Alfredo Stroessner ruled Paraguay for 35 years under a near-permanent state of siege
From 1954 to 1989, Paraguay voted for Alfredo Stroessner eight times, often with him alone on the ballot. Behind the elections sat a state of siege renewed every 90 days for over three decades. Among 20th-century Latin American leaders, only Fidel Castro held power longer.
Stroessner was born in Encarnacion on 3 November 1912 to a German immigrant accountant from Bavaria and a mother of Guarani and Spanish descent. He joined the army at 16, fought in the Chaco War against Bolivia, and backed the Colorado Party in the 1947 civil war. By 1951 he commanded the army. On 4 May 1954, objecting to plans to arm the national police, he ousted President Federico Chaves. With opposition parties banned since 1947, he won that year's election as the sole candidate.
Paraguay had cycled through 22 presidents between 1927 and 1954, and Stroessner delivered stability at a steep price. Soon after taking office he suspended civil liberties, allowing indefinite detention without trial and banning public meetings. Opposition parties were nominally legalised in 1962, but elections were rigged so heavily that he dipped below 80 percent only once, in 1968. A 1967 constitution kept his sweeping powers, and a 1977 amendment removed any limit on his terms.
A fierce anti-communist, he enjoyed close ties with the United States, which gave his military government 146 million dollars between 1962 and 1975. Paraguay also sheltered Nazi fugitives, including Josef Mengele, and joined Operation Condor, the joint repression campaign of six South American dictatorships. Human rights groups estimate that 3,000 to 4,000 people were killed and hundreds more disappeared under his rule. Records found in 1992, known as the Archives of Terror, confirmed widespread abuses.
Relations with Washington cooled in the 1980s amid outcry over abuses and links to drug trafficking. On 2 and 3 February 1989 his trusted general Andres Rodriguez overthrew him, and he went into exile in Brazil, where he died on 16 August 2006.
Source: Alfredo Stroessner
