one of Brazil's most wanted drug and arms traffickers, in the city of Encarnacion.
(AP, 12/13/17)
2018 Jan 9, Authorities in the Paraguayan border town of Ciudad del Este temporarily closed a shop accused of selling transgender dolls. The city attorney Christian said the shop also was closed for failing to pay this year's commercial tax and was selling toys when it's only authorized to sell electronic goods.
(AP, 1/10/18)
2018 Apr 20, Bolivian Foreign Minister Fernando Huanacuni said that Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru had decided to temporarily leave the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), given differences over choosing the secretary general of the group. UNASUR was promoted by late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Surinam, Uruguay and Venezuela remained in the bloc.
(AP, 4/20/18)
2018 Apr 22, Paraguay held presidential elections. Mario Abdo Benitez of the ruling conservative Colorado party won over his centrist opponent, Efrain Alegre.
(Reuters, 4/22/18)(AFP, 4/22/18)(SFC, 4/23/18, p.A2)
2018 May 21, Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes inaugurated his country's Israel embassy in Jerusalem, making it the third nation to take the deeply controversial step after the United States and Guatemala.
(AFP, 5/21/18)
2018 Jul 25, Paraguay's agriculture minister and three other people died in the crash of a small plane. The dead included Agriculture Minister Luis Gneiting, Vice Minister Vicente Ramirez and the pilot and co-pilot.
(AP, 7/26/18)
2018 Sep 5, Paraguay reversed its May decision to relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to the contested city of Jerusalem and said it will move it back to Tel Aviv. This prompted Israel to shutter its embassy in Paraguay and warn that ties between the countries would be "strained".
(AP, 9/6/18)
2018 Dec 15, In Paraguay Carlos Eduardo Sales Cardoso (aka Capile), the leader of the Brazilian criminal organization Pure Third Command, was captured in Asuncion and will be expelled from the country.
(AP, 12/16/18)
2019 Mar 22, In Chile a group of South American presidents formed Prosur, a new regional bloc to replace Unasur, founded in 2008. The new bloc included Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru.
(SSFC, 3/24/19, p.A4)
2019 May 8, Paraguay declared a state of emergency in a southern province as torrential rains continued to swell rivers and cause floods.
(SFC, 5/9/19, p.A2)
2019 May 24, It was reported that Paraguay’s indigenous Isla Jovai Teju community has gone digital to map its ancestral land with a smartphone app and GPS. Their lands have been encroached on over the years by widespread deforestation and vast surrounding plantations of soybeans and maize.
(Reuters, 5/24/19)
2019 May 27, Paraguay’s weather bureau said heavy flooding has displaced 70,000 families and is threatening to further inundate the capital Asuncion in the coming weeks.
(AFP, 5/27/19)
2019 Jun 28, The EU signed a historic trade agreement with the four-nation South American bloc known as Mercosur. The agreement creates a market of 780 million people with the EU.
(AFP, 6/29/19)
2019 Jul 2, France said it was "not ready" to ratify a huge trade deal agreed by the European Union and the four South American countries of Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay), as farmers and environmentalists step up their resistance to the accord.
(AFP, 7/2/19)
2019 Paraguay's government, led by right-wing President Mario Abdo, banned sex education guides for teachers, while the Senate declared itself "pro-life and pro-family" after opening an annual session with a prayer in the usually secular state.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2020 Jan 19, In Paraguay at least 75 inmates, including members of Brazil's most powerful gang, escaped from a prison in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero after digging a tunnel in an operation that prison officials were believed to have been aware. The director of the prison was fired along with six other prison officials.
(Reuters, 1/19/20)
2020 Feb 14, Paraguay health officials said that deaths from dengue fever increased to 16 in the South American country's worst outbreak of the disease in the last decade, severely straining its health system.
(Reuters, 2/14/20)
2020 Mar 7, Paraguay reported its first case of coronavirus.
(AP, 3/7/20)
2020 Apr 30, Paraguay has fewer than 250 confirmed coronavirus cases and its borders have been closed since March 24, with enforcement particularly focused on the largely open frontier with Brazil.
(AP, 4/30/20)
2020 May 14, Paraguay has recorded fewer than 750 confirmed coronavirus cases and on ly ten deaths.
(SFC, 5/15/19, p.A7)
2020 Oct 16, Brazil and Paraguay reopened borders that were closed for more than six months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(SFC, 10/17/20, p.A6)
2020 Oct 26, Paraguayan officials said the remains of seven people were found in a shipment of fertilizer from Serbia.
(SFC, 10/27/20, p.A2)
2021 Jan 22, Paraguay said it has signed agreements with two pharmaceutical companies to buy 3 million doses of coronavirus vaccines and plans to start vaccinations in the second half of February. Paraguay has registered 125,518 cases of coronavirus and 2,570 deaths.
(Reuters, 1/22/21)
2021 Aug 27, In Paraguay grains ships and vessels transporting other products on the Paraguay River are loading at around half capacity due to a historic drought that has hit river levels in the South American region, hurting trade of key agricultural commodities.
(Reuters, 8/27/21)
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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, Carlos Antonio Lopez.
(http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/L/Lopez-Fr.html)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.46)
1864 Brazil under Emperor Pedro II invaded Uruguay. In response Paraguay’s Pres. Francisco Solano Lopez attacked Brazil’s province of Matto Grosso.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.46)
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 as much as 90% of its adult male population killed.
(WSJ, 4/10/00, p.A1)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.45)
1866 Mar 1, Paraguayan canoes sank 2 Brazilian ironclads on Rio Parana.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1869 Aug 12, In Piribebuy, Paraguay, 1,600 poorly armed men, many of them mere children, spent 5 hours resisting the assault of 20,000 allied Brazilian, Argentine and Uruguayan forces intent on conquest, before finally being overwhelmed. At the end of the battle, in which the Hospital de Sangre was burnt down, along with all the wounded inside, many prisoners were decapitated.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.48)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piribebuy)
1869 Paraguay’s army surrendered to the Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Pres. Lopez refused to surrender.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.46)
1870 Mar 1, Francisco S. Lopez (43), President of Paraguay (1862-70), was killed in the War of the Triple alliance. The Brazilian army had cornered him at Cerro Cora. A rough post-war census counted just 29,000 males over the age of 15 left in Paraguay.
(http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/L/Lopez-Fr.html)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.46)
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)
1958 Authorities in Paraguay under Alfredo Stroessner arrested 108 people "of dubious moral conduct" who were subjected to public derision.
(Reuters, 4/5/19)
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)
1974 Augusto Roa Bastos (1917-2005), Paraguay writer, authored “Yo, el Supremo" (I, the Supreme).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Roa_Bastos)(Econ, 8/2/14, p.27)
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)
1979 Apr 6, The US Alien Torts Claims Act (ATCA) of 1789, meant to combat piracy, sprang back to life when it was used to allow two Paraguayans to sue a former Paraguayan policeman in an American court for acts of torture committed in Paraguay.
(Econ, 10/6/12, p.34)(Econ, 4/20/13, p.34)
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. Col. Lino Oviedo (1943-2013) led the army unit that captured Stroessner.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A3)(AP, 2/3/99)(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A10)(Econ, 2/9/13, p.38)
1989 May, In the first free presidential elections in 35 years Andres Rodriguez was elected president.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A15)
1989 In Paraguay Horacio Cartes spent time in jail on suspicion of currency fraud. In 2013 Cartes was elected president.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.35)
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 20,000 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 In Paraguay a plane loaded with drugs was found on property owned by Horacio Cartes.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.35)
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)
2004 Brazil’s Congress accused Horacio Cartes of Paraguay of cigarette smuggling.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.35)
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 May 23, In Brazil 12 South American leaders gathered in Brasilia to set up the Union of South American Nations. UNASUR was expected to replace the South American Community, declared in 2004, and unite the Mercosur and Andean Community free trade areas. Members included Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNASUR_Constitutive_Treaty)(Econ, 5/31/08, p.41)
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 o utskirts 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)
2010 A leaked American embassy cable accused Horacio Cartes of Paraguay of laundering drug money.
(Econ, 4/27/13, p.35)
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)
2011 May 8, It was reported that Paraguay’s national bank planned to drop 3 zeroes from its currency, the guarani, this year and rename it the new guarani. Exchange of old notes would continue to 2014.
(SSFC, 5/8/11, p.C3)
2011 Jul 15, A former military doctor was extradited from Paraguay to Argentina to face charges that include stealing babies from political prisoners during Argentina's dictatorship. Dr. Norberto Atilo Bianco allegedly helped run a clandestine maternity ward inside the epidemiology section of the Argentine army's Campo de Mayo military hospital in 1977 and 1978.
(AP, 7/16/11)
2011 Sep 10, In Paraguay Sabino Montanaro (89), a former interior minister known as the "cruel right hand" of the late dictator Alfredo Stroessner, died at his home in Asuncion.
(AP, 9/11/11)
2011 Oct 9, Paraguay held a constitutional referendum on whether citizens living in Argentina, Spain, the U.S. and elsewhere outside the country can vote. The measure was supported by nearly 78% of the ballots counted.
(AP, 10/9/11)
2011 Oct 19, Brazil’s most wanted druglord, Alexander Mendes da Silva, was arrested in the Paraguayan city of Pedro Juan Caballero.
(AP, 10/19/11)
2011 Nov 28, In Paraguay Marciano Villagra (93), former leader of Paraguay Communist Party guerrillas in various actions, died. He led the brief takeover of the town of Piribebuy in 1947 and went into hiding after Gen. Alfredo Stroessner took power in 1954.
(AP, 11/30/11)
2011 Dec 7, The US government said it is giving Paraguay more than $1 million in equipment and training to help it combat a small guerrilla band in the north of the country.
(AP, 12/7/11)
2012 Jun 5, Paraguay’s Pres. Fernando Lugo (61) recognized a 2nd love-child, a 10-year-old boy born to Narcisa de la Cruz de Zarate, a nurse in a northern state.
(SFC, 6/6/12, p.A2)
2012 Jun 15, Paraguay deployed its army to resolve a violent land dispute in a remote northern forest reserve after 17 people were killed in gunbattles between police and landless farmers. The violence broke out as police tried to evict about 150 farmers from the reserve, which is part of a huge estate owned by Blas Riquelme, a Colorado Party politician opposed to Pres. Lugo.
(AP, 6/15/12)
2012 Jun 21, Paraguay’s lower house voted 76-1 to impeach President Fernando Lugo for his role in a deadly clash involving landless farmers. Hours later the Senate announced that it will begin his trial on June 22.
(AP, 6/22/12)
2012 Jun 22, In Paraguay 39 senators voted to dismiss Pres. Fernando Lugo after a five-hour trial, while four senators voted against and two were absent. Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop elected on a pledge to help the poor, said he would step aside following the Senate vote, even though he called it a blow to democracy. Federico Franco (49) of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party was sworn in to serve out the remainder of Lugo’s term.
(AP, 6/23/12)
2012 Jun 23, Paraguay's newly sworn-in president, Federico Franco, set about forming a new government as he promised to honor foreign commitments, respect private property and reach out to Latin American leaders to minimize diplomatic fallout and keep his country from becoming a regional pariah.
(AP, 6/23/12)
2012 Jun 29, In Argentina the Mercosur trade bloc held a summit. It suspended Paraguay's membership for having impeached and ousted its president but said it will not slap economic sanctions on it. The group also announced that Venezuela will become a full member starting July 31.
(AP, 6/29/12)
2012 Jul 24, In China Rosalia Amarilla (31), a clothes vendor from Paraguay, stepped into the international terminal of Beijing's cavernous main airport, wearing more than 7 pounds (3 kg) of cocaine stuffed into her underwear and bra. She was caught and later sentenced to death on drug trafficking charges.
(AP, 1/24/15)
2012 Jul, In Paraguay Pres. Federico Franco won passage of a bill to institute the country’s first ever income tax.
(http://bigstory.ap.org/article/paraguays-new-president-proving-effective) (Economist, 10/6/12, p.42)
2012 Sep 19, In Paraguay a powerful storm killed 5 people and left thousands without shelter.
(SFC, 9/20/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 1, In Paraguay gunmen murdered Vidaql Vega (48), one of the surviving leaders of a peasant movement whose land dispute with a powerful politician prompted the end of Fernando Lugo's presidency last June. He had lobbied the government for many years to redistribute some of the ranchland that Colorado Party Sen. Blas Riquelme began occupying in the 1960s.
(AP, 12/2/12)
2012 Dec 19, A new Gallup poll said seven of the world’s 10 countries with the most upbeat attitudes are in Latin America with Panama and Paraguay at the top. The people least likely to report positive emotions lived in Singapore.
(SFC, 12/20/12, p.A2)
2012 In Paraguay 80% of the population continued to speak the Guarani, an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí–Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.48)
2013 Jan 3, It was reported that Paraguayan police have rescued 211 blue-fronted Amazon parrots, which were taken from remote forests. More than 400,000 of the birds have been caught and sold.
(SFC, 1/3/13, p.A2)
2013 Feb 2, Paraguayan presidential candidate Lino Cesar Oviedo (69) was killed in a helicopter crash, ending a dramatic political career that included coups and repeated attempts to lead his impoverished country. His bodyguard and pilot also died in the crash.
(AP, 2/3/13)
2013 Apr 21, Paraguay held presidential elections to replace Federico Franco, who served out Fernando Lugo's term and is not eligible to seek a new one. Tobacco magnate Horacio Cartes of the Colorado Party was elected with 46% of the vote, returning the conservative Colorado Party to the presidency. Sen. Efrain Alegre of Franco's Liberal Party won 37%.
(AP, 4/21/13)
2013 Aug 15, Paraguay’s Pres. Horacio Cartes (57) made his inaugural speech saying "I promise to set an example with this government" by strengthening international ties and committing to human rights and fighting poverty.
(AP, 8/15/13)
2013 Aug 28, In Paraguay Maria Concepcion Candia joined five men in a crucifixion protest out of solidarity. Her husband, bus driver Juan Villalba, led a demonstration to protest a series of layoffs of union organizers at the Vanguardia bus company. He said eight drivers were fired after they asked for overtime pay, medical insurance and state pension contributions.
(SFC, 8/29/13, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/qakvfq8)
2013 Aug 30, Paraguay was welcomed back into a group of South American nations known as UNASUR meeting in Suriname.
(AP, 8/30/13)
2013 Oct 11, In Brazil an official report disclosed that the powerful PCC prison gang runs a nationwide criminal business worth $60 million a year with operations extending into neighboring Bolivia and Paraguay.
(AFP, 10/11/13)
2014 May 19, Uruguay said it will exempt marijuana production and sales from taxes in a bid to ensure prices remain low enough to undercut competition from black market pot smuggled in from Paraguay.
(Reuters, 5/19/14)
2014 Jun 27, Paraguay officials said floods caused by torrential rains have forced the evacuation of some 200,000 people living near the Paraguay and Parana rivers.
(SFC, 6/28/14, p.A2)
2014 Sep 25, Pope Francis forcibly removed conservative Paraguayan Bishop Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano who had promoted a priest accused of inappropriate sexual behavior and clashed with his fellow bishops on ideological grounds.
(AP, 9/25/14)
2014 Oct 16, A Paraguayan journalist was shot to death in a northern area that is a hotbed for drugs and arms trafficking.
(AP, 10/16/14)
2015 Jan 6, In Paraguay Albino Jara and Rocio Moraez of the Armed Peasant Association died in a firefight near the town of Cuero Fresco.
(AP, 1/7/15)
2015 Mar 6, Paraguayan radio journalist Gerardo Servian was reported shot to death in the Brazilian city of Ponta Pora, bordering a crime-ridden area that is a hotbed for drugs and arms smuggling.
(AP, 3/6/15)
2015 Jul 10, Pope Francis arrived in the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion on the final leg of his three-nation tour of South America's poorest countries that included Ecuador and neighboring Bolivia.
(AP, 7/11/15)
2015 Jul 11, In Paraguay Pope Francis received a very Argentine welcome at Paraguay's most important pilgrimage site, with thousands of his countrymen joining hundreds of thousands of Paraguayan faithful for a Mass that served as a makeshift homecoming for the Argentine pope.
(AP, 7/11/15)
2015 Jul 12, In Paraguay Pope Francis put into practice his call for the world's poor and powerless to not be left on the margins of society by visiting a flood-prone slum outside Asuncion on the final day of his 3-nation tour.
(AP, 7/12/15)
2015 Aug 13, In Paraguay an 11-year-old girl who was denied an abortion after being raped gave birth, the culmination of a case that put a spotlight on child rape in this poor South American nation and drew criticism from human rights groups.
(AP, 8/13/15)
2015 Dec 3, The Swiss justice ministry (FOJ) arrested two more top FIFA officials on a request from the US justice department. South American Football Confederation president Juan Angel Napout of Paraguay and Alfredo Hawit of Honduras, head of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean, were arrested at the five-star Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich.
(AFP, 12/3/15)
2015 Dec 24, Argentina authorities said that 10,000 people were evacuated in Entre Rios province after rains swelled the Uruguay River to its highest level in nearly a century. Flooding caused by heavy rains also has led to the evacuation of an estimated 100,000 people in Paraguay and more than 4,000 in Uruguay.
(AP, 12/24/15)
2015 The population of Paraguay was about 7 million.
(Econ, 5/30/15, p.36)
2016 May 1, Pacific Alliance members (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) eliminated tariffs on 92% of their trade with each other and planned to phase out the rest over 17 years.
(Econ, 5/14/16, p.26)
2016 Jun 12, Police in Spain, France and Paraguay have arrested around 14 people and freed up to 15 women as part of a 3-day joint operation against sex trafficking that began on June 7.
(AP, 6/12/16)
2016 Jul 26, Paraguayan authorities got a surprise when they raided the jail cell of Jarvis Chimenes Pavao, a Brazilian drug lord's jail cell, and found a three-room luxury suite complete with library, kitchen, conference room and plasma TV. Pavao had allegedly planned to use the plastic explosives to blow a hole in the prison walls and escape.
(AFP, 7/30/16)
2016 Aug 27, In northern Paraguay suspected members of the little-known Paraguayan People's Army killed 8 soldiers in an attack in Arroyito. The group was blamed last year in the killing of a German couple.
(AP, 8/28/16)
2017 Mar 30, In Paraguay the annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) opened in Asuncion.
(Econ, 4/8/17, p.30)
2017 Mar 31, In Paraguay protesters stormed and set fire to the Congress after the Senate secretly voted for a constitutional amendment that would allow President Horacio Cartes to run for re-election.
(Reuters, 4/1/17)
2017 Apr 1, In Paraguay opposition activist Rodrigo Quintana (25) was killed after violent clashes overnight sparked by a secret Senate vote for a constitutional amendment that would allow President Horacio Cartes to run for re-election. Police arrested 211 people.
(Reuters, 4/1/17)(Econ, 4/8/17, p.30)
2017 Jul 12, Paraguay’s Pres. Horacio Cartes and his delegation began a 3-day visit commemorating 60 years of ties between Taiwan and the landlocked nation, the island's only diplomatic ally in South America.
(AP, 7/12/17)
2017 Jul 24, In Paraguay a shooting at a nightclub left four Brazilians dead and ten people wounded at a launch party for the After Office club in Pedro Juan Caballero. Two unknown assailants fled.
(SFC, 7/25/17, p.A2)
2017 Oct, Paraguay’s education minister banned classes about sexual diversity in schools and even volunteered to help burn all books related to the subject. The ban was implemented after schools began using a UN Children's Fund guidebook for teachers on avoiding discrimination between girls and boys and achieving gender equality.
(AP, 12/14/17)
2017 Dec 13, Paraguay police arrested Marcelo Fernando Pinheiro Veiga, one of Brazil's most wanted drug and arms traffickers, in the city of Encarnacion.
(AP, 12/13/17)
2018 Jan 9, Authorities in the Paraguayan border town of Ciudad del Este temporarily closed a shop accused of selling transgender dolls. The city attorney Christian said the shop also was closed for failing to pay this year's commercial tax and was selling toys when it's only authorized to sell electronic goods.
(AP, 1/10/18)
2018 Apr 20, Bolivian Foreign Minister Fernando Huanacuni said that Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru had decided to temporarily leave the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), given differences over choosing the secretary general of the group. UNASUR was promoted by late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Surinam, Uruguay and Venezuela remained in the bloc.
(AP, 4/20/18)
2018 Apr 22, Paraguay held presidential elections. Mario Abdo Benitez of the ruling conservative Colorado party won over his centrist opponent, Efrain Alegre.
(Reuters, 4/22/18)(AFP, 4/22/18)(SFC, 4/23/18, p.A2)
2018 May 21, Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes inaugurated his country's Israel embassy in Jerusalem, making it the third nation to take the deeply controversial step after the United States and Guatemala.
(AFP, 5/21/18)
2018 Jul 25, Paraguay's agriculture minister and three other people died in the crash of a small plane. The dead included Agriculture Minister Luis Gneiting, Vice Minister Vicente Ramirez and the pilot and co-pilot.
(AP, 7/26/18)
2018 Sep 5, Paraguay reversed its May decision to relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to the contested city of Jerusalem and said it will move it back to Tel Aviv. This prompted Israel to shutter its embassy in Paraguay and warn that ties between the countries would be "strained".
(AP, 9/6/18)
2018 Dec 15, In Paraguay Carlos Eduardo Sales Cardoso (aka Capile), the leader of the Brazilian criminal organization Pure Third Command, was captured in Asuncion and will be expelled from the country.
(AP, 12/16/18)
2019 Mar 22, In Chile a group of South American presidents formed Prosur, a new regional bloc to replace Unasur, founded in 2008. The new bloc included Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru.
(SSFC, 3/24/19, p.A4)
2019 May 8, Paraguay declared a state of emergency in a southern province as torrential rains continued to swell rivers and cause floods.
(SFC, 5/9/19, p.A2)
2019 May 24, It was reported that Paraguay’s indigenous Isla Jovai Teju community has gone digital to map its ancestral land with a smartphone app and GPS. Their lands have been encroached on over the years by widespread deforestation and vast surrounding plantations of soybeans and maize.
(Reuters, 5/24/19)
2019 May 27, Paraguay’s weather bureau said heavy flooding has displaced 70,000 families and is threatening to further inundate the capital Asuncion in the coming weeks.
(AFP, 5/27/19)
2019 Jun 28, The EU signed a historic trade agreement with the four-nation South American bloc known as Mercosur. The agreement creates a market of 780 million people with the EU.
(AFP, 6/29/19)
2019 Jul 2, France said it was "not ready" to ratify a huge trade deal agreed by the European Union and the four South American countries of Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay), as farmers and environmentalists step up their resistance to the accord.
(AFP, 7/2/19)
2019 Paraguay's government, led by right-wing President Mario Abdo, banned sex education guides for teachers, while the Senate declared itself "pro-life and pro-family" after opening an annual session with a prayer in the usually secular state.
(AP, 4/5/19)
2020 Jan 19, In Paraguay at least 75 inmates, including members of Brazil's most powerful gang, escaped from a prison in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero after digging a tunnel in an operation that prison officials were believed to have been aware. The director of the prison was fired along with six other prison officials.
(Reuters, 1/19/20)
2020 Feb 14, Paraguay health officials said that deaths from dengue fever increased to 16 in the South American country's worst outbreak of the disease in the last decade, severely straining its health system.
(Reuters, 2/14/20)
2020 Mar 7, Paraguay reported its first case of coronavirus.
(AP, 3/7/20)
2020 Apr 30, Paraguay has fewer than 250 confirmed coronavirus cases and its borders have been closed since March 24, with enforcement particularly focused on the largely open frontier with Brazil.
(AP, 4/30/20)
2020 May 14, Paraguay has recorded fewer than 750 confirmed coronavirus cases and on ly ten deaths.
(SFC, 5/15/19, p.A7)
2020 Oct 16, Brazil and Paraguay reopened borders that were closed for more than six months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(SFC, 10/17/20, p.A6)
2020 Oct 26, Paraguayan officials said the remains of seven people were found in a shipment of fertilizer from Serbia.
(SFC, 10/27/20, p.A2)
2021 Jan 22, Paraguay said it has signed agreements with two pharmaceutical companies to buy 3 million doses of coronavirus vaccines and plans to start vaccinations in the second half of February. Paraguay has registered 125,518 cases of coronavirus and 2,570 deaths.
(Reuters, 1/22/21)
2021 Aug 27, In Paraguay grains ships and vessels transporting other products on the Paraguay River are loading at around half capacity due to a historic drought that has hit river levels in the South American region, hurting trade of key agricultural commodities.
(Reuters, 8/27/21)
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End of file.
