Paraguay's Awful History

Paraguay's Awful History: The Never-Ending War -- The Economist

How a terrible but little-known conflict continues to shape and blight a nation.

THE fall of the “father of all Paraguayans” was even more abrupt than his rise. In 2008 Fernando Lugo, a Catholic bishop and liberation theologian who called himself a champion of the poor, won his country’s presidential election and broke the Colorado Party’s chokehold on power. Shortly after his inauguration, however, four women said that he had fathered their children while under a vow of celibacy; Mr Lugo recognised two of them. The Liberal party, whose support had propelled him to the presidency, repudiated him. In June 2012 Congress summarily removed him from office, after he was accused of mishandling a clash between police and landless peasants.

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My Comment: The part of this post that caught my eye was the following ....

.... The war, known in Paraguay as the “War of ’70” or the “Great War”, was among the worst military defeats ever inflicted on a modern nation state. According to Thomas Whigham of the University of Georgia, as much as 60% of the population and 90% of Paraguayan men died from combat or, more often, from disease and starvation. Other researchers put the figure considerably lower—but still atrociously high.

We sometimes forget that past wars were incredibly destructive, claiming millions of lives and devastating entire communities. But what is surprising is that it happened in our hemisphere .... and historically speaking .... not too long ago,