at the
White House in 1977 Stroessner objected to President Federico Chaves's plans to arm the national police and threw him out of office in
a coup on 4 May 1954. The National Assembly appointed
Tomás Romero Pereira president, who called for special elections to complete Chávez's term. Stroessner became the nominee for the Colorado Party in that year's
election on 11 July. He won, as he was the only candidate. 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. Stroessner heavily relied on various
Colorado Party militias, subordinated to his control, to crush any dissent within the country. in
Brasília, 1958 The Stroessner regime's strong
anti-communist stance earned it the support of the United States, with which it enjoyed close military and economic ties and supported the
U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic. The Stroessner regime even offered to send troops to
Vietnam alongside the Americans. The United States played a "critical supporting role" in the domestic affairs of Stoessner's Paraguay. Between 1962 and 1975 the US provided $146 million to Paraguay's military government and Paraguayan officers were trained at the U.S. Army
School of the Americas. Although the military and security forces under Stroessner received less material support from the United States than other South American countries, strong inter-military connections existed through military advisors and military training. Between 1962 and 1966, nearly 400 Paraguayan military personnel were trained by the United States in the
Panama Canal Zone and on US soil. Strong Paraguayan-U.S. relations continued until the
Carter Administration emphasized a foreign policy that recognized human rights abuses, although both military and economic aid were allotted to the Paraguayan government in Carter's budgets. The
Reagan Administration restored more cordial relations due to Stroessner's staunch anti-communism, but by the mid 1980s relations cooled, largely because of the international outcry over the regime's excesses, along with its involvement in narcotics trafficking and money-laundering. In 1986, the Reagan administration added his regime to its list of Latin American dictatorships. However, that stability came at a high cost.
Corruption was rampant (Stroessner himself did not dispute charges of corruption at some levels in his government) and Paraguay's
human rights record was considered one of the poorest in South America. During Stroessner's regime, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people were murdered, 400 to 500 more "
disappeared", and thousands more imprisoned and tortured.
Scapegoating, detainment, and torture of LGBTQ+ Paraguayans occurred frequently throughout this period. Press freedom was also limited, constitutional guarantees notwithstanding. Any outcry about government mistreatment or attacks toward the Colorado Party would result in destruction of the media outlets. Many media executives were sent to prison or tortured. Because of this, political opponents were few and far between. Near the end of this presidency, he declared that he would remove the state of siege, but quickly recanted after students began protesting trolley fares. during the opening ceremonies of the
Friendship Bridge, connecting Brazil and Paraguay, 27 March 1965 For the first 13 years of his rule, Stroessner ruled under a severely authoritarian
constitution enacted in 1940. In the mid 1960s, in an attempt to placate growing international criticism, Stroessner began allowing some opposition parties to function, although these functioned as opposition in name only. Stroessner also fired the interior minister Ynsfrán in 1966, but his replacement,
Sabino Augusto Montanaro (a member of the "
Cuatrinomio de Oro", a group of politicians intimately connected to Stroessner) continued the same violent policies. In 1967,
a constituent assembly replaced the 1940 constitution with an equally repressive document. While it forbade the exercise of dictatorial powers, it vested Stroessner with many of the same sweeping executive and legislative powers he had held under its predecessor. The president retained broad latitude to take exceptional actions for the good of the country, such as suspending civil liberties and intervening in the economy. It thus formed the legal basis for the state of virtual martial law under which Stroessner governed. While it limited the president to two five-year terms, it stipulated that only those terms completed after the 1968 election would count toward that limit. In 1977, faced with having to leave office for good the following year, Stroessner pushed through a constitutional amendment allowing him to run for an unlimited number of five-year terms.
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. 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. 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, and the National Directorate of Technical Affairs (Dirección Nacional de Asuntos Técnicos, DNAT) directed by
Antonio Campos Alum. 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. In 1975, the Secretary of the
Paraguayan Communist Party, , was dismembered alive by chainsaw while Stroessner listened on the phone. 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. Under Stroessner, egregious human rights violations were committed against the indigenous
Aché population of Paraguay's eastern districts, largely as the result of US and European corporations wanting access to the country's forests, mines, and grazing lands. Stroessner made many
state visits, including to
Japan, the United States, and
France, as well as to
South Africa, a country which Paraguay developed close bilateral ties with in the 1970s. He also made several visits to
West Germany, although over the years his relations with that country deteriorated. Since he had always been known as pro-German, this worsening of relations, combined with his feeling that the US had abandoned him, was regarded as a personal blow to Stroessner. It has been asserted that the
Roman Catholic Church is the only reason Stroessner did not have absolute control over the country. In 1971, the Archbishop of Asunción
Ismael Rolón Silvero excommunicated the minister of the interior and the chief of police in response to attacks on priests. On September 12, 1972, police attacked a protest meeting and tore down anti-government posters at the
Catholic University. When
Pope John Paul II visited Paraguay in 1988, his visit bolstered what was already a robust anti-Stroessner movement within the country. Stroessner gave a written television interview to
Alan Whicker as part of a documentary called
The Last Dictator (UK: 7 April 1970) for the television series ''
Whicker's World''. The program was released in a
Region 2 DVD box-set by the UK's Network imprint.
Economics Stroessner dedicated large portions of the Paraguayan national budget to the military and police apparatus, both fundamental to the maintenance of the regime. According to a 1963 article from
Time magazine, Stroessner spent 33% of the 1962 annual budget on army and police, 15% for
education, and just 2% for
public works. There was no income tax and public spending was the smallest percentage of GDP in
Latin America. Stroessner enacted several economic development projects, including the building of the
Itaipu Dam, the largest
hydroelectric power plant in the world at the time: although Paraguay received only 15% of the contracts, it was a major factor in the country having the highest rate of growth in Latin America for most of the 1970s. The construction of the Itaipu Dam, as well as that of the subsequent
Yacyretá Dam on the
Paraguay–Argentina Border, displaced thousands of Paraguayans, often without any restitution. The Itaipu Dam displaced at least 80,000 Paraguayans, and the Yacyretá was estimated to have displaced at least as many by December 2008. 160 workers died building the Itaipu Dam. Stroessner also promoted projects that purportedly developed the country's infrastructure. Amongst these were the improvement of highways and the issuing of 15–20 hectare land grants to military personnel upon completion of their service, provided that the land would be used for farming purposes. Over 10,000 soldiers took up this offer. By the end of
the Stronato, the second biggest city was Puerto Flor de Lis (renamed "Puerto Presidente Stroessner," then "
Ciudad del Este"), founded just 32 years before.
Downfall In April 1987, Stroessner lifted the state of siege as part of the run-up to elections the following spring. However, several draconian security laws remained in effect, meaning that the substance (if not the form) of the state of siege was still in place. As had been the case for over three decades, opposition leaders continued to be arbitrarily arrested and opposition meetings and demonstrations were broken up (often brutally). Stroessner was nominated by the Colorados once again, and was the only candidate who was allowed to campaign completely unmolested. On 3 February 1989, only six months after being sworn in for what would have been his eighth full term, Stroessner was ousted in a coup d'état led by General
Andrés Rodríguez, his closest confidant for over three decades. One reason for the coup was that the generals feared one of Stroessner's offspring would succeed him. Of the two, Alfredo was a
cocaine addict and
Gustavo, a pilot, was loathed for being
homosexual. A more outlandish rumor was that
Lino Oviedo threatened Rodríguez with a grenade if he did not launch the coup. The two generals, Rodríguez and Oviedo, fought a brief artillery duel over Asunción. The coup was supported by most of the "traditionalist" faction of the Colorados, who had come to favor a less repressive way of rule. Among them was Ynsfrán, who claimed plans for a coup were being drawn up in mid-1988. ==Later life and death==