Simple directory > Regional > Paraguay

Country : Paraguay Official name: República del Paraguay (Republic of Paraguay) Head of State: President Nicanor Duarte Frutos (ANR) (sworn in 15 Aug 2003) Head of government: President Nicanor Duarte Frutos Ruling party: Asociación Nacional Republicana/Partido Colorado (ANR) (National Republican Alliance/Red Party) (elected 27 Apr 2003) Area: 406,752 square km Population: 5.85 million (2004) Capital: Asunción Official language: Spanish and Guaraní Currency: Guaraní (G) Exchange rate: G6,105.00 per US$ (Nov 2004) GDP per capita: US$921 (2003) GDP real growth: 1.00% (2003) Labour force: 2.00 million (2003) Unemployment: 18.20% (2003) Inflation: 15.60% (2003) Balance of trade: -US$215.00 million (2003) Foreign debt: US$3.20 billion (2003)

Historical profile

1811 Paraguay gained independence from Spain.

1864–70 A disastrous war against Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay halved Paraguay's population and stripped it of 155,400 square km of land.

1870 Occupation forces set up a provisional government with a liberal-democratic constitution, although the constitution was never put into practice.

1880s Two political parties emerged: the Partido Colorado (PC) (Colorado Party), representing the aristocracy which had supported the war, and the Liberals, who advocated a minimal state and representative government. The parties were divided less by ideology than by heredity and personality.

1883 Colorado government began driving peasants off the land and sold it to foreign investors.

1904 Civil war resulted in a Liberal government.

1932–35 Chaco War with Bolivia. Paraguay gained a large part of the Chaco region, but the land was mainly arid and infertile.

1936 The army overthrew the government of Eusobio Ayala and installed war hero Rafael Franco as president, an act that virtually destroyed the Liberals as a political force. The Febrerista government, led by communists, liberals and fascists, instituted labour rights and land reform.

1937 Conservative factions of the army, backed by foreign investors, overthrew the Franco government and installed an authoritarian government.

1938 Treaty signed between Bolivia and Paraguay following an international peace conference. It gave most of the disputed land back to Bolivia.

1940 The military regime installed Higinio Morínigo, a follower of Adolf Hitler, as president.

1946 Following the defeat of Germany and Japan, Paraguay's chief trading partners, Morínigo legalised liberal, communist and Febrerista parties.

1947 Paraguay descended into civil war, following the emergence of political divisions within the army.

1948 The PC deposed Morínigo, leading to a series of coups and short-lived regimes.

1949 Federico Chaves became president.

1954 General Alfredo Stroessner seized power.

1989 Stroessner was deposed in a bloodless coup by General Antonio Rodríguez who then won the presidential election.

1993 Juan Carlos Wasmosy (PC) was elected president for a five-year term, Paraguay's first civilian president for almost 50 years.

1998 Raúl Cubas Grau (PC) won the presidential election.

1999 Cubas resigned, following the assassination of his vice president, Luís Argaña. He was replaced as president by the senate leader, Luis González Macchi.

2000 Supporters of dissident Colorado leader, Lino Oviedo, staged an unsuccessful and bloodless coup attempt. Oviedo was found at a hideout on the Brazilian border and arrested by Brazilian police.

2001 The Brazilian supreme court rejected Oviedo's extradition.

2002 Oviedo launched his bid for the presidency in advance of elections.

2003 In February, President Luis González Macchi survived an impeachment trial; the Senate voted 25-18 against him, short of the two-thirds majority (30 votes) necessary to remove him from power. Nicanor Duarte Frutos won the April presidential elections.

2004 In June, former military commander, General Oviedo, was arrested at the airport after returning from exile in Brazil.

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