Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Concepción (Agenzia Fides) – The Vicar General of the diocese of Concepción (Paraguay) Bishop Pablo Caceres, told local media that a recent clash between the armed forces and members of Ejército Popular de Paraguay (EPP) was nothing less than an “execution” of country people "who have nothing to do with the armed guerrilla group ".
According to a report sent to Fides by a local source, a government statement issued Saturday 6 September said that the night before a man, a presumed member of the EPP, was killed in an exchange of fire with army troops in which two more presumed members of the armed group were wounded, one of whom died later in hospital .
The government representative said the exchange of fire took place in a wooded area near Kurusu de Hierro, in Concepcion, when troops of the Fuerza de Tarea de Conjunta (FTC), comprising army members and police, attacked a house where a meeting was taking place between the three persons shot and 8 presumed members of the guerrilla.
Bishop Cáceres and the family of the presumed guerrillas, denied that they had anything to do with the EPP.
"I visited the home of the Ovelar family where the two persons were murdered. There can be no excuse for the behaviour of the army. It was an execution, for which there can be no explanation. We saw signs of more than 200 gunshots", the Bishop said.
Police and army members had intervened on the basis information received regarding a member of the EPP with the same name as the family owners of the raided house. Bishop Cáceres rejects the government version that the group of persons returned fire to the police and army raid. The Bishop added "The peasants could not have returned the fire. They had no weapons, not even knives ".
"I fail to understand how such behaviour can be defended. Terrorism can never be combatted with terrorism. The people fear the guerrillas, but now they fear also the army ", the Vicar General concluded.
(CE) (Agenzia Fides, 15/09/2014)
