A covered up Coup

In 1999, South America was once again shaken by the sad events that plunged Paraguay into mourning after the events that took place in March 1999. Such events were the result of a strained political environment, the hard internal struggles to reach the power that the political parties have been sustaining basically since the reestablishment of democracy, after the terrible dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner; the political manipulation seeking power had reached its highest point. An assassination was planned: the killing of the Vice President of Paraguay Luis María Argaña. A real ambush was laid and both fellow party members and opponents were killed with the aim that in the future the cruel intellectual authors would have grounds on which to justify their unjustifiable actions.

Such conspiracy was conceived not only to gain power but also for hate and hard feelings towards their opponents. The events resulted, for those who planned them, in the resignation of Paraguay´s constitutional President Raúl Cubas Grau and obliged Lino César Oviedo to seek asylum in Argentina. On that March 28, 1999, Oviedo arrived at the Don Torcuato airport, in Greater Buenos Aires, with nothing but a few belongings, but awaiting the protective embrace of a country that he loved and to which he had timely shown his affection.

Menem’s Government welcomed Oviedo

The positive response to the asylum of Lino Oviedo was immediate because president Carlos Menem’s Government interpreted and understood at once the cunning move of those who were unfairly and unconstitutionally trying to make it to the top in Paraguay.

Making a simple analysis, it was completely obvious that Oviedo was being politically persecuted. He was being charged of something for which he was not responsible (the alleged coup of 1996), he was accused of killing somebody (Argaña) and to top it all his detractors organized a fight in Plaza del Congreso that was not very far from ending in a massacre (7 dead people and dozens of injured ones) and, of course, they attributed each and every one of these events to Oviedo.

But the horizon of former general in Argentina was getting dark. The ALIANZA had won the presidential elections for the subsequent term and the future president of Argentina would be Fernando De la Rua. It was to be expected that all the resulting entourage of the political mixture of pseudo-progressives, of representatives of a vernacular, sui generis and fascist left-wing coming from the Alianza to occupy the public positions, would have a strong reactionary attitude towards everyone wearing, whether at the present time, in the past or in the future, a [military] cap … namely military officials, marines, policemen, etc.

In this context, Lino Oviedo meant for the new politicians owners of the power in Argentina the hate that they could not solve due to their own civic immaturity, something that was sadly proven two years later by the political ineffectiveness that ended in the presidential resignation and a country that was cowardly abandoned and bankrupt.

The antimilitary whim

In the context of ‘99, there was no doubt that the future leaders of the national politics had to act in a diametrically opposed manner to the Menemism. There was no room, even though there were valid reasons, to defend any “milico” [derogatory term used to refer to a member of the armed forces], no matter from which part of the world he was coming from and even less if he was coming from a military regime (Where were many of them coming from?).

In that scenario, threatened by the obvious, Lino Oviedo, as a gentleman abandoned Argentina, a day before De la Rua took office, on November 9, 1999.

Argentineans are “right and human” …

Everything would have been different should Argentina had had enough responsibility to face with empathy, with institutional and constitutional maturity an asylum request of somebody who was obviously being persecuted. But with a coward future president (De la Rua), a vice president that escaped when he was needed the most, such as Chacho Álvarez, there was not much to be expected. It was a real international opportunity that was completely lost. I have no doubt that the exemplary judgment of the Brazilian Supreme Court, recognizing the perverse request of the then-Paraguayan authorities, showing the inconsistency and the procedural defects of the legal facts based on which Paraguay wants to try and indict Oviedo, would have been tarnished should the Argentina Supreme Court of Justice have had to decide on the Oviedo case. And I am not talking about the political references of such Court, that were sometimes wisely questioned, and not so wisely some other times. I base my statement on the unanimous opinion of law experts who consider the distinguished stature, at an international level, of its constitutional law experts.

Time, that heals everything or, as in this case, kills everything, has shown what the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court confirmed: Lino Cesar Oviedo is being politically persecuted by the authorities of his country; at least that was the case before the new constitutional president of Paraguay, Duarto Frutos, took office. We hope that a change of attitude is confirmed by the guaraní government …