A Decade After Lugo Was Ousted, Paraguay’s Left Has a Chance to Regain Power
The 2012 coup against Fernando Lugo cut short the only period of left-wing rule in Paraguay’s modern history. But in elections next year, the country’s progressives have their best shot in years at unseating the corrupt, reactionary Colorado Party.
June 22 marks a decade since Fernando Lugo, a leftist former bishop who headed Paraguay’s only progressive government in living memory, was removed in a rapid parliamentary coup. (Antônio Cruz / Agência Brasil)
The sound of the helicopter announced the inevitable: the police were back, this time ready to shoot to kill. After a tense standoff, the bodies suddenly began to fall. It was a clash of machetes, horses, and high-powered rifles on one side versus rusty old shotguns on the other, while the women and children fled their tents. The red earth witnessed a massacre of eleven campesinos and six police officers that is still, ten years later, yet to be fully investigated.
June 22 marks a decade since Fernando Lugo, a leftist former bishop who headed Paraguay’s only progressive government in living memory, was removed in a rapid parliamentary coup in the aftermath of this rural bloodbath. The killings of June 15, 2012, came amid an occupation by landless farmers at Marina Kue, in Curuguaty, eastern Paraguay. They were followed by more murders of campesino leaders and a trial plagued by irregularities.
Conservative forces also used the botched eviction at Marina Kue as a pretext to impeach Lugo, in proceedings that lasted barely a few hours. Progressive governments across Latin America branded it a coup; even conservative Chile and Colombia recalled their ambassadors.
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