'Cruel right hand' of Paraguayan dictator dies

[Judi Lynn]

'Cruel right hand' of Paraguayan dictator dies
AP – 11 hrs ago
The Associated Press

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- A former Paraguayan interior minister known as the "cruel right hand" of the late dictator Alfredo Stroessner has died. Sabino Montanaro was 89.

Human rights activist Martin Almada says Montanaro died Saturday night at his home in the capital of Asuncion. Paraguayan news media also reported the death. Montanaro's family doesn't speak to the news media.

Montanaro served in Stroessner's government from 1963 to Feb. 3, 1989, when the dictator was overthrown by a military coup after 35 years in power. Montanaro fled to Honduras and didn't return until 2009.

A judge sentenced him to house arrest on charges related to the killing of government opponents in the 1970s and '80s.

http://news.yahoo.com/cruel-hand-paraguayan-dictator-dies-183408066.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Highlights of the administration for which the man worked, as dictator Stroessner's "right-hand:"

1962-1975:

The dictatorship of a poor man's Nazi, Alfredo Stroessner, recieves $146 million in US aid, never receiving condemnations for its human rights abuses, the genocide of the indigenous Ache, drug trafficking and open arms policy for ex Nazis until the 1980s. The condemnation shortly precedes a 1988 coup. Stroessner takes exile in Brazil.

http://www.us-uk-interventions.org/Paraguay.html

~~~~~
Alfredo Stroessner; Paraguayan Dictator
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 17, 2006

~snip~
With a network of informants and the backing of the military, he tortured dissidents, both real and perceived.

A Paraguyan senator, Carlos Levi Rufinelli, a member of the token opposition party, told the New York Times in 1975: "I was a prisoner 19 times, and I was tortured six times. Most of the time, I did not know what they wanted. They did not even know what they wanted. But when they put the needles under your fingernails, you tell them anything, you denounce everybody, and then they say, 'See, you were lying to us all the time.' "

A schoolteacher, Martin Almada, was arrested in 1974 and tortured for 10 days because of his union efforts to increase teacher pay. While he was in prison, his screams were recorded and played over the phone to his wife. She died of a heart attack after the police sent his bloodied clothes to her home and told her to collect his corpse. He was not, in fact, dead and later became one of the country's post-dictatorship human rights champions.

~snip~
Gen. Stroessner, an anti-Communist, provided reliable Cold War support to the United States. He offered to contribute troops to the Vietnam War and the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965. He also actively supported "Operation Condor," the effort among other right-wing Latin American regimes to eliminate alleged leftist political threats. Operation Condor was aided by U.S. intelligence agencies.

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/16/AR2006081601729.html

~~~~~
Timeline:

~snip~
Stroessner regime

1955: Stroessner declares state of siege and removes various civil rights from the people.

1959: Achne tribe enslaved and wiped out by order of Stroessner

1965-66: Assists USA in the invasion of the Dominican Republic

1972: University of Asunción is destroyed by police. The Archbishop of Paraguay, Ismael Rolón Silvero, excommunicates chief of police and minister of the interior

1974: Human rights abuses in Paraguay come to notice internationally, and Stroessner is accused of Slavery, Genocide , corruption, torture and kidnapping, as well as supposedly protecting ex-Nazis living in Paraguay

1988: Pope John-Paul II visits Paraguay, increasing anti-Stroessner morale

1989: General Andrés Rodríguez starts an uprising against Stroessner, and succeeds after an artillery duel over Asunción, after which Stroessner flees to Brazil. Rodriguez appointed president after 35 years of oppression

Modern Period

1992: Rodriguez makes reforms including abolishing the death penalty, releasing many political prisoners and slaves and prosecutes and imprisons the main perpetrators of Stroessner's regime.

1993: Juan Carlos Wasmosy is elected president. However, he frees several of Stroessner's associates from prison, and re-posts them to their former government positions.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_history_of_Paraguay