MOSCOW, February 2, Viktor Zhdanov. Thirty-five years ago A coup began in Paraguay that overthrew Alfredo Stroessner. With the support of the United States, the dictator remained in power for more than three decades. This is one of the most odious rulers in Latin America. During the years of his reign, thousands of people were killed and disappeared.
From the son of a brewer to the presidency, Stroessner was born on November 3, 1912 in the family of a German immigrant from Bavaria, who had a small but popular brewery in the town of Encarnacion. Her mother was from wealthy Creoles and had nationalistic views. It was assumed that Alfredo would also become a brewer. But he entered a military school.
President of Paraguay Alfredo Stroessner, 1955 
In 1932-1935, Paraguay fought with Bolivia. At the front, Stroessner was commanded by the Russian White emigrant General Ivan Belyaev. The young officer had great respect for the former artillery chief of Wrangel's division. And I remembered him all my life. In 1957, the dictator attended his funeral service.
After the war, where Stroessner showed his best side, he became interested in politics. Like his mother, he held extreme right-wing views based on nationalism and anti-communism. In 1947, leftist forces tried to organize a revolution. The future dictator took part in suppressing the rebellion.
In 1948, 36-year-old Stroessner became the youngest general on the continent. As a member of the right-wing conservative Colorado Party, he supported President Federico Chavez. But when he decided to rearm the National Police of Paraguay to the detriment of the army, Stroessner, using the full support of the military, carried out a coup d'etat. This was in 1954.
House of the former dictator of Paraguay Alfredo Stroessner in Asunción 
Stroessner then won uncontested elections and was subsequently re-elected several times. A cult of personality of the leader has developed in the country. The political regime even received its own name — “stronism”. He was generously supported by big business and organized crime. Opposition, except moderate liberals, was prohibited. The state of emergency abolished rights and freedoms. Power was shared with the president by his inner circle, nicknamed the “Golden Square.”
Paraguay, as they said then, turned into “Disneyland for gangsters.” Smuggling has become part of the national economy. Drugs, tobacco, alcohol and other goods bypassed customs throughout Latin America. Stroessner called this “the price to pay for internal peace in the country.”
Paraguayan police officers in a basement discovered under the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior in Asunción 
He allowed his henchmen everything: exorbitant bribes, organized crime. According to Brazilian media, in the suburbs of Asuncion, people from the dictator’s entourage set up a harem in which kidnapped children aged from eight to 15 years were kept.
Corrupt executionerThe dictator was close friends with Washington. He allowed the construction of American military bases in the country. Having declared Paraguay “the best friend of the United States,” he actively supported them in the Organization of American States and the UN. When Paraguayan troops joined the Americans in the invasion of the Dominican Republic, the general received large financial assistance from the White House.
Also during the dictatorship, Paraguay was a refuge for fugitive Nazis. About 200 thousand Germans hid there from the international court. Including the chief physician of Auschwitz, Joseph Mengele, with whom Stroessner also became friends.
Josef Mengele
Other Latin American dictators looked up to him. Stroessner created a secret political police — like Hitler's Gestapo. This served as a model for Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Pinochet in Chile, and the “black colonels” in Argentina. They all knew that they could rely on him and, if anything happened, get asylum.
Stroessner played a significant role in the conspiracy of dictatorships to extrajudicially exterminate socialists and communists in Latin America. As part of Operation Condor, approved by the United States, about two hundred Paraguayan politicians and public figures were killed. Even more are missing. Their remains are still being found.
In total, thousands of Paraguayans became victims of the special services. It was enough to come under suspicion of disloyalty to the regime — and the person was registered as a “communist.” Fugitive Nazis also played a significant role in this. When joining the security agencies, membership in the SS was considered an unspoken “sign of quality.”
Elements of a torture room during the regime of Alfredo Stroessner in Asunción
Sometimes the president himself participated in the interrogations of oppositionists. Stroessner loved to act as an investigator, provoking those arrested to confess to an attempt on the life of the head of state, which automatically meant a death sentence. The dictator also declared the Indians “collaborators of the communists” and ordered their destruction. In 1974, the UN accused the Paraguayan regime of slavery and genocide.
The end of the Paraguayan FuhrerIn the second half of the 1970s, the opposition intensified in the country. Despite the repressions, the regime was losing stability. Even the Catholic Church made anti-government appeals. The economy did not promise good prospects. External debt grew.
Paraguayan President Alfredo Stroessner, 1989 
Due to the collapse of the socialist bloc and perestroika in the USSR, the communist movement weakened significantly and it became impractical for Washington to fight it in the old way. One after another, dictatorial regimes were overthrown. The military junta in Argentina has fallen. Pinochet was defeated in the referendum in Chile. When Stroessner was no longer needed, the United States betrayed him too.
In 1989, he was already 76. He was preparing his son Gustavo, an Air Force colonel, to be his successor. This did not suit the military, who, like most Paraguayans, were tired of many years of dictatorship. The coup was led by General Andres Rodriguez, whose daughter was married to one of Stroessner's sons. After several hours of gunfire in the capital, the dictator, who had lost the support of all sectors of society, was arrested and deported to Brazil.
Photos of victims of the Alfredo Stroessner regime
He died on August 16, 2006 at the age of 93. According to the testimony of his grandson, also Alfredo Stroessner, the former dictator did not regret anything and did not repent. “My grandfather acted and governed the country in full accordance with the laws of the Cold War, which were not invented by him,” said Stroessner Jr.
The new authorities repeatedly demanded the extradition of the ousted president to be tried on charges of corruption and human rights violations, but nothing didn't achieve it. According to the report of the Paraguayan Truth and Justice Commission, from 1954 to 1989, 425 people were executed or disappeared in the country. About twenty thousand were arrested and tortured. According to other sources, the number of victims of the dictatorship is 120 thousand.