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Luis María del Corazón de Jesús Dionisio Argaña Ferraro (born October 9, 1932, in Asunción – died March 23, 1999, in Asunción) was a prominent politician in Paraguay and influential member of the Colorado Party until his assassination in 1999.

Luis Argaña served in a number of important national positions during previous administrations before running an ultimately unsuccessful bid for president in the country's 1998 election, losing in a bitterly contested primary election against General Lino Oviedo. Due to the General's involvement in a failed coup attempt in 1996, Oviedo was imprisoned before the 1998 general election. Oviedo's running mate, Raúl Cubas, replaced Oveido on the Colorado Party ticket, but lacked the widespread support that Oviedo commanded. Luis Argaña was selected as Cubas' running mate, the pair subsequently being elected to office by a wide margin.

There was widespread belief that Cubas, a relatively weak political leader, was merely a puppet for the disgraced General Oviedo, and one of Cubas' first actions as president was to grant Oviedo a pardon from prison, defying the Supreme Court. Shortly thereafter, the Chamber of Deputies 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, assailants ambushed the vice president's vehicle just outside of his Asunción home on the morning of March 23, 1999, 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 certain removal from office, Cubas resigned the presidency on March 28, fleeing the country and seeking and ultimately being granted political asylum in neighboring Brazil.

Argaña's assassination has never been solved, 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.

Criticism[link]

Argaña was a judge during Paraguay's most recent military dictatorship. His career attracted the attention of General Stroessner himself, who appointed him to head the judicial system. He has been accused of turning a blind eye to cases of torture and political killings. In recent years, former dissident Dr. Joel Filártiga accused Argaña of blocking the screening in Paraguay of the TV movie One Man's War, starring Anthony Hopkins, Rubén Blades, Norma Aleandro and Fernanda Torres, which depict one such trials.

As a candidate, Argaña has been criticised for bringing Stroessner's era officials back to political life, through his faction Colorado Reconciliation Movement.

External links[link]

• Official website of the assassination of Argaña (Spanish)

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Raúl Alberto Cubas Grau (born August 23, 1943 in Asunción) is a Paraguayan politician. He served as the President of Paraguay from 1998 until 1999. He was a member of the Colorado Party. Prior to standing for election, he worked as an electrical engineer, and served as finance minister of Paraguay from 1993 until his resignation in April 1996.

When the 1998 campaign began, army general Lino Oviedo named Cubas as his running mate. However, a few months before the election, Oviedo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in a 1996 coup and was disqualified. Cubas took his place on the ballot and won the May 1998 election with 54% of the vote under the slogan "Cubas in government, Oviedo in power." To date, it is the only time since the restoration of democracy in Paraguay that a presidential candidate has won an outright majority.

In June, the Paraguayan Congress passed a law that said that the president could not pardon anyone who had not served at least half of his or her prison term. In August, however, three days after his inauguration, Cubas reduced Oviedo’s sentence to the time already served, then released him from jail. Despite an order from the Paraguayan Supreme Court in December 1998, Cubas refused to send Oviedo back to jail. In response, the Chamber of Deputies voted to charge Cubas with abuse of power in February 1999. The vote was only two votes short of that necessary for a formal impeachment.

Cubas' vice-president, Luis María Argaña, who had been named as Cubas' running mate to prevent the Colorados from losing power but was leading the anti-Oviedo bloc in the Colorado Party, was brutally murdered in March 1999, allegedly as a result of a dispute over the Oviedo release. His murder was allegedly done by a group with ties to Oviedo. Cubas was implicated and protests broke out. Thousands participated in public demonstrations led by striking workers, demanding that Cubas resign. Security forces were called out. Seven people were shot to death and dozens were injured when the demonstrations turned violent.

Cubas' support virtually collapsed. The day after the assassination, the Chamber of Deputies voted overwhelmingly to impeach Cubas. Facing certain conviction and removal from office by the Senate, Cubas resigned on March 28, 1999 and fled to Brazil. (A court later ordered Oviedo back to prison.) He returned to Paraguay in 2002 and was immediately arrested and tried for conspiracy to murder Argaña.

In October 2004, his daughter Cecilia Cubas was kidnapped by gunmen near her Asuncion apartment. Paraguayan security forces began an intense search for her, and Cubas paid a ransom of US$800,000. However, her body was found in the basement of a house outside Asunción in February 2005. She was 32 years old. Four men were arrested, including one with alleged ties to the Colombian rebel movement FARC. In July 2006 two suspects of the crime were granted refugee status in neighboring Bolivia. [1]

External links[link]

• Cecila Cubas body found - MSNBC

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