Back to Dictatorship

To Paraguay's Congress, where in April he announced his "aim of perfecting a durable democratic regime." President Alfredo Stroessner, 46, sent a bristling order of dissolution. With that, Stroessner went back to the chancy business of running the last dictatorship on the continent of South America.

The showdown began when cops tear-gassed and whipped 800 high school students protesting a trolley-fare hike. The brutality brought out the university students next day. Alarmed, the government canceled the fare hike, but 1,000 students grabbed stones, tree limbs or bicycle pumps, marched into the grounds of Asuncion's largest high school chanting: "We will be victorious or die." The cops slammed 30 tear-gas shells into the school grounds and flogged the youths through an Indian gantlet of two rows of police, who beat the students as they fled.

Paraguay's Congress voted 26 to 23 to condemn the "police methods." Stroessner, who had been watching the debate minute by minute, decided democracy had gone too far, ordered units of the cavalry into Asuncion, clamped on a state of siege, and Paraguay's democratic interlude was all over.

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