LATIN AMERICAN KNEE-JERK REACTIONS

The impeachment of former president Fernando Lugo of Paraguay has spawned a series of knee-jerk reactions by all of the other Mercosul countries, which is at the very least difficult to understand.

The impeachment process itself conforms in every possible way with the country's constitution and the vote against Lugo was overwhelming. The Congress voted 80 in favor of impeachment to 3 against and the Senate vote was 39 to 4. The general population is very satisfied with the results, so what's the big deal?

Lugo never had a majority government, was unpopular with the public and his administration was plagued with scandal and maladministration. The new president Federico Franco, in fact, appears to be more aligned with Brazilian interests than was his predeceasor.

When the history of all of the South American countries is filled with military coups and dictatorships, it appears that the democratic overthrowal of a government is something extremely frightening to politicians in neighboring countries.

Brazil, the largest country and economy in South America, appears to be sitting on its hands waiting to see what all the smaller countries are going to do. The Brazilian government sits back and watches while Mercosul suspends Paraguay from its upcoming meetings in Argentina and Hugo Chaves of Venezuela refuses to recognize the new government and has recalled their Ambassador. On the other hand, you can be sure that if Brazil had stepped forward in the very beginning with a strong statement supporting a democratic turn-over of the Paraguay presidency this whole tempest in a teapot probably would not be happening.

Once again it appears that DEMOCRACY is only a word found in dictionaries in the southern hemisphere and really does not have any significance; other than to scare the pants off of Latin American politicians who for the most part tend to think of themselves as being more powerful and important than GOD.