Barely in office for two weeks, and already the new “moderate leftist” president of Paraguay is smelling something rotten in his country. You know you’re a real leftist when…
President Fernando Lugo denounced a meeting which he characterized as “conspiratorial”, which he blamed on retired general Lino Cesar Oviedo, and asked the citizenry to be alert “towards coupmongering intentions in the antidemocratic sectors”.
[…]
“My government will not permit mockery of the people’s sovereignty. And those who plan on implementing conspiracies will face all the measures the Constitution puts in my hands,” the ex-bishop added.
Lugo revealed that Gen. Maximo Diaz, liaison between the Armed Forces and the Congress, was driven by the chauffeur of Enrique Gonzalez, the president of the senate, to Oviedo’s house, where he met with the Electoral Justice minister, Juan Manuel Morales, the Inspector General, Ruben Candia Amarilla, and Lelis Olmedo, a lawyer and friend of Oviedo.
“General Diaz was consulted by General Oviedo to find out what is the opinion of the armed forces regarding the Senate crisis. Diaz answered that the military is institutionalized and may not have an opinion about political issues, and left immediately,” Lugo said. “As president of the republic, I will not allow the armed forces to be used for sectarian interests.”
Wooooo, them’s fightin’ words. From a man of peace (and until not so long ago, the cloth), such tough talk means he knows there will be no grace period for him, as there was for Chavecito in Venezuela, back in the early days of his presidency. Back then, the opposition thought they could ingratiate themselves and buy Chavez, but when the big guy proved incorruptible, they went for his jugulars.
With Lugo, they already know the gig is up, because this guy dedicated his entire career as a bishop to helping the poor. Now that he’s in a position of real political power, he’ll be pulling out the stops to do what he was more limited in doing as a churchman. And this speech is more evidence of just that.
What it also shows, rather interestingly, is that at least one top-ranking general in the Paraguayan military takes his job and his charges seriously, and, unlike his Venezuelan counterparts of 2002, refuses to be sucked into the plot. If they were sending out feelers to see if they could corrupt him, they got their answer right there. As with President Lugo himself, it is a firm NO SALE!
For Paraguay, this bodes very well. For BushCo, the Moonies and the toy ranch that Jenna was there to buy, well…not so much.
The leftists that pray together, stay together. Lugo (in white) and Chavecito attend Mass together in San Pedro, Paraguay, on August 16.
