N: Paraguayssa häppeningiä

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... -run-again

'A coup has been carried out': Paraguay's congress set alight after vote to let president run again

One congress member, who had been participating in protests, underwent surgery after being hit by rubber bullets


Hundreds of demonstrators protesting against the approval of a constitutional amendment broke into Paraguay’s congress building and started fires.

Protesters stormed and set fire to Paraguay’s Congress on Friday after the senate secretly voted for a constitutional amendment that would allow President Horacio Cartes to run for re-election.

The country’s constitution has prohibited re-election since it was passed in 1992 after a brutal dictatorship fell in 1989.

“A coup has been carried out. We will resist and we invite the people to resist with us,” said Desiree Masi from the opposition Progressive Democratic Party.

Firefighters managed to control the flames after protesters left the congress building late on Friday night. But protests and riots continued in other parts of Asuncion and elsewhere in the country well into the night, media reported.

Earlier, television images showed protesters breaking windows of the congress and clashing with police, burning tires and removing parts of fences around the building. Police in riot gear fired tear gas and rubber bullets.

Several politicians and journalists were injured, media reported, and the interior minister, Tadeo Rojas, said several police were hurt. One member of the lower house of congress, who had been participating in protests that afternoon, underwent surgery after being hit by rubber bullets.

The number of casualties was unknown.

Cartes called for calm and a rejection of violence in a statement released on Twitter.
“Democracy is not conquered or defended with violence and you can be sure this government will continue to put its best effort into maintaining order in the republic,” he said. “We must not allow a few barbarians to destroy the peace, tranquility and general wellbeing of the Paraguayan people.”

The unrest coincides with a rare high-level international event in the landlocked South American country. Thousands of business people and government officials descended on Asuncion this week for the Inter-American Development Bank’s annual board of governors meeting.

While Paraguay long suffered from political uncertainty, the soy and beef-exporting nation has been attracting investment in agriculture and manufacturing sectors in recent years as Cartes offered tax breaks to foreign investors.

Instability in the country of 6.8m is a concern for its much larger neighbors Brazil and Argentina.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said it was monitoring the events. “I call on political leaders to avoid inciting violence and seek dialogue,” the commission’s regional representative for South America, Amerigo Incalcaterra, said in a statement.
The senate voted earlier on Friday during a special session in a closed office rather than on the senate floor. Twenty-five lawmakers voted for the measure, two more than the 23 required for passage in the 45-member upper chamber.

Opponents of the measure, who claim it would weaken Paraguay’s democratic institutions, said the vote was illegal.

The proposal will also require approval by the lower house, where it appeared to have strong support. A vote which had been expected early on Saturday was called off until the situation calmed down, said the chamber’s president, Hugo Velazquez.

Several Latin American countries, including Paraguay, Peru and Chile, prevent presidents from running for consecutive terms in a region where memories of dictatorships remain ripe.

Others, including Colombia and Venezuela, have changed their constitutions to give sitting presidents a chance at re-election.

Paraguay’s measure would apply to future presidents and Cartes, a soft-drink and tobacco mogul elected to a five-year term in 2013.

His strongest backers want him to be allowed to run for another term, but critics have said a constitutional change aimed at benefiting a sitting president would be unfair.

The change would also apply to former president Fernando Lugo, whose supporters want to be allowed to run for another term.

Congress ousted Lugo in 2012, saying he had failed in his duty to maintain social order following a bloody land eviction. The rapid impeachment drew strong criticism in Latin America, especially from fellow left wing governments.

A similar re-election proposal had been rejected in August and congress this week voted to change the rules that required lawmakers to wait a year before voting again.

“Everything was done legally,” said senator Carlos Filizzola of the left wing Guasu Front coalition, which supports the constitutional amendment as a way of allowing Lugo to return as Paraguay’s leader.

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Häräguayssa pappeningia

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... f-activist

Paraguay's president calls for end to unrest after killing of activist

Horacio Cartes promises justice for 25-year-old shot by police during protests against his attempt to seek second term in office


Police guarding Paraguay’s congress in Asuncion

Paraguay’s president has appealed for calm in a video published on his official Facebook page, after protests erupted this weekend over behind-the-scenes constitutional wrangling to enable him to run for office again in 2018.

Protesters stormed and set fire to Paraguay’s congress on Friday, with subsequent confrontations in the streets of the capital ending in the fatal shooting by police of a 25-year-old activist in an opposition party headquarters.

President Horacio Cartes, a soft-drinks and tobacco mogul who leads the right-wing Colorado party, offered his “most sincere condolences” to the family of Rodrigo Quintana, adding that “the perpetrators of this horrendous episode will face justice”.

Cartes claimed that business and media interests instigated the protests, lamenting that “citizens always pay with their personal sacrifice, while the promoters of these operations watch them on television without revealing their nefarious interests”.

Soon after the video was posted, Cartes made his first public appearance in several days at an investment conference feted by the government as an opportunity to showcase Paraguay’s fast-growing economy and attract outside investors. Addressing businesses and policymakers from around the region, Cartes said that Paraguay’s democracy was strong and highlighted the huge amount of red meat and soya beans exported by the country every year.


Paraguay’s President Horacio Cartes.

Meanwhile in the square outside Paraguay’s fire-blackened congress, which had been set alight on Friday, protesters gathered to hold a vigil for Quintana, a youth leader of the opposition Liberal party (PLRA), and to call for the president’s impeachment. More details also emerged over the the weekend about the circumstances of his death at the hands of police. Shocking video footage posted online, taken inside the party headquarters, appeared to show the moment that police burst into the building, shooting Quintana in the back as he tried to flee.

Forensic investigators found that Quintana died as a result of lead shotgun pellets penetrating his lungs. Witnesses claimed that the police threatened to kill everyone inside the building. “They kept saying that their comrades had been hit [by protesters] so they had to take revenge,” Silvio Nuñez, a Liberal party official, told the Guardian.

Gustavo Florentín, the police officer allegedly responsible – who, along with other implicated officers, could face up to 30 years in prison for homicide – claimed that he thought his weapon was loaded with rubber projectiles.

A police official denied that orders came from higher up to storm the headquarters of the country’s main opposition party and claimed that the police unit was responding to reports of fighting and shots nearby.

Soon after the details of Quintana’s killing came to light, both the interior minister and the chief of police stepped down.

Efrain Alegre, the leader of the PLRA, himself injured during protests on Friday – has promised to begin impeachment proceedings against Cartes, although the Colorado-controlled congress is unlikely to let the attempt get far.

The mayor of Asunción, Mario Ferreiro, called for the controversial constitutional amendment proposal to be withdrawn. “We’re facing a time bomb that could explode at any moment,” he said. “If this proposal [for re-election] didn’t exist, Rodrigo Quintana wouldn’t be dead today.”

The Organisation of American States, the US Embassy, and the Vatican have all called for dialogue, with the embassy calling for any changes to the constitution to be held in an open and transparent way.

Further protests were planned for Sunday evening, before the probable introduction of the constitutional amendment in the chamber of deputies – the lower house – next week.

What happened in Paraguay? – video report