Paraguay’s youthful conservative political leader, Santiago Peña, won the presidential election in 2023, promising not to raise taxes, in a country beset by widespread inequality and rising extreme poverty rates. The opposition candidate did the same, grim news for the nation’s legion of poor considering that Paraguay was already an underfunded state with the lowest tax burden in South America, a circumstance which as The Guardian notes, “greatly benefits the wealthiest in society” [William Costa, “Paraguayan looks for change as election looms. But that’s not on the ballot”, The Guardian, 27-Apr-2023, www.theguardian.com].

Peña from the dominant Colorado (Republican) Party is on record as stating that the historic dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner was a positive for national stability and that the golpe de estado (coup d’état) that brought the army chief to power in 1954 was actually a “political agreement” [Spanish-language reports, cited in the Wikipedia article on Santiago Peña]. Peña’s controversial and heavily criticised revisionist views–sentiments mirrored by his mentor, the tainted former president Horacio Cartes—underscore the ongoing failure of the Colorado Party and Paraguay conservatism to come squarely to terms with the past𝟙, the excesses of the authoritarian despotic Stronato (or Stronismo) era of Stroessner’ rule, a dark chapter of Paraguay’s history in which the Colorados played an integral role.

Caudillismo tradition: General Stroessner’s seizure of power in 1954, overthrowing the civilian Chaves government, stemmed from an internal power struggle within the ruling Partido Colorado. After a hastily arranged poll Stroessner was elected president unopposed. A military inspired coup was nothing novel for Paraguay, it had been a recurring feature of Paraguayan politics since independence–all starting with José de Francia (1814–40) whose military dictatorial rule made Paraguay an isolated hermit state–golpes were a constant threat with eight successful coups between the 1930s and 1950s and dozens of curtelazos (barrack revolts), ensuring that “militarism remains the rule rather than the exceptional state in Paraguay” [Paul C. Sondrol, “The Paraguayan Military in Transition and the Evolution of Civil–Military Relations”, Volume 19, Issue 1 (Fall 1992): http://journals.sagepub.com].

Washington’s relations with Stroessner: Stroessner’s uncompromising anti-communist stance made Paraguay a valued ally for the US in the midst of the Cold War…in the mid-Fifties the president struck up a close working relationship with US ambassador Arthur Ageton who mentored Stroessner on how to best manage internal security and control. Washington money in the form of aid and military funds flowed freely and unquestioningly into Paraguay, at least until the Carter administration in the late Seventies started insisting Stroessner clean up his act in respect of Paraguay’s abysmal human rights record and rampant corruption [Klas Lundstrom, “Remembering the ‘Stronismo’: How the ghost of a brutal dictator haunts Paraguay”, Aljazeera, 29-Jun-2024, www.aljazeera.com].

Personalised fiefdom and praetorianism: Although often characterised as a military dictatorship, historians have emphasised the personalist nature of Stroessner’s rule. Stroessner’s position as head of the military was the vehicle for his attaining power, but once consolidated, El Continuador𝟚, as he was known, developed a cult of leadership based on personal authority. The president adopted a patrimonial style towards his officer corps which politicised the army…loyalty was demanded and rewarded with a share of the corrupt contraband activities widely practiced within the country𝟛.

At the same time spies from the secret police were used for surveillance of army officers, to identify and weed out any opponents of or potential threats to the commander-in-chief. Without any apparent external threats to Paraguay, the usual defence role of the army was subordinated to one of maintaining internal security and guarding against subversion, ie, against the threat of communist insurgence, largely extinguished by the early Sixties (Sondrol, ‘Paraguayan Military in Transition’). Andrew Nickson however argues that armed insurgency by radical groups including the Communist Party continued after this period, but was ultimately unsuccessful due largely to Stroessner’s efficient network of police informers and a ruthless counter-insurgency strategy which grossly violated the human rights of ordinary Paraguayan citizens [Andrew Nickson (01 Apr 2024): Armed opposition to the Stroessner regime in Paraguay: a review article, Small Wars & Insurgencies. DOI: 10.1080/09592318.2024.2333065].

Coalescing military, party and government: The Stronato exercised a similar domination over the Colorado Party, the sole legal political party permitted in the one–party state, which Stroessner himself headed. To further tie the various organs of his power base together under his control Stroessner made membership of the Colorado Party a necessity for all personnel of the armed forces (and for all government employees). And as with the military Stroessner obsessively surveilled the party to purge any dissident groups or individuals detected.

Tierra mal habida, the “Ill-gotten lands”: One of the most egregious acts of the Stroessner regime was its outrageous land colonisation program, the catastrophic ramifications of which are still being acutely felt by rural Paraguayans to this day. Vast swaths of public land was divided up and handed out to the dictator’s family, to Colorado Party cronies and to supporters under a flimsy veneer of supposed “land reform” (Lundstrom). No post-Stronato governments has made any attempt at redressing this massively inequitable land monopolisation—Oxfam estimates that just 1.6% of the Paraguay population owns 80% of land —with the single exception of Fernando Lugo’s progressive Patriotic Alliance for Change government (2008–2012). Lugo came to office promising to distribute land to the teeming masses of landless campesinos but was stymied by the combined efforts of the Colorados and the Liberal Party who forced Lugo’s removal from the presidency in what amounted to a parliamentary coup.

Underworld of illegality: Smuggling, contraband, call it what you like, illicit trade between Paraguay and Brazil was another way the Stronato cashed in big. Stolen cars, alcohol, drugs, tobacco, exotic animals and more, crossed the porous border in increasingly larger quantities, facilitated by officially-approved corruption by the regime𝟜. Stroessner funnelled revenue derived this way largely into paying off military officers and politicians in return for their loyalty and collusion in his political objectives.

Open door for deplorables: During the Stronismo Paraguay became “a refuge for exiled dictators, drug traffickers, Nazi war criminals and other international pariahs” – a welcome haven for the likes of Anastasio Somoza (exiled Nicaraguan dictator), French heroin kingpin Auguste Ricord and Nazi death camp chief physician Josef Mangele, “ALFREDO STROESSNER: 1912–2006 / Dictator controlled Paraguay for 34 years”, Jack Epstein, SFGATE, 17-Aug-2006, www.sfgate.com].

End of the road for El Continuador: The 1980s arrived and Stroessner, though now ageing and subject to increasing ill-health, was still firmly ensconced at the helm. Disaffection with the Stronato, both within and outside the country𝟝, however was growing, in part due to a worsening economic situation in Paraguay (a recession in 1983). Elements of the armed forces were unhappy with their lot, specifically field-grade officers who found themselves blocked from further promotion by an officer corps that Stroessner had allowed to grow top-heavy. Most seriously of all was the emergence of a division within the ruling Colorados. One group, the Militantes, sided with Stroessner in wanting a continuation of the status quo, another group, the Tradicionalistas, clamoured for change, wanting a transition away from the personalist focus on the leader. The issue that appears to have been the trigger for insurrection however was the vexed issue of succession, Alfredo’s accelerated promotion of his son Gustavo to colonel in the Air Force was taken by Stroessner’s detractors as a signal that he was jockeying his son into position to become the presidential successor (Sondrol, ‘Paraguayan Military in Transition’).

Endnote: La Noche de la Candelaria The putsch against Stroessner came in February 1989 from an unexpected source, army general, Andrés Rodríguez, who had previously been a close confidante of Stroessner and the two were in-laws (Rodríguez’s daughter married Stroessner’s son). Rodríguez with Paraguay’s strongest and best-equipped army corps at his command prevailed in a battle lasting several hours with Stroessner’s 700-strong presidential escort guard. The president was arrested and with his son sent into exile in Brasilia, Brazil, never to return to his homeland. Elected president three months later, Rodríguez’s political aims were not to bring democracy to Paraguay but to liberalise society in a limited fashion, to blunt the sharp edges of Stroessner’s authoritarian system, remove the personality cult, rescind the death penalty, allow some pluralism, all while retaining the hold of the Colorado Party over politics in Paraguay [Sondrol, P. C. (2007). Paraguay: A Semi-Authoritarian Regime?  Armed Forces & Society, 34(1), 46–66. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48608804], a pattern maintained by his successors for most of the last 30 years.

𝟙 even to the point of expressing an unabashed nostalgia for the Stroessner days

𝟚 “The Continuer”…another, less flattering name bestowed on Stroessner was “the Tyrannosaur”

𝟛 Sondrol describes the Stronismo as equating with the archetypical praetorian society, with the presence of these features, “executive dominance, non-elective rule, golpes, continual military involvement in government and weakness (or absence) of effective countervailing political institutions”. The existence of an elite guard, a presidential escort regime exclusively for Stroessner’s personal protection further underscores the praetorian component of the regime

𝟜 contraband is an even greater problem in Paraguay today—a legacy of the Stronismo—especially the illicit, out-of-control trade in narcotics and cigarettes

𝟝 Stroessner had worn out his welcome in the US