Wow, I went down a rabbit hole after seeing this note and wondering "why did the president of Paraguay have a German last name?"
Some highlights (or rather, lowlights):
Discussion
"Stroessner's Paraguay became a haven for Nazi war criminals, including Josef Mengele, and non-communist peaceful opposition was crushed. Given Stroessner's affinity for Nazism and harboring of Nazi war criminals, foreign press often referred to his government as the "poor man's Nazi regime"."
"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."
Paraguay participated in Operation Condor along with five other South American dictatorships and the support of the United States, a campaign of state terror and human rights violations such as kidnappings, torture, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
The chief of the capitol police "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, Miguel Ángel Soler, was dismembered alive with a chainsaw while Stroessner listened on the phone."
"Under Stroessner, egregious human rights violations were committed against the indigenous Aché population of Paraguay's eastern districts, largely as the result of U.S. and European corporations wanting access to the country's forests, mines and grazing lands. The Aché resided on land that was coveted and had resisted relocation attempts by the Paraguayan army. The government retaliated with massacres and forced many Aché into slavery. In 1974, the UN accused Paraguay of slavery and genocide. Only a few hundred Aché remained alive by the late 1970s. The Stroessner regime financed this genocide with U.S. aid."
"It has been asserted that the Roman Catholic Church is the only reason Stroessner did not have absolute control over the country. After the destruction of Asunción University in 1972 by police, the Archbishop of Paraguay Ismael Rolón Silvero excommunicated the minister of the interior and the chief of police, and proscribed the celebration of Holy Mass in a sign of protest against the Stroessner regime. When Pope John Paul II visited Paraguay in 1988, his visit bolstered what was already a robust anti-Stroessner movement within the country."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Stroessner#:~:text=It%20has%20been,within%20the%20country.
Not all bad, I guess:
"There was no income tax and public spending was the smallest percentage of GDP in Latin America."
I suppose most of their budget was paid by U.S. tax payers since "Between 1962 and 1975 the US provided $146 million to Paraguay's military government"? 🤔
"opposition leaders continued to be arbitrarily arrested"
Sound familiar?
🍌 republic
"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. "
"After the coup, Stroessner fled to Brazil, where he lived in exile for the next 17 years. ...He tried to return to Paraguay before his death, but he was rebuked and threatened with arrest by the government. ...Stroessner died on 16 August 2006, in Brasília, at the age of 93. ...Stroessner engaged in extramarital affairs before and during his presidency. According to many sources he also engaged in child abuse with girls as young as 8 years old. As a result of this he may have fathered over 30 illegitimate children."
bitcoin is the enemy of all psychopathic megalomaniacs
all very well to be love and light but we are in a war to eradicate the world of the deeds of such individuals