Democracy for Paraguay? Signals From the New Regime Are Still Mixed

On a street corner across from the presidential palace, a young man was purposefully gluing freshly printed posters this week over those that bore the visage of the former president, Gen. Alfredo Stroessner.

“Real Democracy. President of the Republic Gen. Andres Rodriguez,” the new poster declares. Below Rodriguez’s smiling face is a quotation: “My government will fight without rest so that there is a dynamic reality in our country, and not a piece of the graveyard.”

Those seeking reason to believe that one military strongman has replaced another in Paraguay could seize on the appearance of the new posters as one of the signs of continuity. Such propaganda dominated nearly every wall during Stroessner’s era.

But others, yearning to glimpse signals that a new era lies ahead, preferred to look elsewhere. Down the block, for example, a newsstand was doing brisk business selling El Pueblo, the weekly newspaper of the opposition Febrerista Party, which reappeared Tuesday for the first time since Stroessner banned it in mid-1987.

The first edition of the eight-page broadsheet, in an editorial entitled “The Big Test Has Begun,” found reason for optimism.

“To have a president who shakes the people’s hands is a miracle,” El Pueblo said. “And who truly smiles. To have a president who is moved by applause, because he knows that no one was threatened with dismissal for not applauding, is a transcendental event.”

In the early, honeymoon days after the end of Stroessner’s 34 1/2-year reign, everyone is hunting for indicators to determine where Rodriguez is heading--whether he will introduce pluralism, end repression of government foes, crack down on corruption and favoritism and allow more civil freedoms--all of which he promised after overthrowing Stroessner in a violent coup last Friday.

Certainly, his style is different from that of the gruff, tyrannical Stroessner.

Soon after Stroessner took office after his own coup in 1954, he ordered all radio stations to begin the day by broadcasting the “Gen. Stroessner Polka,” then a patriotic song followed by these words: “The constitutional president of the republic, Division Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, salutes the Paraguayan people and wishes them a prosperous day with happiness and work. With Stroessner: God, country, work and well-being.”

Meets With Press

Rodriguez even met with the press the day after Stroessner flew into exile in Brazil. The old-guard functionaries in the presidential palace were baffled trying to organize such an rare gathering, and Paraguayan reporters said they found the chaos refreshing.

The U.S. government sided with the cautious optimists Thursday, formally recognizing the new government a week after the coup. U.S. Ambassador Timothy L. Towell said that Rodriguez’s declared commitment to democracy and civil rights and his promise to suppress drug trafficking were among “a number of things that have never happened before. That, in and of itself, is rather an optimistic development.”

“Their credibility will be based on following through on what they say they’re going to do,” Towell said. “Words are not enough.”

The new government still requires all radio stations to broadcast simultaneously the day’s official pronouncements, including a healthy dose of news about the ruling Colorado Party. But Rodriguez’s government so far has not followed the Stroessner practice of making intimidating phone calls to Radio Caritas, the Roman Catholic station that serves as the primary opposition outlet, and has virtually approved the reopening of Humberto Rubin’s closed all-news station, Radio Nanduti, as well as the main opposition newspaper, ABC Color.

Elections Planned

Yet, like Stroessner did after his coup in 1954, Rodriguez announced that there will be elections in three months, and it quickly became clear that he will be the candidate for the Colorado Party. So Paraguay is not yet likely to join its Latin American neighbors in electing a civilian president. Rodriguez, who was Stroessner’s No. 2 as the senior army commander, announced the balloting for May 1, which the opposition complained was much too soon for them to organize an effective challenge.

For more than a century, Paraguay has had two major political forces, the Colorados and the Liberals. Under Stroessner, the largest Liberal faction, the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, was banned. Its leader, Domingo Laino, was arrested more than 100 times during his three-decade-long campaign against Stroessner. Laino was beaten up, harassed, vilified and spent time in exile.

Hours after Stroessner surrendered to Rodriguez last Friday, Laino was at the Colorado Party headquarters during a rally for its new leaders when a bunch of Colorado members grabbed him by the arm.

“I thought they were going to hit me,” Laino said.

Instead, they led him to the podium, put a Colorado Party bandanna around his neck and cheered his emotional, impromptu speech envisioning a new and democratic Paraguay.

Under Stroessner, the chances of Laino addressing the Colorado Party had been about as remote as Cuban President Fidel Castro speaking to a Republican Party convention in the United States.

Laino, expected to be the lone opposition candidate for president, held constant meetings in his 19th-Century house, a decaying version of an antebellum Southern manse which serves as the opposition headquarters. He said the three-party opposition alliance will decide whether to participate in the May 1 election after receiving the government’s reply on demands for a delay in the vote and a range of legal changes to ensure a fair election.

“We don’t ask for perfection in the elections,” Laino, 53, said Thursday. “But yes, we seek certain norms of fairness. We ask that the government be flexible, too.”

The alliance, called the National Accord, plans its first legal rally Saturday. However, there were few signs that the opposition, confined for years to complaining about Stroessner, was hurrying to build the grass-roots organization that will be necessary to challenge the omnipresent Colorado Party.

Otherwise, the torpor of Asuncion matches the changeless Stroessner years. An ancient steam locomotive chugs around the city’s freight yard and an old trolley clatters down narrow Palma Street, where Koreans sell electronic goods--Paraguay is Latin America’s contraband paradise--and hawkers offer fake designer watches.

The tropical afternoon heat is so severe that business begins as early as 7 a.m., and most stores crank down their metal shutters around noon. During the siesta, the searing sidewalks are empty. For a town with more than 500,000 residents, and with some office buildings going up among the decaying balconied houses, Asuncion hasn’t yet lost its Spanish colonial atmosphere. In the evenings, families in the whitewashed, run-down row houses a few blocks from downtown bring their chairs out to the curb and pass the time chatting and drinking mate, the local herbal tea.

The fears of the Stroessner years have not vanished overnight. This is a society accustomed to giving and receiving orders, not debating and competing. Building a culture of democracy, one diplomat said, will not be easy, even if Rodriguez lives up to his promise to encourage pluralism.

Stroessner did bring stability to a country where one coup used to follow another in quick succession. In 1947, a 15-month civil war saw six presidents come and go, and more coups and countercoups followed until Stroessner came to power. He stayed by co-opting the Colorado Party, putting faithful allies in the right places in the military and suppressing all opposition.

Many Paraguayans find that people are willing to speak more freely now, less concerned about informers and police intelligence agents since the rebel forces shot up and routed the police headquarters--a Stroessner stronghold--during the fighting last week. Even if Rodriguez were so inclined, people reason, it would take a while to re-establish the apparatus of repression under a new command.

Meanwhile, it has become hard to find anyone in the capital who ever had been a supporter of the previous government, at least in its final couple of years. Suddenly, all Paraguayans are democrats, along with Gen. Rodriguez, who says he realized a while ago that Stroessner had erred.

However, after the initial vicious condemnation of a fallen dictator, the tone toward Stroessner has already changed. Rodriguez used mellow words to describe a man he said was manipulated by ill-intentioned advisers, and that has become the official line on the Stroessner era.

The new foreign minister, Luis Maria Argana, who had been thrown off the Supreme Court by Stroessner, told reporters that the former president had governed well for his first, say, 32 or 33 years in office.

Argana said he did not want to dwell on the Stroessner era, adding, “The triumph erased the past.”

A huge neon sign across the top of the National Bank on Heroes Plaza in the center of town used to declare: “Peace and Progress With Stroessner.” Soon after the coup, the word “Stroessner” came down. Some wondered if “Rodriguez” was about to go up in its place. But a few days later, the rest of the sign was also removed. So far, nothing stands in its place.