General Topples Paraguay Dictator; 250 Feared Dead : Stroessner Ordered to Leave

President Alfredo Stroessner, who as Latin America’s longest ruling dictator harshly squelched political dissent for three decades and gave hundreds of Nazi fugitives safe haven, was overthrown and arrested today by his top military commander.

Gen. Andres Rodriguez, whose daughter is married to Stroessner’s son, announced over Paraguay radio stations this morning that he had seized control of the country from Stroessner, 76, and placed him under arrest at an army barracks after heavy fighting in the capital that began late Thursday.

Roman Catholic Church-owned Radio Caritas estimated that about 250 people were killed in the clashes between the rebel soldiers and forces loyal to Stroessner.

Dancing in the Streets

Thousands of people sang and danced in the streets of Asuncion after Stroessner’s detention by army units backed by dissident members of his own Colorado Party was announced.

Rodriguez later assumed the presidency, and news media reported that Stroessner was given 12 hours to leave the country.

A radio station said Stroessner, whose main foreign allies were South Africa and Taiwan, would be sent into exile in Chile. But the Chilean foreign minister said the government of right-wing army Gen. Augusto Pinochet had not received a request for asylum.

Although Rodriguez said in a radio statement that Stroessner had been overthrown “in the name of democracy,” Western diplomatic sources said Stroessner had been planning to send Rodriguez into retirement.

Ruled Over Indians

Stroessner took power in the landlocked nation of 4 million people, most of them Indians, in a 1954 uprising. Reelected as president eight times, he was accused of rigging the votes.

Hundreds of Nazi fugitives used Paraguay as a haven, and during his nearly 35 years in power and Stroessner harshly squelched political dissent. In recent years the United States criticized his government’s human rights record.

The red-haired son of a German beer-maker who emigrated from Bavaria and made a fortune in lumber and a wealthy Paraguayan mother of Spanish heritage, Stroessner began his military career at 20 and quickly distinguished himself.

During his long rule, Stroessner--6 feet tall and known to acquaintances as “the German”--oversaw Paraguay’s transformation from a backwater country with open sewers and no running water to a relatively prosperous and modern nation.

Even his critics admit he helped stabilize Paraguay. In the 31 years before he took over, it had 22 presidents.

Accused of Corruption

Yet he also was accused of brutal repression and corruption, and his country became a haven for fugitive Nazis, drug traffickers and former dictators.

Among the refugees were Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz death camp doctor who became a citizen of Paraguay in 1959 and was befriended by Nazi sympathizers; Edward Rochmann, the Nazi “Butcher of Riga”; ousted President Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua, who was assassinated in Paraguay; drug trafficker Joseph August Ricorde, and Croation militant and convicted assassin Miro Baresic.