The 'Anti-communist' Paraguay: A Revision of Stroessner?s Dictatorship, 1954-1989

LÓPEZ, MAGDALENA

Singapur

Simposio; Unlearning Cold War Narratives: Toward Alternative Understandings of the Cold War World; 2016

National University of Singapur

Between 1954 and 1989, Paraguay was ruled by Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda, a dictator who led an authoritarian government based on the military forces, the state power structures and the traditional political party Asociación Nacional Republicana, known as Partido Colorado.Since the beginning of the decade of 1930s, the discourses against communism and ?foreign ideologies? became official and very popular both among the leaders of the traditional political parties and the population. This became more intense during Stroessner?s dictatorship when anticommunism proved to be a strong strategy to persecute, torture and incarcerate opposition and different leaders of movements.In this context, the Cold War served to legitimate and organize as well as include Paraguay into the international and regional ?order?, but it did not mark the beginning of the war against communism and ideas related to socialism. Those were already visible before the Civil War (1947) that was declared against communism and its allies.The traces of anticommunism are still present today, and very often the related narratives are used to accuse and discredit new political organizations. They were also used in 2012, during democratic times, to illegally remove a president (Fernando Lugo) accused of encouraging class struggle, among other reasons.This presentation aims to analyze the anticommunism that characterized the government of Stroessner, to describe the anticommunism as it was popular in the country before, during and after Cold War, and to explain how some of these elements are still used today to stigmatize groups which demand economic improvements and social justice.