Latin America on Tuesday gave strong backing to the Government of Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo, who complained on the eve a conspiracy to overthrow just three weeks after taking office.
Ambassadors from nine South American countries, Mexico and the Organization of American States (OAS) expressed support for the new representative during a meeting convened by Foreign Minister Alejandro Hamed, at the headquarters of the Paraguayan chancery.
Lugo hit the atmosphere on Monday when local politician accused the former president Nicanor Duarte and the retired general Lino Oviedo to try and use the armed forces to attack the institutions, a fact which he described as extremely serious.
"The countries present have expressed their unqualified support to the Government of President Fernando Lugo, the democratic process in Paraguay and its absolute respect for the country's internal affairs," he told journalists the Mexican ambassador, Ernesto Campos, after the encounter.
Campos, who officiated a spokesman for the meeting, said that the nations of the continent were willing to boost support any initiative within the framework of bodies such as the OAS, the Rio Group, Mercosur and the Andean Community.
"For Ecuador this situation is very sensitive, not only because of its proximity to Paraguay and the government of President Lugo but because democracy is not a game", for its part said the diplomatic representative of Quito, Julio Cesar Prado.
Brazil, Argentina and Chile expressed their concern over the situation in Paraguay communicated their respective foreign ministries.
The complaint
Lugo said that the high-ranking general was summoned to a meeting attended Duarte, Oviedo, the holder of Congress, the Attorney General and a judge of the supreme electoral tribunal to be explored on a conflict that remains stalled in the Senate.
The military, Max Diaz, who serves as a link between the Congress and the Armed Forces, said that Oviedo was consulted on the position of the military forces regarding the crisis, a fact that Lugo considered a threat to democracy.
"Clearly that is attempting to alter the institutional order. We believe that this will not happen because the armed forces are subordinate to civilian authority," said Interior Minister, Rafael Filizzola, at a press conference at the headquarters of the Government.
"I can not assess whether or not there was an attempted coup. It is not my best to evaluate that. I recounts the facts, who were there and why I should not be there," said for his part, General Diaz.
Is deception?
Both Duarte as Oviedo, two important political leaders opponents of the government center of Lugo, assured that the president was misled by their environment.
"There are groups close to the president that Lugo, the old-style Latin American tyrannies, invented a story of conspiracy to pave the way for the Suppression of outrage, the annihilation of the opponent," said Duarte.
Most of those mentioned by the ruler as attending the conclave denied its involvement, while Oviedo, a former army chief accused of coup-said that he met Duarte at his home to discuss political arrangements in departmental governments.
"We are using (Lugo) (...) can not be a president so irresponsible as to launch an accusation some of this magnitude (...) its worst enemies are those who surround him," said the newspaper Ultima Hora Oviedo .
Peasant Organizations convened a mobilization in Asuncion on Thursday to show their support for the president, a former Catholic bishop who destronó in the polls at the conservative Colorado Party after more than six decades of government.
