PARAGUAY: Torture Victim Still Fears Colorado Party ‘Mafia’ [View All]

[struggle4progress]

By Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 5 (IPS) - ...

Martí rejoiced at the victory of opposition candidate Fernando Lugo, a progressive Catholic bishop who was elected president in Paraguay on Apr. 20. But he still has mixed feelings of hope and fear. The election result was "an important step forward for democracy," but "not the beginning of a real process of change," he told IPS ...

On Jan. 17, 2002, Martí and Arrom were kidnapped in downtown Asunción, taken to a clandestine location, and brutally tortured for nearly two weeks by a group of 15 police and military personnel and criminal investigation agents belonging to the official Centre for Judicial Investigations (CIJ) ...

"After the military dictatorship, we didn’t think that the torture centres would continue to exist. We learned the hard way, by experience, and we were lucky to survive, when so many lost their lives," he said.

Martí and Arrom were rescued by relatives and human rights activists who mobilised during those two weeks, and managed to find the house on the outskirts of Asunción where they were being held, on Jan. 31. Finding the house surrounded by relatives and journalists who had been called to the scene, the kidnappers fled, leaving the two detainees behind ...

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42239