Alfredo Stroessner

Paraguayan Army officer who served as dictator of Paraguay from 1954 to 1989. He ascended to the position after leading an army coup in 1954. His 35-year-long rule, marked by an uninterrupted period of repression in his country, is the longest in modern South American history.

In 1954, he ousted Federico Chávez, becoming president after winning an election in which he was the sole candidate. As an anti-communist, Stroessner had the backing of the United States for most of his time in power. His supporters packed the legislature and ran the courts, and he ruthlessly suppressed all opposition. He kept his country in what he called a constant "state of siege" that overruled civil liberties, enforced a cult of personality, and tortured and killed political opponents. Membership in his Colorado Party was a prerequisite for job promotion, free medical care and other services. The constitution had to be modified in 1967 and 1977 to legitimize his six consecutive elections to the presidency. Stroessner provided exile for Nazi war criminals (including Josef Mengele) as well as overthrown dictators, such as Argentina's Juan Perón and Nicaragua's Anastasio Somoza Debayle (later assassinated in Paraguay).

In 1988, he won an unprecedented eighth term on a majority, according to official figures, of over 89 percent of the registered vote. Less than a year later, he was overthrown in a military coup d'état led by his former confidant, General Andrés Rodríguez, and forced into exile in Brazil, where he spent the last 17 years of his life. Following a bout of pneumonia, he tried to return to his homeland to die, but was rejected by the government. He died in Brasília on 16 August 2006, of complications from a hernia operation.

Stroessner was a philanderer who engaged in extramarital affairs before and during his presidency. According to many sources, some of his affairs were with teenage girls as young as 13, and he may have fathered over 30 illegitimate children.