Paraguay President Struggles for Job as Riot Toll Reaches 6

ASUNCION, Paraguay —  Impeached President Raul Cubas Grau, blamed for the slaying of his vice president and riots that killed six people and injured more than 100, fought for his job Saturday in his Senate trial.

Marines kept order outside the Congress building where the Senate trial was taking place in a highly charged political battle that has engulfed this landlocked South American country.

The square there looked like a battlefield, littered with paving stones and firecrackers used in a pitched battle that began late Friday and stretched into the predawn hours.

Also around the square were burned-out trucks used as barricades by pro-democracy student and peasant groups who were attacked by snipers and supporters of Cubas and his political mentor, former Gen. Lino Oviedo, a convicted coup leader.

The Roman Catholic Church mediated a truce to let the Senate trial go ahead.

Cubas and Oviedo, a former army chief, are fighting for control of the ruling Colorado Party against a rival faction that was led by Vice President Luis Maria Argana until he was gunned down Tuesday.

Cubas and Oviedo deny involvement in the slaying of Argana, who had wanted Oviedo jailed for a 1996 coup attempt and Cubas impeached. His death unleashed the bloodiest episode so far in a struggle in the party that has ruled this poor nation of 5 million people for 52 years.

Cubas lawyer Luis Canillas, defending him from charges of abuse of power by defying a Supreme Court order to send Oviedo back to jail to serve a 10-year term, rejected the legality of the proceedings on technical grounds. He tried in vain to have 29 senators of the 45-seat house ruled out for alleged bias.

But by late afternoon the Senate had voted down three of his four arguments, and legislators from the Argana faction of the ruling party and the opposition were confident they could get the two-thirds support needed to oust the president.

Cubas, a 55-year-old engineer, did not attend the hearing but said in a television address that he would abide by the Senate’s decision if it voted “in a transparent process.”