General Alfredo Stroessner, the former President of Paraguay who died yesterday was one of the last of Latin America's old-style military dictators. He was 93 of years.
Stroessner came to power in a coup which toppled President Federico Chavez in 1954, and succeeded in being elected and re-elected for eight five-year terms of office after revising the constitution, which had banned him from serving for more than two.
In style, Stroessner's dictatorship most resembled that of General Franco in Spain. Like Franco, Stroessner provided stability after a civil war and near-anarchy; his motto, "Peace, Justice, Democracy", played to the hopes of an isolated society fearful of political instability
Under his rule the country became a haven for Nazi war criminals, peaceful opposition was crushed and the indigenous population was persecuted. In 1989, after 35 years in power, Stroessner was ousted by a coup d'état led by General Andrés Rodríguez, and he fled to Brazil, where he lived in exile for the succeeding seventeen years.
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