Paraguay 2003

Paraguay Border Map

In 2003, Paraguay was a small country located in South America. It had a population of around 6 million people, primarily speaking Spanish and several other local languages. According to computergees, the capital city was Asunción, which is home to the Government Palace and several other important government buildings and monuments. The economy relied heavily on its agricultural sector with soybeans and beef being the main export items. Tourism was also popular due to its stunning landscapes, vibrant culture and historical sites such as the Jesuit Missions of La Santisima Trinidad de Paraná. In addition to its natural beauty, Paraguay had a unique cultural heritage with traditional music, cuisine and art that blended influences from Latin America with those from Europe. Despite its many challenges including poverty in 2003, Paraguay remained a vibrant country that held great promise for its future generations.

Yearbook 2003

Paraguay. The winner of the April 27 presidential election became, as expected, Nicanor Duarte Frutos of the Colorado Party, a party that has held the presidential office uninterrupted since 1947. Duarte Frutos won 38% of the vote before former Vice President Julio César Franco of PLRA (Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico). However, the result of the Senate elections held at the same time meant that the president did not get his own majority.

According to Countryaah.com, Paraguay Independence Day is May 14. President Duarte Frutos announced early on his intentions to curb corruption, and on October 24, Congress decided to bring six of the nine members of the Supreme Court to justice. Even the late President Luis González Macchi, who passed a second vote in congressional law in Congress as late as February, was prosecuted along with his wife for corruption and embezzlement during his term. Among other things, a transfer of $ 16 million was made from P’s central bank to a private account in the US. But even after two months, the new government was shaken by a corruption scandal. Interior Minister Roberto González was forced to resign on October 12 after intervening in a smuggling business and dismissing a police chief who investigated the case.

There was a lot of unrest in the countryside during the year. Farmers who blocked a road near Santa Rosa del Aguaray, 325 km north of Asuncion, in protest of non-payment of government revenue loss, were attacked by police with tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets. The result was 17 injured. New protests followed, though without violence. The farmer organizations gradually tightened their requirements, including on the departure of the Agriculture and Home Ministers.

Paraguay Border Map

Republic of Paraguay Brief Guide

According to AbbreviationFinder, Paraguay is a landlocked state in South America. It is located around the Paraguay River, bordering Brazil in the northeast, Argentina in the south and Bolivia in the northwest. The name of the country means “water going to the sea”, derived from the words guaran Pará (“sea”), gua (particle meaning movement) and y (“water”).

Travel seasons 
The rainy season lasts from October to April, so it’s a good idea to schedule your trip from May to September, when the temperature drops to +20 degrees.

Food and drink
Paraguay’s food culture shows a fusion of cultures. Important foods include cassava and corn, which are used in popular dishes such as sopa paraguaya and chipa. The food culture is based on the use of these raw materials; cassava, millet, sweet potatoes, beans, corn and peanuts. A popular herbal tea is verbatate, which is used to make a fresh Terese drink by mixing cold fruit juice with the tea. We recommend drinking bottled water. You can also drink heated or tablet-purified water. We do not recommend consuming unpasteurized dairy products. Vegetables and fruits should be rinsed well.

Photography
Paraguay is a very photographic country. Asking permission before taking a photo of the population is recommended, as many people still believe that face photography produces bad luck.

Cinema. – Lacking a national tradition, Paraguayan cinema experienced a modest development in the 1950s, mainly thanks to Argentine filmmakers (such as A. Bo: El trueno entre las hojas, 1957), as a consequence of a favorable co-production policy that allowed all Argentine industry almost absolute hegemony. Around the mid-1960s, in correspondence with a new cultural climate marked by criticism and the protest against the dictatorial regime of A. Stroessner, the first signs of an independent cinema appeared, linked to the initiatives of the young JR Nestosa and C. Saguier. The latter, director of the Cine Arte Experimental group, has made several short films (including Francisco, the story of a poor child on the outskirts of Asunción) and an important medium-length film such as El Pueblo (1969), which traces the founding act of an authentically national cinema. In it a strong critical and denouncing spirit is combined with an unprecedented expressive research. Within this independent line, which was soon silenced by censorship and lack of means, there are also some short films made between 1968 and 1969 by the French director D. Dubosc: Kuarahy ohecha and Manohara, on life in a Sapukai leper colony.

Once the ferment of rebirth finally died down, Paraguayan cinema of the seventies and eighties lived the same greyness and conformism to which other artistic activities were confined, subjected to the constant pressure of the dictatorship. While the market is flooded with more commercial foreign products, government institutions produce the usual official news and some tourist films, using cinema and television as propaganda equipment. Among the rare fictional titles made in this period, often resorting to the co-production system, we remember Cerro Cora (1977), by G. Vera, advertised as “la primera pelicula paraguaya”, fully responding to the rhetoric of the regime, and Dos ramos de rosas (1978) by A. Lares. The advent of the parliamentary republic in 1992 sparked the hope of a democratic cinema.