Eliza Lynch lived through one of the bloodiest wars in South America, writes TOM HENNIGANin São Paulo
A BIOGRAPHY of the Cork woman who became Paraguay’s national heroine received a tumultuous welcome at its launch in Asunción on Thursday night.
Paraguayans are hailing the book as vindication of a woman who in her lifetime was labelled a prostitute by her enemies and who was blamed for provoking South America’s bloodiest conflict.
Born in Charleville in 1833, Eliza Lynch was the partner of Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano López, who in 1864 led his country into a disastrous five-year war against an alliance of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, which left his country devastated.
More than 1,000 people packed into Lynch's former townhouse, with more forced to stand on the street outside, to hear former Irish diplomat Michael Lillis present the Spanish language edition of The Lives of Eliza Lynch, which he co-authored with Ronan Fanning, professor emeritus of modern history at UCD.
Federico Franco, Paraguay’s vice-president, seized on a suggestion by Lillis printed in the Portuguese and Spanish language editions of the book that Brazil emulate Tony Blair’s historic apology for Britain’s role in the Irish Famine and apologise for its conduct in the bloody final two years of the war.
The conflict only ended when Solano López was killed in 1870. Lynch buried him and their eldest son with her bare hands before being escorted out of the country by the victorious Brazilians.
By the end of the war, Paraguay had lost two-thirds of its population, including almost all adult males.
“There was no pity shown to Paraguay. These women, children and elderly who were raped and murdered deserve a demand for an apology,” said Franco to strong applause.
While in Brazil and Argentina the war is treated as part of history, in Paraguay it remains a live issue, frequently invoked during disputes with its larger neighbours.
“Here there is a perceptible sense of historical trauma in all levels of society,” says Lillis. “People use words like extermination and genocide when referring to the war.
“ I think this explains the tremendous enthusiasm which greeted the suggestion that Brazil needs to do something to alleviate this emotion.” Although the book was well received by historians in Brazil, the suggestion that the country apologise for its conduct in the war has been studiously ignored.
At Thursday’s launch, several of Lynch’s descendents from her relationship with Solano López approached Lillis, some in tears, to thank him for finally demolishing the myth that she was working as a courtesan in Paris when she met Solano López in 1854.
The country’s president, former bishop Fernando Lugo, received the first copy off the presses of the Spanish-language edition but did not attend the launch.
Earlier in the day he was presented with a third paternity suit by a woman who says he is the father of her two-year-old son.
Lugo has admitted fathering one boy with another woman while a bishop and faces several other paternity claims.
The new paternity suit came a day after he dismissed the heads of the armed forces amid rumours of an impending coup while he faces a security crisis following the kidnapping of a rancher by an extreme left-wing group demanding land reform.