PARAGUAY, FLAG OF

horizontally striped red-white-blue national flag. It is distinctive among national flags in having a central coat of arms on the obverse side but a different seal on the reverse. The flag's width-to-length ratio is 3 to 5. Isolated from much of the rest of Spanish-dominated South America, Paraguay developed a unique flag design. The earliest known emblem (c. 1812) of local independence was based on the Spanish flag; it had red-yellow-blue stripes with a coat of arms. Later the colour blue was used in two quite different flagsone of equal horizontal stripes of blue and yellow, the other a plain blue flag with a white star. Under the dictatorship of Jos Gaspar Rodrguez de Francia (181440), an admirer of Napoleon, the French colours were adopted and arranged horizontally red-white-blue. The central emblem was the national coat of armsa golden star surrounded by a wreath and the words Repblica del Paraguay (Republic of Paraguay). After the death of Francia, the first known flag law of Paraguay was adopted (November 27, 1842), confirming this design as the national flag. On the reverse side, however, the seal of the treasury replaced the national coat of arms. The treasury seal features a lion sitting beneath a liberty cap mounted on a staff; it is framed by the national motto, Paz y justicia (Peace and justice). Although the same basic design has been in use since 1842, there have been many modifications in the artistic rendition of the coat of arms and treasury seal. Whitney Smith Government and social conditions Government Constitutional framework The 1992 constitution is the basic charter of Paraguay. It was drawn up by a Constituent Assembly, which was elected in December 1991, and it replaced the previous constitution of 1967. The constitution states that Paraguay is a representative and pluralist democracy and that government is exercized by the separate powers of the legislature, executive, and judiciary. The president is elected by a simple majority of votes for a five-year term. He must be a Paraguayan by birth and more than 35 years of age. There is no runoff election if the leading candidate fails to obtain an absolute majority. President Stroessner amended the 1967 constitution in 1977 to allow his reelection, but the 1992 constitution specifically rules out a president's reelection. The president is the commander in chief of the armed forces and is authorized to appoint and remove commanders of the army and police. The 1992 constitution created the post of vice president. A council of ministers is appointed by the president. A state of exception can be declared, by the executive or the Congress, only in cases of international armed conflict or serious internal unrest threatening the rule of the constitution. The legislative body is the Congress, composed of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. All its members are elected by popular vote for five-year terms on the same date the presidential elections are held. The Chamber of Deputies is made up of a minimum of 80 members elected from the 17 departments, and the Senate of a minimum of 45 members. The constitution guarantees rights to Indians, the right to strike, and basic civic liberties, including freedom of expression, association, and religion. The death penalty has been abolished. Local government Paraguay is divided into 17 departments, 14 in the east and 3 in the Chaco. Each department is divided into distritos (districts). Until 1991 the central government used to appoint departmental governors and local mayors, but in May of that year direct municipal elections were held for the first time. The 1992 constitution, in a further innovation, provided for elections for a governor and a departmental board for each department, also to be held every five years. History Exploration, settlement, and independence The Guaran Indian tribes speaking the Guaran language occupied the region between the Paraguay and Paran rivers long before the arrival of Europeans. They were members of the Tupian language stock, which was widespread in South America, and in most respects resembled the other Indian tribes of the tropical forests. The women cultivated corn, manioc, and sweet potatoes, and the men hunted and fished. They were warlike, seminomadic people who lived in large thatched dwellings grouped in villages, and each village was surrounded by a defensive palisade. In the 15th century raiders from the Gran Chaco region made frequent attacks upon Guaran tribes. The Guaran retaliated, crossing the Paraguay River, and subdued their enemies, carrying the conflict into the margins of the Inca empire. They were, therefore, the natural allies of early European explorers who were seeking short routes to the mineral wealth of Peru. Alejo Garca, making his way from the Brazilian coast in 1524, and Sebastian Cabot, sailing up the Paran in 1526, were the earliest of these explorers to reach the area. Colonial period The first colonial settlements were established by Domingo Martnez de Irala in the period 153656. The first Spanish colonists, unsuccessful in their search for gold, settled peacefully among the Guaran in the region of Asuncin, the present capital of Paraguay. These first settlers established their notorious harems of Guaran women. Their racially mixed descendants gradually grew into the rural population of modern Paraguay, which still considers itself to be Guaran in custom and habit. With Asuncin as his principal base, Irala laid the foundations of Paraguay and made it the centre of Spanish power in southeastern South America. Irala's colonization policy involved the delimitation of the boundary with Brazil by a line of forts against Portuguese expansion, the foundation of villages, the settlement of the Guaran to provide food, labour, and soldiers, and extensive Guaran-Spanish intermarriage. Rapidly a national and fairly homogeneous amalgam of Indian and Spanish cultures came into being. From early in the 17th century, for more than 150 years, Jesuit communal missions in the Paran and Uruguay basins of southeastern Paraguay governed the lives of 150,000 Indians in 30 reducciones, or settlements. These were centres of religious conversion, agricultural and pastoral production, and manufacturing and trade, which served also as strategic outposts against Portuguese expansion from southern Brazil. Isolated from the heart of Paraguay, which centred on Asuncin, the mission became an autonomous military, political, and economic state within a state, which increasingly excited the envy of the Spanish landowners in the Asuncin area. In the period 172135 the latter waged a struggle to overthrow the Jesuit monopoly of Indian trade and labour. Unaided, the reducciones also had to defend themselves against slave raiders from So Paulo and, in 175457, a combined Spanish-Portuguese attack designed to enforce a territorial partition of the mission settlements. Defiance of such powerful groups paved the way for the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767. The reducciones were abandoned; the Indians were absorbed by either the landed estates or the jungle; the settlements fell into ruin; and economic activity ceased. In 1776 the new Viceroyalty of Ro de la Plata was created, with its capital in Buenos Aires. This effectively made Asuncin and all of Paraguay dependent on Buenos Aires, thus ending the region's colonial dominance.