Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguayan dictator

BRASILIA, Brazil – Alfredo Stroessner, the canny anti-communist general who ruled Paraguay for decades with a blend of force, guile and patronage before his ouster in 1989, died in exile on Wednesday.

He was 93. Stroessner contracted pneumonia after a hernia operation in Brazil’s capital, where he had lived in near total isolation since he was forced from power.He died of a stroke with his family gathered around him in the Hospital Santa Luzia.His grandson Alfredo Dominguez Stroessner said his grandfather left no instructions on his funeral but the family was considering burial in Encarnacion, the Paraguayan city where the former dictator was born.Stroessner seized power in a 1954 coup and held it through fraud and repression for 35 years, becoming almost a paradigm for right-wing Latin American strongmen in the Cold War years.A staunch US ally, he lasted longer than General Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic (31 years), Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier and his son in Haiti (29 years) and almost as long as Anastasio Somoza and his sons controlled Nicaragua (42 years).Finally ousted by his own generals, Stroessner remains hated by many in Paraguay, where he was accused of repression, and his associates of corruption.And although his stalwarts credit him for modernising the country through big public works projects funded by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, little of that money trickled down to average Paraguayans.Stroessner sheltered fellow right-wing dictators, including Somoza, and made Paraguay a refuge for 200 000 Germans after World War Two, including Nazi war criminals.He twice denied extradition requests for Dr Josef Mengele, the infamous ‘Angel of Death’ at Auschwitz.Mengele later fled Nazi hunters to Brazil, where he died under an assumed name.”Stroessner didn’t have any problem giving refuge to people with blood on their hands,” said Aaron Breitbart, a senior researcher with the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles.”His death is no loss to democratic values in Paraguay.”Following his ouster, Stroessner lived as a recluse in Brazil, where his asylum status made extradition impossible.Neighbours reported they rarely saw him leave his house along the shores of Lake Paranoa in Brasilia.As Stroessner’s health failed, President Nicanor Duarte said there were no plans to honour the former leader after his death.But Vice President Luis Castiglioni said on Wednesday that Stroessner’s remains “should be allowed to rest in the country like any other Paraguayan’s, despite his defects and errors that made the country and thousands of its citizens suffer”.The blonde son of a German immigrant father and a Paraguayan mother, Stroessner fought in the 1930s Chaco War against Bolivia, and became a general at age 40.He studied tactics in Panama, Brazil and the United States and became army chief of staff in 1951.Rigging his re-election every five years after his seizure of power, he brought Paraguay into the modern age, transforming a stagnating, politically tumultuous country with open sewers and no running water, even in the capital, into a relatively prosperous and modern nation.Stroessner put his name on schools, public buildings and the international airport.An important river port was christened Puerto Stroessner.His portrait decorated the walls of public offices, shops and living rooms, and a huge neon sign in a central plaza of the capital, Asuncion, blinked the message: ‘Stroessner: Peace, Work and Well-being’.His public works projects included the US$16 billion Itaipu dam – built with neighbouring Brazil – which began producing power in early 1985.But most of the new wealth did not reach average citizens in the nation of 3,8 million people.The general described virtually all his opponents as Marxist subversives bent on returning the country to political chaos.Paraguay sought for years to question Stroessner about the “disappearances” of his opponents.Human rights activists say his regime was a key part of ‘Operation Condor’, a network of right-wing military governments, secretly supported by US intelligence agencies, that repressed leftist dissidents across South America in the 1970s and early 1980s.Some 1 500 victims identified by a ‘Truth and Justice’ commission are being compensated by the Duarte government for injuries suffered under the dictatorship, but his death puts an end to many lawsuits against him.”Today we should be celebrating with the death of Stroessner; unfortunately, he died with impunity,” said Hugo Rubín, a journalist jailed by the regime in the 1980s.”He killed his opponents, robbed the state, exiled hundreds of countrymen, and to top it off, lived in tranquility in his exile in Brasilia.”By Stroessner’s third decade in office, most Paraguayans had passed their entire lives under his watchful eyes, which stared from portraits on the walls of offices, shops and living rooms.He had complete control over the press after journalists were jailed and tortured.But public dissatisfaction with his regime became increasingly evident in the mid-1980s as the economy soured and inflation soared.Protesters and police sometimes fought in the streets of Asuncion, unrest inconceivable a few years earlier.Stroessner was stung in 1986 when the Reagan administration put his regime on its list of Latin American dictatorships.Among the others was Nicaragua – that country’s Sandinista rebels not only overthrew his friend Somoza, but assassinated him in exile in Paraguay.As members of the ruling Colorado Party, his main tool of political control, began to accuse him of repression and dictatorial tactics, Stroessner tried to stamp out dissent in late 1988 by ordering many military officers to retire and trying to force retirement on a powerful army commander, Gen.Andres Rodriguez.Instead, Rodriguez rebelled on February 2 1989, sending soldiers and tanks to the presidential guard headquarters, where Stroessner had taken refuge.Stroessner surrendered and went into exile in Brazil, where he remained for the rest of his life.Rodriguez ruled until the first civilian government was elected in 1993.Nampa-AP * Associated Press Writers Pedro Servin in Asuncion, Paraguay; and Kimberly Chase in Mexico City contributed to this report.Stroessner contracted pneumonia after a hernia operation in Brazil’s capital, where he had lived in near total isolation since he was forced from power.He died of a stroke with his family gathered around him in the Hospital Santa Luzia.His grandson Alfredo Dominguez Stroessner said his grandfather left no instructions on his funeral but the family was considering burial in Encarnacion, the Paraguayan city where the former dictator was born.Stroessner seized power in a 1954 coup and held it through fraud and repression for 35 years, becoming almost a paradigm for right-wing Latin American strongmen in the Cold War years.A staunch US ally, he lasted longer than General Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic (31 years), Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier and his son in Haiti (29 years) and almost as long as Anastasio Somoza and his sons controlled Nicaragua (42 years).Finally ousted by his own generals, Stroessner remains hated by many in Paraguay, where he was accused of repression, and his associates of corruption.And although his stalwarts credit him for modernising the country through big public works projects funded by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, little of that money trickled down to average Paraguayans.Stroessner sheltered fellow right-wing dictators, including Somoza, and made Paraguay a refuge for 200 000 Germans after World War Two, including Nazi war criminals.He twice denied extradition requests for Dr Josef Mengele, the infamous ‘Angel of Death’ at Auschwitz.Mengele later fled Nazi hunters to Brazil, where he died under an assumed name.”Stroessner didn’t have any problem giving refuge to people with blood on their hands,” said Aaron Breitbart, a senior researcher with the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles.”His death is no loss to democratic values in Paraguay.”Following his ouster, Stroessner lived as a recluse in Brazil, where his asylum status made extradition impossible.Neighbours reported they rarely saw him leave his house along the shores of Lake Paranoa in Brasilia.As Stroessner’s health failed, President Nicanor Duarte said there were no plans to honour the former leader after his death.But Vice President Luis Castiglioni said on Wednesday that Stroessner’s remains “should be allowed to rest in the country like any other Paraguayan’s, despite his defects and errors that made the country and thousands of its citizens suffer”.The blonde son of a German immigrant father and a Paraguayan mother, Stroessner fought in the 1930s Chaco War against Bolivia, and became a general at age 40.He studied tactics in Panama, Brazil and the United States and became army chief of staff in 1951.Rigging his re-election every five years after his seizure of power, he brought Paraguay into the modern age, transforming a stagnating, politically tumultuous country with open sewers and no running water, even in the capital, into a relatively prosperous and modern nation.Stroessner put his name on schools, public buildings and the international airport.An important river port was christened Puerto Stroessner.His portrait decorated the walls of public offices, shops and living rooms, and a huge neon sign in a central plaza of the capital, Asuncion, blinked the message: ‘Stroessner: Peace, Work and Well-being’.His public works projects included the US$16 billion Itaipu dam – built with neighbouring Brazil – which began producing power in early 1985.But most of the new wealth did not reach average citizens in the nation of 3,8 million people.The general described virtually all his opponents as Marxist subversives bent on returning the country to political chaos.Paraguay sought for years to question Stroessner about the “disappearances” of his opponents.Human rights activists say his regime was a key part of ‘Operation Condor’, a network of right-wing military governments, secretly supported by US intelligence agencies, that repressed leftist dissidents across South America in the 1970s and early 1980s.Some 1 500 victims identified by a ‘Truth and Justice’ commission are being compensated by the Duarte government for injuries suffered under the dictatorship, but his death puts an end to many lawsuits against him.”Today we should be celebrating with the death of Stroessner; unfortunately, he died with impunity,” said Hugo Rubín, a journalist jailed by the regime in the 1980s.”He killed his opponents, robbed the state, exiled hundreds of countrymen, and to top it off, lived in tranquility in his exile in Brasilia.”By Stroessner’s third decade in office, most Paraguayans had passed their entire lives under his watchful eyes, which stared from portraits on the walls of offices, shops and living rooms.He had complete control over the press after journalists were jailed and tortured.But public dissatisfaction with his regime became increasingly evident in the mid-1980s as the economy soured and inflation soared.Protesters and police sometimes fought in the streets of Asuncion, unrest inconceivable a few years earlier.Stroessner was stung in 1986 when the Reagan administration put his regime on its list of Latin American dictatorships.Among the others was Nicaragua – that country’s Sandinista rebels not only overthrew his friend Somoza, but assassinated him in exile in Paraguay.As members of the ruling Colorado Party, his main tool of political control, began to accuse him of repression and dictatorial tactics, Stroessner tried to stamp out dissent in late 1988 by ordering many military officers to retire and trying to force retirement on a powerful army commander, Gen.Andres Rodriguez.Instead, Rodriguez rebelled on February 2 1989, sending soldiers and tanks to the presidential guard headquarters, where Stroessner had taken refuge.Stroessner surrendered and went into exile in Brazil, where he remained for the rest of his life.Rodriguez ruled until the first civilian government was elected in 1993.Nampa-AP * Associated Press Writers Pedro Servin in Asuncion, Paraguay; and Kimberly Chase in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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