Paraguay, 2000 — dissident coup attempt

Event Summary

The dataset records an event coded as an attempted dissident coupi in Paraguay on 18 May 2000 against President Luis Gonzalez Macchi, in a plot linked to the exiledi former general Lino Oviedo, the disgraced coup leader whose ambitions had destabilized Paraguayan politics since 1996. Oviedo, then a fugitive from prosecution over his 1996 rebellion and the 1999 assassination of Vice President Luis Maria Argana, retained a following in the armed forces. On 18 May 2000 a group of soldiers and cavalry units, reportedly loyal to Oviedo, rose in a coup attempt, seizing tanks and moving on the capital Asuncion and the congress in a bid to topple the fragile government that had emerged from the March 1999 crisis.

But the revolt was suppressed within hours by forces loyal to Gonzalez Macchi, and the government reasserted control, arresting or scattering the plotters. Gonzalez Macchi survived, and the failed coup further discredited Oviedo's cause. Paraguay's young democracy, repeatedly shaken by Oviedo-linked turmoil through the late 1990s and early 2000s, weathered this challenge as it had the earlier ones, preserving constitutional continuity.