Remembering the 'Stronismo': How ghost of a brutal dictator haunts Paraguay

[Judi Lynn]

Seventy years since General Alfredo Stroessner seized power in the small Latin American country, memories of his bloody legacy and the massacre it triggered in 2012 live on.



Farmers protest in June 2012 holding pictures of people who died when they were fired upon by police evicting them from a reserve on the outskirts of Curuguaty, Paraguay. The events of that day have come to be known as the Curuguaty massacre [Jorge Saenz/AP Photo]

By Klas Lundstrom
Published On 29 Jun 2024

Marina Kue, Curuguaty, Paraguay – A lonely dirt road leads to Marina Kue in eastern Paraguay; 2,000 hectares of arable land forever marked as a last stand between the heirs of Paraguay’s late dictator, General Alfredo Stroessner, and the victims of his brutal dictatorship, the landless peasants.

At dawn on June 15, 2012, a 350-men unit of Special Police Forces encircled the disputed land lot to evict 60 families who lived there. To the women, men, children and elders who had claimed access to Marina Kue, this was “Farm No 53”, a property incorporated within Stroessner’s controversial land distribution programme and agricultural colonisation scheme of eastern Paraguay.

The arriving police forces were fully armed, while the strongest ammunition held by the landless peasants was a legal verdict from 1999 when the Commission of Human Rights of Paraguay had ruled that the property was public land.

Many of the dispossessed peasants now surrounded by police forces had lived on these lands since the late 1960s when the previous owner, the Paraguayan Navy, returned the land to the state. But a powerful businessman, Blas Riquelme (now-deceased), had other ideas. A prominent member of Paraguay’s long-ruling, right-wing Colorado Party – formally titled the National Republican Association – he had set out to lease the Marina Kue lot for growing genetically modified crops. The police forces present that day were obeying his command.



Relatives bury a peasant farmer killed in the Curuguaty Massacre on June 18, 2012. At least 17 people were killed and dozens hurt during armed clashes on June 15, 2012 that occurred when police attempted to evict landless peasant farmers from a farm in Paraguay, officials said [Reuters]

More:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/6/29/remembering-the-stronismo-how-ghost-of-a-brutal-dictator-haunts-paraguay

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HISTORY STORIES | Paraguay's Nazi dictator, who mocked the country for 35 years.

6 years ago

Torture, concentration camps, corruption, poverty, genocide, slave trade. All this and not only was in Paraguay during the reign of dictator President Alfredo Stroessner. This period can be called the "terrible dream" of Paraguay, that's just happened all in reality. The tyrant mocked the country for 35 years, and hundreds of thousands of innocent people became victims of his arbitrariness.





Stroessner did not repeat the mistakes of his predecessors. Suppressing any opposition actions directed towards him. Stopped hard. In the course of release of the torture, murder. Without trial, people just disappeared. Later their bodies were found in the rivers or on the streets, sometimes all we found was body parts. Requests for missing persons or statements about the murder of law enforcement ignored.

. . .

In addition, the dictator was a Nazi. Many Nazis after World war II took refuge in Paraguay. They were given new passports, police, army or concentration camps, of which there were about 20 in the country.

During the dictator's rule, the tribes of Indians inhabiting Paraguay were almost completely destroyed. The Guarani population has decreased from 250,000 to 30,000. Indians ACI in General there are only 500 people. The Indians were poisoned and killed in the open, without fear of punishment. In the markets in the order of things was selling them into slavery.

More:
https://steemit.com/history/@aydogdy/history-stories-or-paraguay-s-nazi-dictator-who-mocked-the-country-for-35-years

[Judi Lynn]

1. Stroessner Wikipedia.

. . .

Dictatorship (1954–1989)

Stroessner objected to President Federico Chávez's plans to arm the national police and threw him out of office in a coup on 4 May 1954. After a brief interim presidency by Tomás Romero, Stroessner was the only candidate in a special election on 11 July to complete Chávez's term. He was reelected seven times—in 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983 and 1988. He appeared alone on the ballot in 1958. In his other elections, he won by implausibly high margins; only once (1968) did he drop below 80 percent of the vote. That campaign was also the only time an opposition candidate got more than 20 percent of the vote. He served for 35 years, with only Fidel Castro having a longer tenure among 20th-century Latin American leaders; though Castro's tenure as president was shorter at 32 years (1976–2008).

Soon after taking office, Stroessner placed the entire country under a state of siege and suspended civil liberties. The state-of-siege provisions allowed the government to arrest and detain anyone indefinitely without trial, as well as forbid public meetings and demonstrations. It was renewed every 90 days until 1987, except for a brief period in 1959. Although it technically only applied to Asunción after 1970, the courts ruled that anyone charged with security offenses could be brought to the capital and charged under the state-of-siege provisions—even if the offense took place outside the capital.[4][5] Apart from one 24-hour period on election days, Stroessner ruled under what amounted to martial law for nearly all of his tenure. A devoted anti-communist who brought Paraguay into the World Anti-Communist League, he justified his repression as a necessary measure to protect the country. The use of political repression, threats and death squads was a key factor in Stroessner's longevity as dictator of Paraguay. He maintained virtually unlimited power by giving a free hand to the military and to Minister of Interior Edgar Ynsfrán, who began to harass, terrorize, and occasionally murder family members of the regime's opponents.[6] Stroessner heavily relied on various Colorado Party militias, subordinated to his control, to crush any dissent within the country.[7]

. . .

Operation Condor

Paraguay was a leading participant in Operation Condor, a campaign of state terror and security operations officially implemented in 1975 which were jointly conducted by the military dictatorships of six South American countries (Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil) with the support of the United States.[27][28][29][30] Human rights violations characteristic of those in other South American countries such as kidnappings, torture, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings were routine and systematic during the Stroessner regime. Following executions, many of the bodies of those killed by the regime were dumped in the Chaco or the Río Paraguay. The discovery of the "Archives of Terror" in 1992 in the Lambaré suburb of Asunción confirmed allegations of widespread human rights violations.[31]

During Stroessner's rule, two special departments were organized under the Ministry of the Interior led by Edgar Ynsfrán: the Department of Investigations of the Metropolitan Police (Departamento de Investigaciones de la Policía de la Capital, DIPC) under the leadership of Pastor Coronel,[32] and the National Directorate of Technical Affairs (Dirección Nacional de Asuntos Técnicos, DNAT) directed by Antonio Campos Alum.[33] Both units specialized in political repression. Pastor Coronel became infamous for his brutality. He would interview people in a pileta, a bath of human vomit and excrement, or ram electric cattle prods up their rectums.[34][35][16] In 1975, the Secretary of the Paraguayan Communist Party, Miguel Ángel Soler [es], was dismembered alive with a chainsaw while Stroessner listened on the phone.[34][36][37][38] The screams of tortured dissidents were often recorded and played over the phone to family members, and sometimes the bloody garments of those killed were sent to their homes.[19]

Under Stroessner, egregious human rights violations were committed against the indigenous Aché population of Paraguay's eastern districts, largely as the result of U.S. and European corporations wanting access to the country's forests, mines and grazing lands.[39][12] The Aché resided on land that was coveted and had resisted relocation attempts by the Paraguayan army. The government retaliated with massacres and forced many Aché into slavery. In 1974, the UN accused Paraguay of slavery and genocide. Only a few hundred Aché remained alive by the late 1970s.[12] The Stroessner regime financed this genocide with U.S. aid.[12]

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Stroessner