POLITICS-PARAGUAY: Military Sent to Barracks, General to Return

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Carlos Montero and Marcela Valente

ASUNCION/BUENOS AIRES, Dec 9 1999 (IPS) - Paraguay’s armed forces were confined to barracks Thursday after reports circulated that former general Lino Oviedo, enemy number one of the Luis González Macchi government, had abandoned political asylum in Argentina to return home.

Military command ordered all troops to barracks in order to “guarantee compliance with their consititutional mission,” according to an official communique.

The notice was released to “prevent conjectures” that might confuse the military decision with a show of support for Oviedo.

The goal of the order is “to support, if necessary, the actions of the National Police in maintaining internal order,” and is a “preventive measure,” emphasises the communique.

Carlos Corach, Argentina’s Interior minister, confirmed Thursday that Oviedo, sought by Paraguay’s legal authorities, left in an aircraft from the Don Torcuato airport in the province of Buenos Aires, after eluding his custodians.

Argentinean authorities “lost all trace of Oviedo,” said Corach, while reports in Asuncion, Buenos Aires and Montevideo indicated that Oviedo’s flight had landed in Paraguay’s central department of San Pedro.

Argentina’s current president, Carlos Menem, granted Oviedo political asylum Mar 28 after the general fled Paraguay amid assassination charges. The two men are long-time friends and Paraguayan authorities say they have joint business dealings.

Oviedo’s wife, Raquel Marín, confirmed that the former general is in Paraguay, said his lawyer, Carlos Galeano Perrone, in the Uruguayan capital.

Paraguayan justice officials seek Oviedo to return him to prison to complete a 10-year sentence, handed down by the courts for his 1996 coup attempt.

Authorities also want Oviedo to face trial for his alleged complicity in the Mar 23 assassination of vice-president Luis María Argaña, and of seven young pro-democracy demonstrators in the days following Argaña’s death.

Corach reported that Oviedo will lose his asylum status granted by Argentina and will have to request authorisation if he wants to return.

José Fernández Estigarribia, Paraguay’s foreign minister, said in Buenos Aires that if Oviedo is in Paraguay, “he is going to be imprisoned. He left Argentina because he feared being expelled by the new Argentinean authorities.”

Argentina’s vice-president-elect, Carlos Alvarez, had confirmed Wednesday that the Fernando da la Rúa government, to take office Friday, would seek to relocate Oviedo to a third country, possibly Germany or Venezuela.

“It is obvious that the (outgoing) Argentinean government gave him the chance to escape,” commented Gladys Bernal, mother of one of the seven demonstrators killed last March by Oviedo supporters.

Bernal participated Thursday in a protest by ‘Memoria Viva’ (Living Memory) outside the Paraguayan congressional building. The group is made up of family members of people killed or injured during the crisis unleashed by Argaña’s assassination, which led to the resignation of then-president Raúl Cubas.

Memoria Viva members flew to Buenos Aires several times this year to ask the Menem government to rescind the asylum status it had granted Oviedo.

Paraguayan president González Macchi arrived Thursday in Buenos Aires for a scheduled meeting with the Argentinean president-elect De la Rúa. González Macchi also planned to attend De la Rúa’s inauguration ceremony Friday.

Marín, Oviedo’s wife, also left Buenos Aires Thursday, along with her mother and three of her children, heading for Argentina’s northeastern Corrientes province. She had arrived in Buenos Aires shortly before from the Tierra del Fuego region, where she had lived with the former general.

The Menem government had sent Oviedo to live in Tierra del Fuego, and prohibited him from visiting Argentina’s provinces along the Paraguayan border, but Oviedo had flown to Buenos Aires this week for a dentist visit.

Judge Jorge Bogarín, head of investigations into vice-president Argaña’s assassination, issued a new arrest warrant for Oviedo, Thursday, calling on International Police (Interpol) offices in Brazil and Uruguay to detain him if he is found in either of the two countries.

Juan Carlos Galaverna, Paraguay’s leader in González Macchi’s absence, said he hopes Oviedo is in Paraguay, because “he will be apprehended and subject to trial.”