The unmitigated gall of a Paraguayan dictator

Can you believe the nerve of this guy?

The president of Paraguay, Federico Franco, called the death of Hugo Chávez a “miracle” today during a speech at a forum in Madrid.

“It’s a miracle that Mr. Chávez disappeared off the face of the Earth because he did a lot of damage to my country,” said Franco at a breakfast press conference in a central hotel in the Spanish capital, during a two-day working visit.

The Paraguayan president claimed that Chávez’s Venezuela gave “protection” to members of the Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP), and for that reason blamed the late head of state “for kidnappings and deaths” caused by the guerrilla group.

Franco replaced President Fernando Lugo in June, after the latter was ousted in a controversial political trial which caused Mercosur and Unasur to suspend Paraguay’s membership, considering the ouster to have broken the constitutional order.

Today in Madrid he justified his appointment as head of state with a supposed attempt to destabilize Paraguay on the part of Venezuela and Chávez. “Paraguay is not a territory for Bolivarian ideas,” he said. “We conquered ‘Bolivarism’ thanks to the censure motion.”

He rejected the notion that he had arrived in power thanks to a coup d’état, saying that his mandate is 14 months, and that he could not run in the presidential elections of April 21. “I am not sorry, nor am I ashamed, to have obtained the presidency in those conditions,” he said.

Franco, who was received in La Moncloa by the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, invited Spanish business leaders to invest in his country, assuring them that they could “carry the money out in a wheelbarrow.”

Paraguay will have more than 10% GDP growth this year and “has never nationalized Spanish businesses,” he said, alluding to the expropriations last year in Argentina and Bolivia.

Translation mine.

So, to recap:

He came into office totally illegitimately, but he isn’t ashamed of the fact. He pisses on the grave of an honorable president who isn’t there to defend himself. He makes false accusations (strangely similar to those made by El Narco, regarding the FARC) with no evidence to back them (because none exists, duh). Unasur and Mercosur have both ostracized Paraguay, and its economy is seriously hurting, as a direct result of this two-bit fascist’s “constitutional” coup against a popular, democratically elected leader. His 14-month reign of terror has been nothing short of a democratic and economic disaster. And yet he comes to Spain, cock in hand, to tell the local businessbastards that the GDP is set to grow 10%, and they can come with wheelbarrows to rob Paraguayans blind with impunity?

And he has the chutzpah to say Paraguay is no place for Bolivarian ideas? On the contrary, it’s more than ripe for them.

And fascist motherfucker is entirely too kind a thing to call Federico Fucking Franco.

UPDATE: The Government of Venezuela has rejected the declarations of Franco. Minister of Exterior Relations, Elías Jaua, says that Franco “is the latest putschist in Latin America who cannot attend any meeting in Latin American or Caribbean space because he is the heir of the darkest tradition of the region.” (That “tradition” being the fascist Stroessner military dictatorship, the longest lived in Latin America.) Jaua adds that “Whoever rejoices in the death of another human being demonstrates the most profound expression of human misery.” Very diplomatically put; I can’t think of many people more miserable and disgusting than Federico Fucking Franco right now.