By KATHERINE ELLISON
             Herald Foreign Staff

             ASUNCION, Paraguay -- Joyous Paraguayans had a new lease on democracy
             Monday, the day after President Raul Cubas resigned, aborting an impeachment
             trial.

             But they didn't have -- and probably won't get -- closure.

             To the despair of those who thought justice would accompany a strengthening of
             civil rule, former Gen. Lino Oviedo, the balding cavalry officer who bullied this
             small nation of five million for the past eight months, during which Cubas was
             known as his puppet, was granted political asylum in Argentina Monday afternoon
             by that country's president, Carlos Menem.

             And Cubas himself was granted political asylum by Brazil, where Gen. Alfredo
             Stroessner, Paraguay's dictator from 1954 to 1989, now lives. The former
             president and his family left Asuncion late Monday on a Brazilian air force plane.

             ``It's a pity that in this time of globalization of capital and technology and so much
             else, justice isn't globalized or even regionalized,'' complained Sen. Juan Carlos
             Galaverno.

             In the mounting tension and confusion of Sunday afternoon, when diplomats were
             alarmed by reports that Oviedo loyalists were massing to prevent a vote to cast
             Cubas from office, Oviedo himself, dressed in a neat suit and tie, was taking off in
             a private Beechcraft jet, with his wife and three children.

             Galaverno said that legislators would ``work ceaselessly to get him extradited.''
             But incoming Interior Minister Walter Bower said the government would accept
             the Argentine decision.

             Oviedo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for plotting a 1996 coup attempt
             against then-President Juan Carlos Wasmosy, Cubas' predecessor. It was Cubas'
             decision to pardon him -- and then to ignore a Supreme Court order to return him
             to prison -- that led to the impeachment effort.

             Efforts Monday by Paraguay's attorney general to put Cubas behind bars on
             charges of negligent homicide in four deaths during protests last week proved
             similarly fruitless. A fifth protester died of his wounds Monday. Bower, the new
             interior minister, said that despite Cubas' having resigned as president, Cubas
             retains immunity from such charges as a former senator.

             Many Paraguayans puzzled over why Menem, even though a reported longtime
             friend of Oviedo, would grant Oviedo refuge, with freedom to travel throughout
             Argentina.

             ``What is believed is that it was a request of the United States, to finish with the
             crisis,'' said Ruben Cespedes, assistant director of the national newspaper ABC
             Color.

             Argentina's interior ministry said that Oviedo's asylum request was being granted
             under the terms of an 1889 extradition treaty with Paraguay.

             U.S. Ambassador Maura Harty, who brokered discussions between Cubas and
             key legislators Sunday afternoon, said Oviedo's fate was not discussed, to her
             knowledge. Other sources said the Roman Catholic papal nuncio in Asuncion
             played a more important role in the actual deal-making.

             Galaverno said he thought Oviedo was cashing in on corrupt financial dealings
             over the past few years with ``the highest levels of Argentine government.''

             The new president, Luis Gonzalez Macchi, pledged to put an end to the ``terror
             and violence'' that has rocked the country since the March 23 assassination of
             Vice President Luis Maria Argaña.
 

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