Riordan Roett - Paraguay: The Personalist Legacy

Ronald Schneider, Series Editor

Paraguay: The Personalist legacy, Riordan Roett and Richard Scott Sacks

Venezuela: Tarnished Democracy, Daniel Charles Hellinger

Bolivia: Land of Struggle, Waltraud Queiser Morales

Haiti: The Breached Citadel, Patrick Bellegarde-Smith

Cuba: Dilemmas of a Revolution, Second Edition, Juan M. del Aguila

Uruguay: Democracy at the Crossroads, Martin Weinstein

Ecuador: An Andean Enigma, David W. Schodt

Mexico: Paradoxes of Stability and Change, Second Edition, Revised and Updated, Daniel Levy and Gabriel Szkely

Belize: A New Nation in Central America, O. Nigel Bolland

Nicaragua: The Land of the Sandino, Second Edition, Revised and Updated, Thomas W. Walker

Colombia: Portrait of Unity and Diversity, Harvey F. Kline

The Dominican Republic: A Caribbean Crucible, Howard J. Wiarda and Michael J. Kryzanek

Available in hardcover and paperback.

First published 1991 by Westview Press

Published 2019 by Routledge

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roett, Riordan, 1938-

Paraguay : the personalist legacy I Riordan Roett and Richard
Scott Sacks.

p. cm.-(Westview profiles. Nations of contemporary Latin
America)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. ParaguayCivilization. 2. ParaguayPolitics and
government20th century. I. Sacks, Richard Scott. II. Title.
III. Series.

F2670.R63 1991

90-45813

989.2dc20

CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-28224-0 (hbk)

To Domingo Rivarola and Graziella Corvaln with grateful thanks for their initial support and enduring patience

RR

And for Glynis Ann and Jared Maurice, without whose love and understanding this book would never have been written

RSS

Tables

Figures

Maps

Paraguay

Photos

Until almost the end of the 1980s, Paraguay and General Alfredo Stroessner were perceived as virtually synonymous in the minds of a whole generation. Indeed, this dictator often eclipsed the small, inland South American country over which he ruled for more than a third of a century. Yet, in the long run, the most important events in Paraguay occurred before Stroessner came to dominate the scene. Two of the hemispheres most significant wars were fought chiefly in Paraguayone in the 1860s and the other during the 1930s. The former, often called the War of the Triple Alliance, pitted Paraguay against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay in an epic struggle that could have had but one outcomethe eventual defeat and occupation of Paraguay. The more recent Chaco War (19321935) was fought against Bolivia, with Paraguay enjoying the home field advantage. Yet if the result could be termed a victory for Paraguay, it was a costly one that brought no advantages with it. Moreover, a good look at nineteenth-century Paraguay shows that the roots of the Stroessner phenomenon were planted deeply in Paraguays national life from the time of independence.

Riordan Roett and Richard Sacks have joined efforts to do full justice to a country and a people who are seeking to build a better future on the very questionable foundation of the Stroessner legacy. They show that the long-lived Stroessner dictatorship was no aberration, but rather a logical link in Paraguays almost unbroken tradition of essentially authoritarian to downright despotic rulers: Indeed, Jos Gaspar Rodrguez de Francia, Carlos Antonio Lpez, and Francisco Solano Lpez become highly understandable in the context of the nineteenth-century Paraguay effectively described by the authors. Solanos battlefield death in 1870 left a long-term vacuum, and instability la Bolivia replaced strongman rule. In the aftermath of the Chaco War, the militarys political role expanded, and the 1947 civil war set the stage for Stroessners rise and subsequent 35-year hold on power.

Although Paraguays economy is quite limited, it is far from simple subsistence. Economic growth was high during the 19741981 period, yet that growth was not sustainable once the great hydroelectric project at Itaipa Brazilian initiativewas completed. Roett and Sacks argue persuasively that the potential for renewed growth exists as Paraguay enters the 1990s. Even more important and original than their concise and competent treatment of the economy, however, is their elucidation of Paraguayan culture, centering upon the role of Guaran as the true national language in this most mestizo of all Latin American countries. Within their analysis of society, they give special and sensitive attention to the changing roles of women and Indians.

The ousting of Stroessner in February 1989 and the subsequent election of General Andrs Rodrguez occurred too recently for their long-run effects to be clear. Roett and Sacks do, however, provide a systematic analysis of the structures and forces involved in the evolving political processes and clearly portray the environment in which these function. They help the reader understand Paraguays very tentative and incomplete transition from authoritarian rule, a transition that is not yet, in important ways, one clearly headed toward real democracy. In this respect, their careful and insightful assessment of external factors and Paraguays international position adds an important dimension.

The reader with a preexisting interest in Paraguay will find answers in this book to just what this country is, how it has reached its present state, and where it may be going. Individuals interested in broadening their comparative understanding of Latin America will be rewarded with a text that clears away persistent myths and misconceptions about this little-known country lying between Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia. They will find that Paraguay is far from being simply the other side of the Uruguayan coina Southern Hemisphere Albania to that more advanced and fortunate little countrys shining Switzerland. Beyond this, the Paraguayan case provides a link, via Bolivia, between the heavily European Southern Cone nations of South America and the highly Indian Andean countries.

Ronald M. Schneider

The shots fired during the early morning hours of February 3, 1989, at the Asuncin headquarters of the presidential escort battalion presented the planet with its first blood-and-steel evidence that the year would be recorded, like 1848, as one of universal human liberation. The deposed government of Alfredo Stroessner had held power in Paraguay for close to 35 years, a political longevity then surpassed only by Bulgarias Todor Zhivkov, North Koreas Kim Il-song, and Jordans King Hussein.