Latin America

https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2012/12/22/the-never-ending-war

Paraguay's awful history
The never-ending war
How a terrible but little-known conflict continues to shape and blight a nation
He died with his homeland
Dec 22nd 2012|asunción

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He died with his homeland

THE fall of the “father of all Paraguayans” was even more abrupt than his rise. In 2008 Fernando Lugo, a Catholic bishop and liberation theologian who called himself a champion of the poor, won his country’s presidential election and broke the Colorado Party’s chokehold on power. Shortly after his inauguration, however, four women said that he had fathered their children while under a vow of celibacy; Mr Lugo recognised two of them. The Liberal party, whose support had propelled him to the presidency, repudiated him. In June 2012 Congress summarily removed him from office, after he was accused of mishandling a clash between police and landless peasants.
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But Mr Lugo’s career highlights other aspects of the war’s legacy. His election was widely celebrated because it ended 61 years of unbroken rule by the Colorado Party, 35 of them under Alfredo Stroessner. It was under Stroessner that the cult of López reached its apex. “The emphasis on glory, self-sacrifice, authoritarian models and internal enemies felt very congenial to the stronistas,” says Mr Whigham, the historian. Stroessner’s state “legitimised itself by drawing a straight line between Big Al and the Marshall.”

Wartime depopulation also influenced Stroessner’s policies. Post-war governments distributed brochures offering immigrants a free trip to Paraguay and land. A series of Utopian colonies sprung up, including a “New Australia” and an Aryan-supremacist “Nueva Germania”, co-founded by Friedrich Nietzsche’s sister, where a German flag still flies. In 1931 descendants of that group set up the first Nazi party outside Germany. (At the start of the second world war, Paraguay’s government openly sympathised with Hitler. The national police director named his son Adolfo Hirohito; police cadets wore swastikas on their uniforms.)

Another German who came to Paraguay after the war was Stroessner’s father, a Bavarian. Stroessner himself had no direct ties to the Paraguayan Nazis, but he shared many of their instincts: in 1974 he was accused by the UN of committing genocide against the native Aché people. He also harboured numerous Nazi war criminals, including Josef Mengele.

This autocratic tradition may have influenced Mr Lugo’s dismissive attitude to other politicians—a crucial factor in his downfall. The Liberals abandoned him in part because they felt their support had not been adequately rewarded in policies and jobs. Instead Mr Lugo had packed his cabinet with leftist allies. “You get in with one group and govern with another,” he reportedly said.

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Sexual violence during the war itself poisoned attitudes to race. In its own way, Paraguay is a melting pot: the countryside is full of blond-haired, blue-eyed peasants who speak fluent Guaraní and halting Spanish. Yet López’s propagandists tried to drum up prejudice against the Brazilian army, which was mostly black, since Pedro promised to free slaves who fought. They called the emperor the “chief of the monkey tribe”. The resentment lingers. “The kambá raped our women,” says Miguel Ángel of the Piribebuy museum, using the Guaraní word for blacks. Legend has it that the resulting black babies were killed.

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