The 1989 Coup d'Etat in Paraguay: The End of a Long Dictatorship, 1954-1989

The year 1989 was crucial for Paraguay. After a long period of 35 years of dictatorship, General Alfredo Stroessner was finally overthrown by a violent coup d'etat. In a sort of prophetic way, he once said
I came to power by arms and I will only leave by arms and that came true on 2 February of that year. The 1989 Coup d'etat in Paraguay discusses Stroessner’s climb to power during a coup of 1954, fraudulent elections that got him re-elected seven times, and the ways Stroessner kept himself afloat through cooperation with the armed forces, a right-wing political party, and the USA. Arguably, longing to maintain his popularity, the dictator launched a large number of major development projects, including construction of roads, water and sewage facilities, three big hydro-electrical power stations, and a build-up of an airline. At the same time, abuse of human rights and oppression of any kind of political opposition became a norm: dozens of political prisoners were tortured and even executed, and thousands driven into exile. AUTHOR: Antonio Luis Sapienza Fracchia is an Aviation Historian and a founding member of the Instituto Paraguayo de Historia Aeronautica Silvio Pettirossi . He is also a corresponding member of similar institutes and academies in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Spain, the United States and Uruguay. He has written more than 500 articles in specialized magazines and webpages on Paraguayan Aviation history, and has given numerous lectures in schools, universities, institutes, military and civil institutions in Paraguay and abroad.
82 photographs, 15-18 artworks, 4 maps