The death of Alfredo Stroessner

by pat c Tue Aug 15, 2006 16:01

This is a story in its own right. It deserves to be under Op/An. You are selling yourself short by putting it in OP where it will quickly disappear from view.

by iosaf = O as if Tue Aug 15, 2006 17:02

{I don't see an article on the "other press" as being less worthy than the newswire. To me an event is as valuable as a comment. this article belongs here. I am not reporting news other than Stroessner is said to be in agony and will die soon. None of the allusions and references above are fresh. I just one readers to broaden their scope of cultural conspiracy theory.

Conspiracy theories explain historical facts not by their overt reporting or even remembrance but rather as the work of secret or covert forces.

Perhaps Stroessner's death is a "story" & perhaps it is not. But there are certainly stories told and untold associated with him and all the other fascistic dicatators or regimes of his epoch whether they were in South America or beyond.

On May 6th 2004 http://www.indymedia.ie/article/64815 I reported the last work of Mariano Llano a historian who is respected in most of his work except one hypothesis which has obsessed him most of his life - "the Soviets may have found bodies burnt beyond recognition in the garden above the Berlin bunker - but those bodies were not the ones specified by the testimony of one girl barely out of teenage who was served as the secretary." Her testimony led to the British historical establishment finally declare "yes the soviets were right". Her testimony is the basis of the movie "der untergang" which tells the story of the last days in the bunker from the departure of Himmler.

The rest is history.

Long before 911 or the 9th of September is thought generally to have begun our modern US led version of the world's organisation, conflicts, underlying tensions & explanation of evil doing -
the 9th of September was the day Condor and Pinochet took Chile.
* he has never really been punished or interrogated. Yes, his daughter has been flown back from attempted escape and exile in disgrace, yes he has been under house arrest ever since Spain's Baltazor Garzon caught him visiting Margaret Thatcher. Yes even his bank accounts were frozen.
But those who led his own secret security aparatus died - but he has escaped answering.
* the dictatorship of Argentina or what remains alive of it faces similiar prosecution cases, again in Spain, who changed her democratic constitution to allow her the right to put former dictators whose oppression resulted in the disappearance of Spaniards to trial.
* the dictatorship of Brazil is so recent, that when the first push was made against Lulu by the left of his party, a former minister of the dictatorship took the vice-chancellor position.
* the dictatorships of Peru.
* the dictatorship of Mexico.
* the dictatorship of Nicuragua (the samoza dynasty) the first of whom President Franklin D. Roosevelt remarked in 1939 that "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." handed power to his son - assasinated in Asunción, Paraguay, at the age of 54, by a commando team led by the Argentinian Enrique Gorriaran Merlo the ex-ERP (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo) member.
* the apartheid state of South Africa 1948-1994. how many Irish readers know that apartheid started the same year as the World Health Organisation or Israel?

If there are any questions remaining that could profitably be asked of Stroessner or perhaps more fruitfully and colourfully his trusted youngest secretary they might include :-
what happened to the gold and money? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_gold
did the Vatican really team up with Condor and 911 and plan a future for the world?
who got the new kidney technology? followed by the new liver? followed by the new heart? finally topped by the body transplant in the 80's (a operation proved to be feasible by a US surgeon)


Conspiracy theories explain historical facts not by their overt reporting or even remembrance but rather as the work of secret or covert forces & delight those whose understanding of history is good yet confuse those whose understanding is mere movies or TV documentaries. stand on the trapdoor please - i've been expecting you - I want you to see the shark pool mister bond.

by Jimmy from Ballygomartin Tue Aug 15, 2006 17:53

Was Stroessner a good friend of Archbisop McQuaid?

by pat c Tue Aug 15, 2006 18:10

Not sure about contacts with McQuaid but:

Stroessner also had very poor relations with the Roman Catholic Church and is blamed for numerous actions against the church; some maintain that the Catholic Church is the only reason Stroessner did not have absolute control over the country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Stroessner

Pope Lectures Paraguay Leader on Human Rights
By ROBERTO SURO, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
LEAD: Visiting Gen. Alfredo Stroessner in the presidential palace from which he has ruled Paraguay for 34 years, Pope John Paul II delivered a tough lecture today on human rights and political freedoms. May 17, 1988

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countr...dest&

If you are interested and have the time, you could check out the Dublin RC Diocesan Archives. Never know what you might find there, might even be corresponce between John Charles and Alfredo.

Persons who wish to make an appointment to visit the Diocesan Archives or put queries to the Diocesan Archivist can make contact through the following means:

archives@dublindiocese.ie
353-01-8379253 ext. 183
Dublin Diocesan Archives, Drumcondra, Dublin 9

http://dublindiocese.ie/index.php?option=com_content&ta...id=37

by John Charles - Archives Tue Aug 15, 2006 20:22

http://www.allhallows.ie/index.php?option=content&task=...d=172

Marian Year-1954) John Charles founded schools. He wanted to build a cathedral in Merrion Square
but Dev thought that was pulling the piss.

The dotting of the Irish landscape with statues in grottoes, some of whom moved.

by sofia Tue Aug 15, 2006 21:31

His rise to power and the length of his tenure & the quality & location of his accomodation since 1989 as well as the longevity he has enjoyed (implying the level of health care he has counted on) are not really that notable.

I just wanted to use his presence on the Latin american news stories today to bring attention to the "other nonogenerians". There are a lot of 90+ something people about who did horrible things in the past. & very proximate to their fraternity (& without dipping into conspiracy there is no doubt they enjoyed oath bound fraternity before the war and many of those that survived sought out fraternity afterwards) were important "scientific advances" as well as the enduring legacy of a social & global vision based on eugenics.

At end as a member of a few societies with secrets, I understand the attraction of "alternative histories", its only been a few months since I locked horns with Pat about precisely how the British embassy in Dublin was burnt as just one simple example of historic oversight or false memory. Pat like many "stickies" of the generation attribute that event to the group around Sean Garland - I insist the embassy was burnt by others........

Anyway I'm digressing............. It's not really important if Mr Hitler survived the bunker & passed through a series of destinations and safe houses before finding a home complete with new organs, Eva Braun's eggies and tank full of sharks. It's as unimportant now as who really killed JFK in Dallas, if Casement really kept a diary, or what exactly occured in the last year's of Napoleon's life.......... heck it is less important to us in our cosy world of a united Europe, the UN, our global institutions and beauty care than the precise catalogue of genuine Elmyr de Hory.

All I can say to ye is this - Today I gave you lots of names and stories which in wikipedia you will find good enough articles on. I can not understate the importance that the next generation (of those who support lefty revolution worldwide or even just a nicer way of life) have a grasp of what occured globally in the period 1944-1955 and thereafter what occured in "right wing fascist Latin America". To understand exactly how Europe and Asia were reconstructed. To understand exactly what were the spoils of Victory for the Allies which tasted yummy enough to keep them locked in a military industrial spiral of astounding technological development called the cold war. to put these snippets of history in paperclips.

Simply because many contributors and those engaged in teaching the new generation about politics, be it the politics of poverty, oppression, the emergence of democracy, the middle east - all to readily say "return to the source of the issue" - but then miss that source.
For today I'll tease ye by saying "1948 saw 5 apartheid states created. South Africa was one, Israel was another - there were 3 more"

You have lots of names! put them through wikipedia and google!

& I reckon that Stroessner & all those who sailed with him of higher rank who avoided death for so long really do go to Hell. Ireland was factually a conduit for quite a few ex-nazi's, we know that - but somehow the quantity and quality of those who did escape through Eire under De Valera during the period 1944-1950 (& note De Valera lost the election in '48) pale into significance when considered with those refugees Eire assisted in the period 1939-1944. Indeed one of my predecessors Myles na gCopoleen lobbyied on that score.

You have lots of names! put them through wikipedia and google!

(if you're lazy : start with "1948" & then "Condor")

by pat c Wed Aug 16, 2006 11:15

"Pat like many "stickies" of the generation attribute that event to the group around Sean Garland - I insist the embassy was burnt by others........"

Ancient though I may look, I'm not quite that old. I was 11 when the Embassy burned. I certainly wasn't a stickie then, I was 160 miles away when it blazed, the "Christian" Brothers will confirm that, I'm sure the Roll book is still available.

It is my belief that the OIRA were involved in the burning of the Embassy and even provided the device which blew down the front door. I have spoken to OIRA members who were present and who prevented the Fire Brigade from putting out the fire.

Certainly there are rumours of the RC providing an escape route through Ireland for Nazis. But these include one that Martin Bormann was sheltered in Maynooth.

by io Wed Aug 16, 2006 13:02

persistent rumour it is as well folks.

it intrigues me that on this page at the top on the right hand side is a link to another article "Fidel Castro is 80 & kicking fit". As I mentioned above Stroessner was only outlasted as a Latin American head of state by Fidel. In the comments to the fidel birthday piece someone called for him to be shot. That same person has so far not wanted Stroessner to be shot. There's something in that.

Anyway :- Mr Stroessner weighs 45 kilograms reports the latin american press today and really is in
A-g-o-n-y.

From the moment the half german Alfredo became head of state of Paraguay complete with the useful signal of "SS" in his surname, as I want you all to learn, the USA got well busy across Latin America installing regimes of appaling brutality & repression, regimes in which former members of the WW2 German and Croatian secret police played an ample part. We call that operation Condor ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor )
Argentina was a horrible place - "The Argentine Dirty War was carried on simultaneously with Operation Condor, the two overlapping between themselves. Indeed, the SIDE cooperated with the Chilean DINA in numerous cases of desaparecidos. The SIDE also assisted Bolivian general Luis Garcia Meza Tejada's Cocaine Coup in Bolivia, with the help of Gladio operative Stefano Delle Chiaie and Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie.
{ Barbie eventually saw justice in France but his trial saw important changes in international law because his defence lawyer claimed his crimes were no different to those of French imperialisim:- "This has led to the term New World Negationism to describe the denial or trivialisation of crimes against humanity such as genocide and slavery that were perpetrated by Europeans in the New World (i.e. North and South America).}

The Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, a group of mothers who had lost their children to the dictatorship, started demonstrating each sunday on Plaza de Mayo from April 1977, in front of the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires, the seat of the government, to reclaim their kids from the junta (wiki)"
I told you all about how their last demonstration faired earlier this year :- http://indymedia.ie/article/73968

But in recent times Argentina (now led by nice Mr Kirchner [also a german name]) is locked in diplomatic conflict with Paraguay. The Paraguayans who live across the river Plate from them ar ebuilding a humongous ecologically unsound facility which will pollute Argentinian territory....................."very modern worries".

worries that the mammies of Plaza Mayo were happy to see.
Our world took a long time "to recover" from WW2. never forget that kids, especially if you feel tempted to put little swastikas on your antiwar posters.

by obit Thu Aug 17, 2006 12:17

Human rights organisations oppose his burial in Paraguay.
thus he will now be disposed of in Brazil.

His family (& heirs) are still counted amongst the richest & most influential citizens of Paraguay, a country he ruled as dictator for 35 years. His grandson Alfredo "Golly" Domínguez Dibb Stroessner is in fact a leading member of the Colorado party the right wing faction of the young Paraguayan democracy.

He died in the St Lucia clinic in Brasilia and all reports were he suffered two weeks of agony.

At the same time as his death occured, his victims in Paraguay opened in a former torture chamber of his regime in Ascencion the Paraguayan capital a museum of memory, dictatorship and human rights.

Irony?

by iosaf Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:59

oh well another horrible brutal dictator is about to meet his maker.

The death of evil-doers is of small comfort to atheists & agnostics. You really have to believe that Hell is not other people, nor a dark dungeon, nor being shackled to the walls or electrodes.
You really have to feel convinced in your stomach & guts that God exists & made a Devil & his demons to make it good through....
eternal retribution?
eternal damnation?
eternal house arrest, frozen accounts?

hmmmmmm.

Maybe that's what it is really. How will your kids fare? Who knows?
All these questions belong to the past. "hoy en dia" as the spanish speakers call "in these days" we know that torture is against the UN charters of Human Rights, and everyone takes Amnesty international seriously. Oh yes, very occassionally suspicions are raised, collated & even evidence presented that states such as Ireland allowed "torture rendition" flights by the US, that states such as Ireland ignored "torturous" conditions in their psichiatric care institutes - but that doesn't really mean anything - does it? Our political institutions and commercial newspapers did their best to explain that such activists were "dingbats" or "malcontents" or "fantasists".

We don't have to worry about the experiences of the "young of today" when dealing with estate agent thugs or "a little bit too excited police guarded with impunity". No. Torture shall finally die when Agosto Pinochet joins Stroessner in the grave. In the place of torture the brave new world now erects museums & interpretive centres so the next generations may wonder - How could priests & democratic governments have ever tolerated such behaviour? .

well the answer was easy. They had to do it. The world could have gone communist.

his priest has blessed him & taken a confession, & he lingers between life & death. Send Pinochet your thoughts.

by ungoliath Wed Aug 19, 2009 23:05

Paraguay is so small and so often overlooked that most European readers wouldn't consider its recent democratic history to be important nor even bother to raise an eyebrow at its current attempts to co-ordinate narco-policy with the Bolivian state (where coca may be grown legally) nor even its new resolve to agree energy policy with Brazil or simply "get along splendidly with its neighbours". It's an attempt which works both ways. Bolivia today though to ask its neighbour was it ok with it that it go ahead and re-equip its military with new Russian stuff. Paraguay ignoring all talk of dangerous "arms races" in Latin America said it was "cool".

But in the last hours a judicial decision came along which touches on the past and the memories of the families of the disappeared in Paraguay and victims of Stroessner and all those who laboured under the fascist party he created which ruled the state long after he had trundled off to die (quicker than most of his torturers would have considered a good few year's work) in the wonderful nazi wonderland of Brazilia.

The oft-overlooked South American "dictator who dictated before condor"gave his son, Freddy, in 1974, a lot of public land in the Paraguayan capital, on the very posh "Trinity street" which consisted of 7.082,92 metres squared. It was allocated on the basis of a "transfer" of a brown soil site (where not even twisted wolfsbane could grow) well out of town which was only 727 metres squared. Young Freddy Stroessner junior did sort of well out of that deal, you'll agree and quite happily had in builders to construct him a mansion which to this day is known as the Stroessner gaff.

I'm sure you'll agree that the ordinary josé soaps of Paraguay are delighted that the Stroessner gaff will soon be turned into yet another museum to their past suffering and aren't in a bit worried that their current democracy hinges on a nasty spat between the former liberation theology priest turned president of the republic Lugo and the opposition party over their support for the putschist regime in Honduras.

Sure they know they're not going back to the bad old days, and bit by bit their modern day equivalent of the Irish CAB will do its work to return to them what in fact though rightfully theirs all along, they never ever had.

Meanwhile their newsreaders who aren't enjoying the five million books donated them by the Spanish state this July to improve their literacy without going to the extremes of a Hugo Chavez reading list, are probably reflecting on the wise and timely words of the Roman Catholic pontiff who has expressed his concern in the last hours for the preparation and training of young candidates for holy orders in Paraguay. http://www.ultimahora.com/notas/248020-El-Papa-muestra-...dotes

After all it would be very bad for the faith if all young seminary priests went the way of the first non-fascist president of the republic, Mr Lugo and abandoned their vows and wafers to father kiddies outside of wedlock and lead crypto-lefty regimes who have had the temerity today to back up the request of divorcee Bachelet let Chile that neighbouring Brazil release all its files on collusion with the fascist regimes of Pinochet and Stroessner during its "far - off - back - then" military dictatorship.

But as for their own fatherland, the modern day Paraguayans, no matter what they read may as well be content about the judicial decision earlier today that they're going to get yet another interpretative centre on Stroessner as soon as the son's gaff is given back to the people.

Because as of a few minutes ago they've just learnt that Stroessner junior may not be charged with any more corruption or brought for any more fun cases, many of which were started by earnest young lawyers and human rights groups in complete earnest despite a far right government no sooner had Stroessner junior accompanied Stroessner senior in his exile off to the wonderland of Brazilia to spend his last years listening to Marlene Dietrich records and enjoying novel new medical treatments.

The son may no longer be held responsible for the badness of the father. They neither were nor are of the same substance, indivisible and one, after all. We call this in our developed societies, the statue of limitation. It's the fine judicial mechanism which keeps Berlusconi out of jail and the secrets of the past far from enlightening our present

http://www.ultimahora.com/notas/247822-Almada-advierte-...sner-(h)