Brazil reminded Paraguay it can use the power it needs from the giant Itaipu hydro but there is a contract which regulates how to manage the surplus. A day earlier president Federico Franco said that Paraguay would not “yield” any more electricity to Brazil.
The Paraguayan government had decided to appeal before the International Court of Justice in The Hague the suspension imposed on Paraguay by the governments of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay as a sanction for the removal of Fernando Lugo as president of the country, last June 22.
The special Unasur commission that is monitoring and following political events in Paraguay since the removal of Fernando Lugo as president and his replacement by Federico Franco, is expected to make a first presentation next Thursday said Peruvian Foreign affairs minister Rafael Roncagliolo.
Brazilian Armed Forces began this week a major deployment along the borders of Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia involving 9.000 troops from the three services with the purpose of testing border security against smugglers mainly of arms and drugs and organized crime, said the Ministry of Defence.
Former Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo who was removed from office last June following a political impeachment in Congress said he can again be a presidential candidate in the coming April elections.
Fernando Lugo said he would appeal to the Inter American Court the whole political impeachment process in the Senate that ended with his removal from the Paraguayan presidency in less than 48 hours and with little chance of a defence.
Former president Jorge Batlle (2000/2005) said that the inclusion of Venezuela in Mercosur “is favourable for Uruguay” but at the same time insisted it was “wrongly done” for not having taken into account Paraguay’s opposition currently suspended as member of the regional block.
President Hugo Chavez said that the incorporation of Venezuela to Mercosur was “exemplary” because it never yielded to “blackmail” from the Paraguayan extreme right and revealed that he met with Paraguayan Senator Lino Oviedo, considered the mastermind behind those attempts.
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.
The Paraguayan government declared “illegal” and “null and void” the inclusion of Venezuela as a full member of Mercosur which was agreed on Tuesday during the extraordinary meeting held in Brasilia with the absence of Paraguay.