Paraguayans demand justice 36 years after the end of General Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship.

by María Josefina Arce

Paraguay is still crying out for justice 36 years after the end of General Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship, the longest in South America, which lasted from 1954 to 1989 and was marked by repression, assassinations, human rights violations and a large number of exiles.

According to a report by the Truth and Justice Commission, more than 400 people were disappeared or executed, while nearly 21,000 Paraguayans were forced into exile.

In the Plaza de los Desaparecidos in the capital Asunción, Paraguayans gathered to commemorate the fall of the Stroessner regime on February 3, 1989.

Participants in the event denounced that there is still a lack of justice in the punishment of crimes against humanity.

They called for the continuation of the trials of the perpetrators identified by the Truth and Justice Commission between 2003 and 2008.

Stroessner's dictatorship always had the support of the United States, which supported it financially, shielded by its Alliance for Progress, a supposed plan for the development of Latin America that in reality sought to consolidate its power in the region and curb the influence of the Cuban Revolution.

But also, as the Truth and Justice Commission pointed out, the Paraguayan repressive apparatus received constant advice from the United States.

Paraguay, under the Stroessner regime, actively participated in the sadly known Condor Plan, a coordination of South American dictatorships to persecute and eliminate political, trade union, social and student militants in the continent, supported by the United States.

The dictatorship not only tortured, murdered and committed many other human rights violations, but also led to an increasingly unequal country on the socio-economic level, with high rates of poverty, illiteracy, infant mortality and low coverage of social services.

Stroessner's dictatorship, together with those of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia, always supported by Washington, represented a sad stage in the history of the region that cannot be forgotten and that leaves lessons to be learned, especially after the new arrival to power of Donald Trump in the United States, who, as many have said, has shown his total contempt for the Latin American peoples.