I closed the previous post with a brief and superficial description of the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia. The context for this was to note that, while the country’s population had begun a slow recovery from the devastation of the Great War (aka the Triple Alliance War) mainly through encouraging immigration, this new war retarded Paraguay’s progress along that path.
Among the wave of immigrants to arrive in Paraguay in the early 20th century was one Hugo Strößner from Hof, Bavaria. He married Heriberta Matiauda a Criollo (someone of pure Spanish descent) and they had a child they named Alfredo. Over time, Alfredo would change the spelling of his surname to Stroessner, would rise to the position of Commander-in-Chief of Paraguay’s military, and in 1954 would lead a military coup that overthrew the country’s then president, Frederico Chávez.
(Alfredo Stroessner source: Wikipedia)
Stroessner was a staunch anti-communist which was enough to qualify him as an ally of the United States which happily ignored accusations by the United Nations of genocide against the Aché people – an indigenous tribe living in eastern Paraguay – and the fact that the Stroessner government was known to have harbored many Nazi war criminals including – for some undetermined length of time – Josef Mengele.
In fact, Stroessner was one of six South American dictators who eagerly participated in the CIA’s Operation Condor in the mid-1970s. The CIA described Operation Condor as “a cooperative effort by the intelligence/security services of several South American countries to combat terrorism and subversion.”
The “Archives of Terror” discovered near Asunción in 1992 confirmed 50,000 deaths, 30,000 “disappeared”, and 400,000 otherwise imprisoned in the six nations. Other declassified documents released or uncovered since then have shown that American involvement in supporting juntas and dictatorships date their beginnings to at least the administration of Lyndon Johnson and that they continued into the presidency of Ronald Reagan. The documents also show the U.S. Government was intimately involved in providing planning, coordination, and training on torture.
With critical support from the U.S., Stroessner ruled Paraguay as its repressive dictator for 35 years before he himself would be ousted by a coup led by someone who had been one of his closest generals until that point, Andrés Rodríguez. During the peak of Stroessner’s power, Harry Shlaudeman, the American Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs described Paraguay’s government as a “nineteenth-century military regime that looks good on the cartoon page.”
And still the war echoes
The reason for this governing style hearkens back to the Great War for at least two main reasons. This map from 1864
(Source: Wikipedia)
shows the borders between the four countries involved in the Great War. Paraguay lost about twenty-five percent of its prewar territory but it isn’t only the territorial and population losses that sways Paraguay’s behavior even in the current century.
Rather, Paraguay incurred a massive debt as a result of the war in part because the triumphant parties demanded reparations. Recall that the 19th century López regimes were highly centralized and the López family ruled dictatorially though not necessarily oppressively. Because Francisco Solano López had no children, it’s possible that a power vacuum might have existed upon his death regardless of external circumstances. The war ensured that. The decimation of the country’s population, the lack of any viable public structure beyond the López family, and Paraguay’s massive debt combined to limit the nation’s redevelopment.
(If you’re particularly curious, you might want to take a deeper look at the interesting debate within Paraguay regarding the legacy of Francisco Solano López. Although he initiated a war that left the country in such deep debt that it was only cleared when president Getúlio Vargas of Brazil forgave it in 1943 and one that decimated its population, López is generally now seen as a national hero. This is thanks in part to the government resurrecting him as a champion of Paraguay’s fighting spirit as part of their efforts to raise nationalist sentiment in advance of the Chaco War and which was then intensified by Stroessner who propagandized the younger López as a symbol of Paraguayan strength and nationalism.
López himself foresaw his redemption. On the day before his death at the battle of Cerro Corá he said, “I will be buried beneath the weight of mountains of ignominy but my day will come, and I will rise from the abyss of slander to take my rightful place in history.” Although he anticipated the end of the nation state, and although it was more a result of ongoing disputes between Brazil and Argentina, the final treaty ending the war ensured Paraguay’s continued existence as an independent state so, in that respect, he was partially mistaken.
On the other hand, one could argue that Paraguay’s continuing poverty and relative weakness is a manifestation of his vision of the country’s demise. Still, he is now viewed by some across Latin America as a champion for the rights of smaller nations against the imperialism of more powerful neighbors.
The first of March in Paraguay is Dia de los Heroes (Heroes’ Day). It’s a national holiday held to honor López’s memory and is considered the most important holiday in the country after Independence Day (15 May). For most of the people, Solano López is considered to be the greatest Paraguayan national hero. His remains are in the National Pantheon of the Heroes in Asunción.)
Meanwhile, back in the 19th century, Brazilian troops occupied the country until 1876, destroyed Paraguay’s main industrial asset, the foundry at Ybycuí, and installed what was essentially a puppet regime. The government began to sell large parcels of land to raise the capital needed to pay the reparations the victors demanded. The sales went mainly to Argentines and, while likely unplanned, this worked to preserve the national borders because of conflicts and disputes between the Argentines and the Brazilians. Still, when the Brazilians finally withdrew, no native governing class existed and those politicians who were able to assert power were widely known for their corruption. Thus, today we see a country that has yet to overcome the deficiencies created by a war that ended a century and a half ago.
The Great War informed the Paraguayan character in yet another way. It intensified the country’s wariness of all outside influence. Even under Antonio Carlos López the government had been particularly protectionist. It accepted no foreign loans and levied substantial tariffs on imported goods. And in the economy of that time, this approach worked. Under the elder López, Paraguay was not only stable but among the continent’s most prosperous and developed countries.
Still, as Benjamín Fernández Bogado, the reporter cited by The Economist says in the previously mentioned article, “The world isn’t a comfortable place for us. It’s a scene of danger, conspiracy and death and our success is a prelude to danger.”