Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-06-15-Speech-4-168"
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"en.20000615.7.4-168"2
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"Mr President, it is appropriate today for the European Parliament to turn its attention to Paraguay and express its solidarity with the Paraguayan people, who still face considerable difficulties and uncertainties in their effort to consolidate a democratic regime.
The history of Paraguay is one of the saddest and most unjust in Latin America. For those of us who for many years have sided with the resistance in that country, it is painful to remember how, in the 60s and 70s, there were at least three good reasons to feel sorrow. Paraguay was probably the only country in the world whose population had been practically exterminated during wars with its two neighbours, Argentina and Brazil. Only women and some old men and children survived those wars. At that time, Paraguay was the only country which had considerably more population outside its borders than inside, with exiles, outcasts and emigrants of every type. Lastly, Paraguay held the tragic record of suffering the longest dictatorship in the whole of Latin America, headed by General Stroessner. That dictatorship displayed the most extraordinary cruelty in its repression of any opposition, and at the same time its dictator and his entourage was enormously corrupt, with their monopoly on big business and, in particular, smuggling.
The Paraguayan people never gave in. For decades the fight continued, embodied in the February revolution, and the so-called
one of the brief moments of democracy and hope, which was quickly stamped out, firstly by force of arms, but then kept down at a very high cost in death, prison, exile and enormous suffering.
Despite the harshness of the repression, the internal decay of the authoritarian regime and the growing mobilisation of civil society eventually forced a transition which opened the way to progress and representative democracy. This has been the situation over recent years, although the threat of regression and attempts at destabilisation have not disappeared. In fact there has been constant agitation from local bosses and members of the military who are nostalgic, not so much for power, but rather for the possibility of making money which that power used to offer them. We have therefore witnessed a constant tension between civil democratic forces and sinister personalities, the main example of which is General Lino Oviedo, consummate purveyor of repeated coups d’états, professional destabiliser, shady businessman and even alleged promoter of assassinations such as that of the Vice-President of the Republic, Luis María Argaña.
In this context, and with Oviedo under arrest in Brazil, the resolution we are voting on in Parliament is a great opportunity. It condemns the enemies of freedom and the destabilisers, it asks Paraguay’s neighbours for respect and cooperation, so that the consolidation of Paraguayan democracy may become a reality and, above all, it underlines the European Union’s commitment to the people and democratic institutions of Paraguay."@en1
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"febrerismo"1
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