ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) -- After deadly overnight clashes, hundreds of troops forced apart rival demonstrators outside Paraguay's congress building Saturday and lawmakers resumed the president's impeachment trial.
Many legislators were seen entering congress wearing bulletproof vests, and some blamed President Raul Cubas' government for failing to quell hours of flare-ups Friday and early Saturday that left at least four people dead.Cubas' government has been dogged by political infighting and economic turmoil since taking office in August. But the assassination Tuesday of Vice President Luis Maria Argana plunged the landlocked South American country deeper into a political crisis, testing its 10-year-old democracy.
Cubas was impeached by Paraguay's lower house on Wednesday, accused of abuse of power for illegally freeing Gen. Lino Oviedo. The general, released days after the president's inauguration, was serving a 10-year sentence for his part in a failed 1996 coup.