Paraguay's Foreign Minister Has Ties to Dictatorship-Era Crimes

Paraguay's Foreign Minister was old enough to be part of the human rights violations carried out during the military dictatorship in the 1970s, and indeed served as a state official during the time, investigative journal Ultima Hora noted on Tuesday in response to the official claim he was “about 12 years old” at the time.

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One day earlier, Foreign Minister Eladio Loizaga said he must have been about 12, responding to accusations Friday from his Venezuelan counterpart, Delcy Rodriguez.

“Yesterday, Plan Condor's official ... today, member of the Triple Alliance, re-editing the sad anti-South-American role,” she said then, as Paraguay froze diplomatic relations with Venezuela to prevent it from assuming Mercosur's presidency as planned.

“I appreciate (Rodriguez) very much. I won't respond to her, the circumstances don't force me to. (Her allegations) don't affect me at all. My conscience is clean,” Loizaga, adding he was about 12 then.

However, the foreign minister was actually in his late 20s, having been born in 1949, while the Condor Plan was at its peak in 1975.

According to Ultima Hora, he even actively participated in the Operation Condor—a campaign of state terror including torture, forced disappearances and assassinations of leftist opponents.

A document released by the legislative commission Truth and Justice, set up under popular pressure when the dictatorship collapsed, Loizaga started his professional career as a state official of the Foreign Ministry during the dictatorship.

Other documents demonstrate that he worked on the 12th Latin-American Anti-Communist Congress in 1979 and was a member of the World Anti-Communist League.