For Latin America, where political life is so tempestuous, such long survival is something unprecedented. Gone are Trujillo, Somoza and Duvalier, Pinochet's throne shook and collapsed, hurricanes with female names like Evita swept over the continent, but Stroessner's rule in Paraguay had continued unperturbed from 1954 when it was established.
The secret of keeping the population docile was simple: in a country the size of an average U.S. state the dictator built 12 huge camps for all sorts of rebels and fools. Those Zoos had a calming effect on those who managed to stay outside. A tribe of Guarani Indians numbering a quarter of a million was weeded down to 30,000. A Guarani child could be bought for 20 dollars and experimented with at will. Another way of quieting down the populace was holding annual elections of the beloved president. Democracy was strictly observed: the country was allowed to have many opposition parties, but voting booths would be set up outdoors opposite police stations. No voting slips were issued to the opposition for fear of misleading the people: a legitimate 10% was always left for the nays.
Nine times in a row the people elected the dear Nazi papa as their president. Order was maintained by 5,000 police, plus 14,000 officers and men of the regular Paraguayan army, plus 60,000 reservists, and, just in case, 100,000 Guardsmen and members of the national and territorial Guards.
Paraguay's track record impresses any tourist: with Stroessner in, the population of cattle was double that of humans - 6 million against three.
The climate, too, became better and more mellow.
Tropical heat gave way to typical Munich weather.
Gestapo Mueller's dream came true, admittedly not in Germany, but here, where hundreds of surviving Nazis came to relax under the shadow of the Paraguayan eagle. Rumors say hundreds of top SS and Nazi functionaries and other Parteigenosse had a restful time here after their Reich labors (perhaps even the SS chief Muller himself).
But sometimes a jarring note disrupted this peace: the Israeli intelligence, for example, traced among millions of vacationers Dr. Josef Mengele, who was recovering from sleepless nights at Oswiecim, where he would sew twins together, or experiment with changing the color of a baby's eye by jabbing a syringe into it. In a country, which Stroessner reduced to the size of a stadium, the arrival in 1960 of a Nazi, even one who had changed spots, could not pass unnoticed. Arguably it was Stroessner himself who warned his guest that the Mossad was on his trail, and arranged for Mengele to move to Brazil a year later to live out the rest of his life in peace.
His love of order was partly inborn, for Stroessner came from a German brewer's family. His grandfather was a colonist who emigrated to Paraguay from Germany in the middle of the 19th century. The family managed to build up a sizable fortune and gave their dear grandson a military education. In the army, the ruthless and meticulous German had a brilliant career. He worked his way up through the ranks from an unknown major to a General Staff officer in six years. Another six years later he became the country's supreme commander-in-chief. In 1954, he removed his general's cap to crown himself Paraguay's ruler.
Further details are of little interest.
Having beaten the country down to German primness, Stroessner began to enjoy the life of a private individual: at breakfast he would have a salad of asparagus with scallops and shrimps (on a fish day); at lunch, after a game of golf, a fillet of rose-colored dorada with fennel and truffle, or a baked lobster on a bed of mushrooms julienne with mango slices; at dinner he would relish something from his homeland: Bavarian beer with stewed cabbage. Before going to sleep, after a horseback ride, something very light could be indulged in: a roasted banana with a crunchy crust in chocolate sauce, topped with whipped cream and pistachios, for example.
The day he decided to retire was quiet and peaceful, if somewhat cool; although February in Paraguay is already springtime, February 2, 1989 was chilly and winterlike.
All the details had already been thrashed out: it would, of course, be a military coup - traditions are sacred - Andres Rodriguez, a general, the son-in-law married to Stroessner's best loved daughter, was to be the new president; at breakfast the daughter promised to keep her husband on a short leash.
In the early hours of February 3, Rodriguez came to power.
Stroessner, in the meantime, was dozing in a plane bound for Brazil, where he had already been given political asylum and guaranteed a quiet life in a villa on the Atlantic coast.
Why is fate so kind to dictators?
Why do they live to a ripe old age and die of hernia, rather than, say, the vengeful anger of the Guaranis, whose 250,000 souls were tortured and killed?
