It was one of the first actions taken by the Paraguayan people to show public defiance of their deposed dictator, a military ruler who unleashed a 35-year reign of terror that killed hundreds of people and imprisoned thousands.
In loud protest, crowds gathered around the newly elected socialist mayor of Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, to tear down a bronze statue honoring General Alfredo Stroessner, Latin America’s longest-ruling dictator, two years after his overthrow in 1989.
When the huge metal finally crashed to the ground to loud cheers, Stroessner’s large brass feet remained on the pedestal. Locals joke that it is an unintentional symbol of his entrenched presence in Asunción – on Thursday, 70 years ago to the day, he seized power in a coup in 1954, securing the virtually uninterrupted dominance of his conservative Colorado Party.
“Stroessner planted a seed and that seed has sprouted,” said Emilio Barreto, the son of an 84-year-old unionist who was among an estimated 20,000 Paraguayans tortured and detained without charge during Stroessner’s rule. “Today we have 35 years of dictatorship and 35 years of so-called democracy behind us.”
Those who pushed forward the democratization process after Stroessner’s fall said they wanted to believe that their country was on the upswing and that social institutions were becoming stronger.
But now activists are increasingly observing a trend in the opposite direction.
In a rare outburst of public outrage, hundreds of protesters streamed through downtown Asunción on Thursday, raising their fists and chanting: “Never again dictatorship.”
“We are witnessing a restriction of civil liberties,” said Hugo Valiente of Amnesty International in Paraguay, referring to a series of recent government measures that he said “have the clear purpose of preventing people from exercising their freedom of association.”
A government spokesman and party members from Colorado did not respond to questions from The Associated Press.
Concerns about a regression in democracy add additional urgency to the 70th anniversary – which also marks the first year of President Santiago Peña’s inauguration.
Leading Thursday’s protests was Paraguay’s small but passionate opposition, including Kattya González, a center-left senator and vocal government critic who was summarily thrown out of the Senate last February.
She received the third-most votes in last year’s general election, but in a vote that human rights groups said violated due process, she was voted out by allies of former President Horacio Cartes, a powerful cigarette magnate who was sanctioned by the Biden administration for corruption and remains the party’s leader in Colorado.
“We do not see the will of the people reflected in our representative bodies,” said González. “That is why we are demonstrating today.”
The government attributes its exclusion to the will of Congress, where the Colorado Party has a majority. In June, the party expelled a member of its ranks who had also spoken out against Cartes’ corruption allegations.
Last week, Paraguay even demanded that the United States speed up the departure of its ambassador after the White House imposed sanctions on a tobacco company that allegedly paid millions of dollars to Cartes.
Cartes denies the allegations.
When Paraguay’s Senate rushed through a controversial law last month that expands the government’s powers to audit nonprofit organizations, the former mayor of Asunción raised the alarm, recalling the symbolic triumph of 1991.
“Let us remember the moment when we toppled the statue,” said Carlos Filizzola, “because of its symbolism against the dictatorship.”
The government said the bill aimed to strengthen controls over the finances of non-governmental organizations to combat money laundering. Critics said it was similar to so-called transparency measures for non-profits that apply from Russia to Venezuela and have frightened civil society. The United Nations appealed to Paraguay’s lower house to reject the bill.
Experts believe that the past is still present in Paraguay because the government has not dealt with Stroessner’s legacy. Stroessner had consolidated the highly unequal distribution of land ownership in the small South American country and turned Paraguay into a center of smuggling.
His continued influence was never more evident than in 2018, when Paraguay elected then-President Mario Abdo Benítez, the son of Stroessner’s personal secretary who had served as a pallbearer at the dictator’s funeral in 2006.
“Stroessner’s totalitarian rule created a real identification between political party and state,” says historian Milda Rivarola. “This is what made Paraguay’s political regime so special, the only country on the continent that never really had a progressive government.”
Paraguay’s left-wing opposition party was in power only once – from 2008 to 2012 – before its president was impeached.
“In our country, the history of the dictatorship is hidden, there is no memory policy,” says Rogelio Goiburú, who is overseeing efforts to recover the remains of the victims on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and whose father disappeared during the dictatorship.
In neighboring Argentina, there is an even greater effort to bring those responsible for crimes against humanity to justice. There, courts have convicted hundreds of military officers for crimes committed during the dictatorship, and forensic teams have identified 800 victims.
But there have been no spectacular trials against the junta leaders in Paraguay. In public schools – many of which still have plaques in Stroessner’s honor – the 20th century dictatorship is not mentioned in history lessons.
With the help of Argentine researchers, only the remains of four victims could be identified. Goiburú said the Justice Ministry commission had neither a budget nor government support.
“I still endure everything because of the motto ‘Never again’. We do this so that we don’t lose our memories, so that this doesn’t happen again,” he said in a riverside park in the run-down downtown of Asunción. In 1991, Filizzola, the former mayor, named it Plaza of the Disappeared.
“That’s why we have to keep going,” he said.
