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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
Paraguay: Human Rights Watch
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Human Rights Watch World Report 1992
Americas Watch: Paraguay
</hdr>
<body>
<p>Human Rights Developments
</p>
<p> Elections in Paraguay in 1991 marked an important step
toward the consolidation of democracy. Three months following
the 1989 overthrow of longtime dictator General Alfredo
Stroessner, coup leader General Andrés Rodríguez had held a
quick election to legitimize his power. However, nationwide
municipal elections held on May 26, 1991, were in some respects
more significant. Not only were municipal officials elected for
the first time in Paraguay's history--previously they were
appointed by the president--but the triumph of a leftist
candidate in Asunción represented the first real test of
President Rodríguez's promise to permit political pluralism.
</p>
<p> By honoring the election results, the Rodríguez government
reinforced Paraguay's democratic direction as it encouraged
broad sectors of civil society to participate in a national
debate over the country's future constitution. On December 1,
voters elected delegates to the convention charged with
rewriting the constitution, a task which will take between 120
and 180 days.
</p>
<p> Another unquestionable sign of change was the convening of
the first public congress of the Paraguayan Communist Party in
July. Espousing Marxist ideas remains a criminal offense under
the current Constitution. Official tolerance of the Communists'
legal activities was greeted by most sectors as an indication
that President Rodríguez seriously intends to guarantee
political rights.
</p>
<p> However, there were also less auspicious developments in
1991. The problem of "land invasions," as they are known in
Paraguay, exploded beginning in 1989 as landless peasants
assumed that democracy would bring agrarian reform. The
government has reacted with violence, including beatings, to
expel thousands of peasants who have dared to move onto large
estates (latifundios) that are eligible under Paraguayan law for
expropriation. Evictions often occur without judicial warrant.
Homes and crops are systematically destroyed. The peasants'
tools and other belongings have been stolen by the police and
soldiers. Community leaders have been arrested and held for days
and sometimes weeks without proper judicial procedures. Hired
gunmen have begun to operate with considerable impunity in rural
areas, threatening and in a few cases killing peasant leaders.
</p>
<p> Rural gunmen in 1991 also intimidated and in one case killed
reporters investigating contraband and drug dealings. On April
25, Journalists' Day in Paraguay, civilian gunmen shot and
killed Santiago Leguizamón, a correspondent for the daily
Noticias and an announcer for local radio station Radio
Mburucuyá. The murder took place in the rural district of
Amambay and came after the reporter had received a series of
death threats warning him to stop investigating narcotics and
contraband activities in the area. The journalists' union had
sent a letter to the minister of interior requesting protection
for Leguizamón before his death. Despite a May 1 march organized
by the labor confederation to demand the detention and
punishment of those responsible, the investigating judge has
taken a largely passive approach to the case so far, and the
investigation is stalled.
</p>
<p> Other journalists have also been systematically harassed by
gunmen. Héctor Guerrín, correspondent for ABC Color in Ciudad
del Este, Alto Paraná, published a series of articles about a
clandestine airstrip on the property of an important local
politician of the ruling Colorado party. Some thirty gunmen who
guard the property have physically threatened Guerrín with
death, and harassed him in his home and office. Guerrín has
given an investigating judge the names of the individuals
involved, but no legal action has been taken to prevent further
violence. A parliamentary delegation attempting to carry out an
on-site investigation was also confronted by the armed guards
and told at gunpoint that they must immediately leave.
</p>
<p> The government has not adequately addressed the problems of
lengthy pretrial delays and police beatings of prisoners.
According to lawyers from the Tekojoja Foundation, of the 1,420
inmates in Tacumbú National Prison, only 142 have been
convicted of a crime. In the rehabilitation institution for
minors, La Emboscada, only three of the more than 140 inmates
have been convicted. Many of these prisoners were forced to
sign confessions under torture during the Stroessner era. The
great majority of prisoners are eventually released once they
serve the maximum jail term for the crime they are accused of
committing. But those released under these circumstances have
their identification cards stamped with a mark that, for the
police and future employers, is tantamount to a previous
conviction, even though the former prisoners never received a
trial.
</p>
<p> Numerous incidents of severe beating of men, women and
adolescents in police precincts throughout the country were
reported in 1991. Human rights lawyers report an increasing
numbers of minors subjected to torture, and complain that
prison authorities in the detention center for minors do not
cooperate in facilitating medical exams to confirm injuries.
</p>
<p> Reports were also received that the military continues to
detain minors under the minimum draft age of seventeen and to
induct them into the military. For example, sixteen-year-old
Claudio Norberto Cuevas disappeared and was later found
forcibly serving in a military barracks in Mariscal Estigarriba.
On June 10, the newspaper ABC Color reported that the boy had
been shot and killed.
</p>
<p> The courts are currently investigating over a dozen cases of
torture and assassination from the Stroessner era. While
Paraguay is the only new democracy in the Southern Cone in which
no amnesty law protects those responsible for committing abuses
during past regimes, trials have generally not moved forward.
Only one case, regarding the murder of Mario Schaerer Prono,
has reached the trial stage. Four police officials are in
detention awaiting the decision, although press reports indicate
that at least two of these infamous torturers have been seen
walking the streets of Asunción. Most observers believe they are
given special privileges and are allowed to return to their
homes on weekends.
</p>
<p>The Right to Monitor
</p>
<p> Several nongovernmental human rights groups now operate in
Paraguay, generally without interference. However, three
leading human rights lawyers involved in judicial prosecution
of police responsible for past human rights violations reported
receiving numerous telephoned and written death threats. The
lawyers, Pedro Darío Portillo, Rodolfo Manuel Aseretto and
Francisco de Vargas, (de Vargas is also a congressman for the
opposition Authentic Radical Liberal Party.) formally demanded
an investigation in March. On March 10 unidentified gunmen
opened fire on de Vargas's home.
</p>
<p>U.S. Policy
</p>
<p> Over the last several years, Americas Watch has applauded
the stance taken by the U.S. Embassy in Asunción on human
rights issues. Ambassador Timothy Towell did not hesitate to
condemn human rights violations publicly, and most recently, in
February 1991, denounced the threats received by journalist
Hector Guerrín and a parliamentary delegation involved in an
investigation of an illegal airstrip in Alto Parana.
</p>
<p> The new U.S. ambassador, John Glassman, has continued this
tradition, despite criticism in the Paraguayan press that he is
paternalistic and interventionist. Ambassador Glassman has been
active in the defense of press freedoms and, in September,
intervened in two separate cases in which journalists had been
charged with slander by private citizens closely linked to the
government. In one of those cases, the ambassador's expression
of outrage brought about the release from custody through a
judicial pa