MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguay urges OAS to take a position on the country’s situation

Forty days have passed since the political impeachment said Ambassador Saguier

Paraguay urged the Organization of American States, OAS, on Wednesday to say whether it will be taking measures or not against the country following the removal of Fernando Lugo from the presidency, a political incident that has reverberated in the whole continent.

“Paraguay can’t go on waiting eternally for a decision. We have been very flexible on the matter” said Paraguayan ambassador before OAS Bernardino Saguier during a meeting of the continental organization at its headquarters in Washington.

Although the ambassador admitted that there was no consensus yet among member countries, he regretted the OAS had yet to make a statement on the political impeachment of Lugo by the Paraguayan congress that had him removed and replaced by his Vice president Federico Franco.

A group of countries under the leadership of Venezuela including Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia has proposed to suspend Paraguay from OAS, but another group with the US, Canada and Mexico want to carefully check and balance any decision.

“For us there is urgency in making a decision on the issue and convening a meeting that is conclusive” so as to give Paraguay certainty, said the Mexican ambassador, Jose Hernandez, who as most of the 34 delegates supports the idea of holding a special meeting next August 22.

The president from the Permanent Council, the OAS political body, Jamaica’s Stephen Vasciannie pledged that the date would be confirmed ‘very soon’, once all countries give their OK.

OAS has already held three extraordinary meetings on the Paraguayan situation.

Ambassador Seguier underlined on Wednesday that Paraguay lives “in peace and calm, in an absolutely normal situation with full implementation of institutions and absolute respect for all political and human rights”.

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza who headed a fact finding mission to Paraguay three weeks ago stated personally, that he was against the OAS suspending the country because of the economic implications which it would entail.

However Unasur and Mercosur effectively suspended Paraguay until the next general election scheduled for April 2013, in reprisal for what they described as a “democratic rupture” of the country’s institutional process.