MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguay turns down Venezuelan oil – climate change “an absurdity”

Abdo then partially vetoed a bill allowing Petróleos Paraguayos (Petropar) to directly engage in the purchase of oil

Paraguay is making a statement as its stances on certain issues are being raised above circumstantial conditions that would advise against holding on no matter what to one's convictions.

President Mario Abdo Benítez Tuesday refused to enter negotiations with Venezuela for the purchase of fuel. “No way”, said Abdo. “Not for as long as Nicolás Maduro is president,” said the Paraguayan leader, whose country has chosen to disavow Maduro and has recognized Juan Guaidó as interim President.

“Paraguay has no relations with Venezuela,” added Abdo Benítez. Paraguay has a debt with Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).

The possibility of buying oil from the Caribbean country was raised by Senate Speaker Óscar Cachito Salomón as a delegation of Venezuelan parliamentarians was seeking to join Mercosur's Montevideo-based legislature (Parlasur).

Abdo then partially vetoed a bill allowing Petróleos Paraguayos (Petropar) to directly engage in the purchase of oil. The draft was returned to Congress for further study.

And over the weekend, organizers and participants of the Expo Rodeo Neuland fair in Paraguayan Chaco reiterated their pro-life and anti-climate change views.

The fair's opening ceremony was attended by Agriculture Minister Moisés Bertoni, Supreme Court Justice César Garay Zuccolillo, Rural Association of Paraguay (ARP) Pedro Galli, and other personalities and regional authorities.

Neuland Cooperative head Heinz Bartel announced his group would endorse all government initiatives, such as the educational reform, as long as they do not go against the fundamental values of life and family on which the Chaco society was founded, a position on which Galli concurred.

“We have a model of state and family that we want to protect and with that, we elaborated a Magna Carta, we agree with the educational reform but without subjugating Christian values,” he said.

On another point, Galli referred to the installed wave that touts the effects of climate change. “Our work and our activity is environmentally friendly. Our country should not talk about climate change mitigation, it is an absurdity imported from industrialized countries. We talk about climate change adaptation and we have a positive balance in carbon emissions,” he stressed.