Gen. Alfredo S. Stroessner is one of two contenders for the Latin American dictator longevity record held by Mexican Porfirio Diaz (1875-1911). Sixty-one-year-old Fidel Castro has been in power for almost three decades; the much older Stroessner (his age is a matter of dispute) has ruled Paraguay for thirty-three years.
Bettors are hedging toward Castro, since the Paraguayan dictator appears to be in deeper trouble. An economic recession, newly established democratic governments on all borders (Bolivia, Brazil, and Argentina), and hostility from the United States and the Catholic Church have encouraged the opposition. Democratic groups in particular have increased the pressure for change. The situation seems ripe for a final push. "It is high time Paraguay joins the democratic wave sweeping our continent," declared a noted anti-Stroessner leader recently.
A glance at Paraguay's history will show that the realization of such noble, justified aspirations will demand from Paraguayans much more than either the will to topple Stroessner's regime or enthusiasm for democracy. Authoritarian personalism, usually mixed with democratic rhetoric, has been the rule in the beautiful country. "Perhaps someday a genius may be able to tell us just what a Paraguayan politician means by democracy," commented historian Harris Gaylord Warren in 1949.
In the sixteenth century, conquistadores, impressed with the beauty of the landscape and nobility of the Guarani Indians, settled in Paraguay (named after the Indian words for "crowned river" or "land of water"). Possibly their isolation and esteem for the natives encouraged a process of racial and cultural mestizaje (mixing) unique to Latin America. One result was to make Paraguay a truly bilingual country where even the social elite are proud to speak guarani.
Despite Paraguay's reputation as a garden of Eden, lack of gold and geographical remoteness kept the region almost unchanged through most of the colonial period. In the seventeenth century, Jesuit missionaries engaged in one of the most fascinating and controversial social experiments in history, the "Missions" (the subject of a recent film). Gathering the Indians into well-organized communities, the priests taught them discipline, religion, agriculture, and methods of defense against slavers. Whatever their merits, these rigid communities vanished after the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain and her colonies in 1767. The influence of the Catholic Church, perhaps its legacy of authoritarian control, nevertheless survives in Paraguay today.
Independence came easily. The collapse of Spanish authority following the Napoleonic invasion of Spain in 1808 allowed local groups to seize control. An attempt by Buenos Aires to rule the area was easily defeated, and Paraguay slid under the thumb of the most enigmatic caudillo Latin America ever had, Dr. Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, "El Supremo."
Francia, a gloomy civilian and one of the few dictators to die peacefully in his bed, admired Rousseau. From 1814 to 1840 he hermetically closed Paraguay to "corruptive" foreign influences. His successor, Carlos Antonio Lopez, cautiously opened the nation to modern development, increased a self-sufficient economy, and sent some youths, including his son Francisco Solano Lopez, to study in Europe. At his death in 1862, congress immediately proclaimed
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