MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“Paraguay is not thinking of leaving Mercosur”

Paraguay is not thinking of leaving Mercosur and “we don't exchange security for free trade”, said Paraguayan Foreign Affairs Minister Leila Rachid, thus rejecting growing concerns in the trade block that it was about to loose one of its members.

Ms. Rachid also denied that Paraguay had granted special immunity status to United States troops involved in combined exercises with the Paraguayan Army, "since we are signatories, as the rest of Mercosur, of the Treaty of Rome".

Ms. Rachid also denied that Paraguay had granted special immunity status to United States troops involved in combined exercises with the Paraguayan Army, "since we are signatories, as the rest of Mercosur, of the Treaty of Rome".

Speculation and concern emerged last May when the Paraguayan Congress agreed to several military exercises with US troops and a medical assistance program, involving the presence of 400 servicemen in the country. Besides, since US troops would be stationed in one of the country's major strategic areas in Chaco, which offers quick access to politically unstable Bolivia and the so-called "triple frontier", (where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet), considered a dangerous drugs and arms trafficking haven with a considerable Arab descent population, helped to further complicate the situation. Last August US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld made a brief and rare visit to landlocked Paraguay to sign several security and aid programs.

"There's a misinterpretation of our bilateral relations with the US. We are determined to remain in Mercosur through which we want to join the globalized world. Mercosur is the essence of our foreign policy", underlined Ms. Rachid.

"We're after a preferences trade agreement with United States, which all Mercosur members have, and not a bilateral free trade agreement". Paraguayans officials also rejected criticism to the establishment of an FBI delegation in the US embassy at Asunción. "It's most valid and appreciated that the FBI has an office in Paraguay, as happens in 58 other countries, with the purpose of collaborating with our security forces particularly in crime and kidnapping prevention". "We now know almost for sure that Colombian FARC guerrillas have close links with extreme groups in the country as was proved in last year's kidnapping and killing of Ceclia Cubas, the daughter of former president Raul Cubas", said Senator Alejandro Velazquez Ugarte, president of the Paraguayan Congress Foreign Relations committee.

Apparently the Paraguayan police with US help was able to establish a link between the head of the kidnappers and leader of a radical group Omar Martinez, and a high official of the Marxist oriented FARC, Rodrigo Granda. The two were in permanent contact through e-mail with the Colombian guerrilla providing kidnapping instructions. "Paraguay has an excellent relation with the US since the forties and without leaving aside Mercosur, I feel most positive about it; obviously without reaching the extreme of "carnal relations" as happened at the time of former Argentine Foreign Secretary Guido Di Tella", added Senator Carlos Matero Balmelli.

Finally Ms. Rachid highlighted that "an integration process is not an end in itself. If we dare think Mercosur is the magic wand for all problems and challenges, we're on the wrong track. We still have ahead all the block's asymmetries which remain unsolved".

However Paraguayan vice president Luis Castiglioni and the man seen as the mastermind for closer relations with Washington has been quoted several times saying that "Mercosur is only good for the photos and big declarations". Mercosur full members are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.