ASSUMPTION. Paraguayan deputies and senators rejected statements by the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defended his country’s military spending by ensuring that Paraguay “decided to invade” Brazil as the start of the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870), and accused the leftist leader of trying to “distort history.”
“Lula, you are speaking too lightly about the greatest tragedy in our history, the greatest genocide on our continent,” said the president of the Chamber of Deputies of Paraguay, the ruling party Raúl Latorre, quoted in an institutional statement released this Sunday.
Latorre indicated that the War of the Triple Alliance, which pitted his country against Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, caused the loss of 60% of the local population and 90% of its male population, “it had its beginnings with Brazil’s military intervention in Uruguay” and that the conflict “left Paraguay devastated.”
Lula: There are crazy people who want war
Last Friday, Lula advocated for “well-prepared and trained” Armed Forces as a deterrent power because, as he said, “there are crazy people in the world wanting to wage war,” while defending having “arms power” to “speak of peace.”
“We like peace, but we cannot forget that one day Paraguay decided to invade Brazil. It invaded Corumbá and, at the same time, it invaded Uruguay and, at the same time, Argentina. And that war, which seemed like it was not going to be a big deal, lasted five years,” the president said then.
The leftist’s statements also provoked the reaction of opposition deputy Rubén Rubín, who repudiated the statements and accused Lula of trying to “distort history.”
“A people that forgets its history allows others to rewrite it at their convenience. And that is precisely what Lula is trying to do today,” the deputy said on the X network on Saturday.
For her part, opposition senator Esperanza Martínez said on Saturday in
Likewise, opposition senator and historian Eduardo Nakayama stated on Friday in
