Paraguayan politicians are criticizing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) due to comments he made about the war fought between 1864 and 1870 and which involved the two countries, plus Argentina and Uruguay.
“We like peace, but we cannot forget that, one day, Paraguay decided to invade Brazil. It invaded Corumbá and, at the same time, invaded Uruguay and Argentina. And this war, which seemed like it would lead to nothing, lasted five years”, said Lula on Friday (24), on a visit to the company Avibras Aeroco, in Jacareí (SP), in a speech in which he addressed the need for Brazil to invest in defense.
The president of the Paraguayan Chamber of Deputies, Raúl Latorre, from the conservative Colorado Party (legend of President Santiago Peña), issued a statement commenting on the Brazilian president’s speech.
“President Lula, you are speaking very lightly about the greatest tragedy in our history and the greatest genocide on our continent,” he stated.
“You once said that you would end the war in Ukraine ‘with a beer’. Today, you are once again talking lightly about armed conflicts in the Americas; if you run out of jabuticabas, we can send you some”, he joked.
José Chilavert, former goalkeeper for the Paraguayan national team and former presidential candidate, was even more incisive. “Brazilians, expel this drunk and senile madman from the government. He knows nothing about history and, like every corrupt leftist, he LIES. Vote for Flavio Bolsonaro and the region will be grateful”, he wrote in X.
Senator Edu Nakayama, from the Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), in opposition to Peña, wrote in
Another senator, the leftist Esperanza Martínez, also wrote in
The Paraguayan War was started by Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano López, after Brazil intervened in Uruguay in a conflict that resulted in the deposition of the Blanco Party government, which was Solano López’s ally.