Luis María Argaña
Vice President of Paraguay[1]
In office
August 15, 1998 – March 23, 1999
PresidentRaúl Cubas Grau
Preceded byÁngel Seifart
Succeeded byJulio César Franco
Personal details
Born(1932-10-03)October 3, 1932
Asunción, Paraguay
DiedMarch 23, 1999(1999-03-23) (aged 66)
Asunción
Political partyColorado Party
Argaña (right) with Genaro Sánchez on the anniversary of the founding of the Colorado Party in 1996.
Argaña (second from left) with close members of his Reconciliación Colorada movement.

Luis María del Corazón de Jesús Dionisio Argaña Ferraro (October 3, 1932 – March 23, 1999)[2] was a Paraguayan politician and jurist. A prominent and influential member of the Colorado Party, he was a Supreme Court judge, unsuccessfully ran for the Colorado Party's nomination for president in the 1993 election and eventually was elected Vice-President in the 1998 election, but was assassinated seven months after assuming office in March 1999 at a time when it appeared likely that he would inherit the presidency from Raúl Cubas, who was on the verge of being impeached. The incident and its aftermath is known in Paraguay as Marzo paraguayo ("the Paraguayan March"). An airport in Paraguay, Dr. Luis María Argaña International Airport, is named for him.

Career

Argaña graduated in law and social sciences from the Universidad Nacional de Asunción in 1958.[2] He became a Professor at the University, and entered politics, becoming a member of the Chamber of Deputies of Paraguay. He also became a judge, and was President of the Supreme Court of Paraguay (1983 - 1988).[2]

During 1989-1990 he served as Foreign Minister.[3]

Argaña was a judge during Paraguay's long-lasting military dictatorship under Alfredo Stroessner. He has been accused of turning a blind eye to cases of torture and political killings. Stroessner dissident Joel Filártiga accused Argaña of blocking the screening in Paraguay of the 1991 TV movie One Man's War, depicting Filártiga's search for justice for the 1976 death of his son at the hands of Stroessner's secret police.

Despite his long identification with Stroessner, Argaña was a member of the "traditionalist" faction of the Colorados, which had come to favor a more humane way of ruling the country. Soon after stepping down from the Supreme Court, he accused Stroessner of running a police state, and claimed that "imposters" had taken over the party. He went on to say that those who persecuted defenseless women or attacked priests were not really Paraguayans, let alone Colorados. He soon emerged as the de facto leader of the traditionalist faction.[4] Nonetheless, during the democratic era, Argaña was criticised for bringing Stroessner's era officials back to political life through his faction Colorado Reconciliation Movement, and uring his bid to become the Colorado candidate for president in the 1993 elections, he publicly vowed that if elected, he would allow Stroessner to return from exile.

1993 election

Argaña ran a bid for the Colorado Party's nominee for president in the 1993 election. Although leading opinion polling at one point,[5] he lost the Colorado Party primary to Juan Carlos Wasmosy who went on to win the 1993 general election. In January 2008, however, Paraguayan congressman Juan Carlos "Calé" Galaverna admitted to committing electoral fraud in the December 1992 Colorado primary elections to prevent Argaña from winning.[6][7]

1998 election as Vice-President

He tried again to obtain the party's presidential nomination for the 1998 election, losing in a bitterly contested primary election against General Lino Oviedo. Due to Oviedo's involvement in a failed coup attempt in 1996, Oviedo was imprisoned before the 1998 general election. Oviedo's running mate, Raúl Cubas, replaced Oviedo on the Colorado ticket, but lacked the widespread support that Oviedo commanded. Argaña was selected as Cubas' running mate, the pair subsequently being elected to office by a wide margin.[2]

1999 assassination

There was widespread belief that Cubas, a relatively weak political leader, was merely a puppet for the disgraced General Oviedo. One of Cubas' first acts as president was to grant Oviedo a pardon from prison, defying the Supreme Court. Shortly thereafter, the Chamber of Deputies of Paraguay voted to charge Cubas with abuse of power, and began investigations that would ultimately lead to formal impeachment proceedings. Had Cubas been removed from office, Argaña was set to succeed him as president.

However, on the morning of March 23, 1999, Argaña was killed after assailants ambushed the vice president's vehicle just outside his Asunción home, peppering the SUV with multiple rounds of gunfire before escaping. President Cubas ordered a lockdown of the country's borders. In the wake of the killing and the subsequent riots that took place in the capital area, Cubas' support melted away. The Chamber of Deputies impeached him by an overwhelming margin. Facing all-but-certain conviction and removal from office by the Senate, Cubas resigned on March 28, fleeing the country and seeking and ultimately being granted political asylum in neighboring Brazil. Senate president Luis Ángel González Macchi, who was next in line for the presidency after Argaña's death, served out the balance of Cubas' term.

Argaña's assassination has never been fully resolved, but popular theory holds that the ousted General Oviedo (who had been granted asylum in Argentina shortly after his release from prison) masterminded the crime. Although Cubas was generally viewed to be easily manipulated by Oviedo's influence, his impeachment would mean Argaña, one of Oviedo's staunchest political rivals, would become president. The belief that Argaña was assassinated to prevent an Oviedo opponent from running the country was strengthened when Congress sought to extradite the general from Argentina, without success.

On October 23, 1999, Pablo Vera Esteche was arrested in Paraguay. He said the murder, for which he and two other gunmen were paid a total of $300,000, was authorised by Cubas and Oviedo.[8] Vera Esteche was sentenced to 20 years on October 24 (reduced to 18 years four years later). His accomplices were also jailed for lengthy sentences.[9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Joshua Abreu, Project Paraguay, Luis Maria Argaña Archived 2014-11-14 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ Biography of Luis María Argaña - Rulers.org
  3. ↑ Introduction to Paraguay: A Country Study
  4. ↑ Brooke, James (1992-12-13). "Long Shadow on Paraguay Vote: Stroessner". The New York Times.
  5. ↑ "Calé admite responsabilidad en fraude de internas de 92" [Calé admits responsibility in fraud of primaries of '92]. ABC Color (in Spanish). 9 January 2008.
  6. ↑ "Galaverna admite que hubo fraude electoral en la interna de 1992" [Galaverna admits there was electoral fraud in the 1992 primaries]. Última Hora (in Spanish). 9 January 2008.
  7. ↑ The Miami Herald, October 29, 1999, Arrested gunman implactes Oviedo, Cubas in Argaña assassination
  8. ↑ "Autor confeso de asesinato de Luis María Argaña podría quedar libre por orden de juez". Última Hora (in Spanish). March 20, 2012.
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