Evo Morales Condemns Coup Attempt in Paraguay

Rio de Janeiro, June 21 (Prensa Latina) President of Bolivia Evo Morales expressed today his strongest condemnation of the attempted parliamentary coup brewing in the Paraguayan Congress against President Fernando Lugo.

Morales made his remarks in the wake of a decision by the Paraguayan Congress, at the urging of the Rural Association of Paraguay and its Congressional members from the Colorado Party, to impeach President Lugo after Friday's events in Curuguaty, where six police officers and 11 farmers were killed in clashes over land evictions.

Morales said that the decision by the Paraguayan Congress is a right-wing strategy aimed at toppling Lugo and checking the political process he has begun in favor of the poorest and most excluded in that country, the landless indigenous people.

He urged the indigenous and social movements in Latin America to defend the democratic process in Paraguay and defend President Lugo, according to a press release issued from the Government Palace in Bolivia.

Morales, who is attending the Rio+20 Summit in Brazil, said that the parliamentary coup d'etat underway in Paraguay is also an attack against the governments of the region that are implementing deep political, economical, social and cultural transformations that affect the most powerful.