Transitional Justice in Latin America by Skaar Elin; Garcia-Godos Jemima; Collins Cath

Author:Skaar, Elin; Garcia-Godos, Jemima; Collins, Cath
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

Chapter 7

Paraguay

Accountability in the shadow of Stroessner

Cath Collins*

Paraguay has had a limited, but significant, transitional justice experience since emerging in 1989 from one of the longest one-person dictatorships in Latin America and the world. The country’s protracted process of coming to terms with the Alfredo Stroessner era (1954–89) became internationally visible only in 2008, when an official truth commission (TC) published its final report. Latin America’s fifth-smallest country, sparsely populated Paraguay, is one of the region’s least- known cases of transitional justice, just as it is rarely given the attention it deserves in other aspects of comparative politics. However, the country’s transitional justice history is richer than is often appreciated.

With no formal amnesty law in place – something that can be attributed to the unexpected timing of the regime’s downfall – some early trials were held. Other measures have included a truth commission, reparations, and memory initiatives. The shadow of Stroessner and the Colorado Party machine looms over a country still beset by endemic corruption, a weak or captured state, and slow – though recently improving – macroeconomic performance.1 The 2012 impeachment and removal of progressive centre-left president Fernando Lugo attracted short-lived international attention, but the holding of elections in 2013 largely placated external concern. The return to power of the Colorado Party, one that Stroessner virtually came to embody, suggests that important political legacy issues remain unresolved.2

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