Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0282/02820.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 37KB | 578 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02820}
$Pretitle{356}
$Title{Paraguay
Chapter 5A.   National Security}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Melinda W. Cooke}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{military
forces
army
armed
political
war
party
national
service
stroessner}
$Date{1987}
$Log{Francisco Solano Lopez*0282001.scf
}
Country:     Paraguay
Book:        Paraguay, A Country Study
Author:      Melinda W. Cooke
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1987

Chapter 5A.   National Security

[See Francisco Solano Lopez: Artist's rendition.]

     In mid-1988 the armed forces continued to act as a major source of support for
the authoritarian regime of President Alfredo Stroessner Mattiauda. Stroessner
had used them, along with the police and the ruling National Republican
Association-Colorado Party (Asociacion Nacional Republicana-Partido Colorado),
as the primary instruments to maintain his regime since coming to power in a
coup d'etat in 1954. Under the Constitution, the president is designated the
nation's commander in chief. Stroessner, himself a general in the Paraguayan
army, had chosen to fill this role actively, retaining command authority over
the defense forces and involving himself personally in day-to-day decision
making related to them. Stroessner was able to keep the military under his
control, rather than vice versa, through his cultivation of ties of personal
loyalty, his direction of assignments and promotions, and his reliance on a
system of checks and balances within and among the defense forces, the police,
the Colorado Party, and elite forces under his own control. Military members
had also been given a substantial stake in Stroessner's regime, which granted
them special privileges and power through salary, benefits, and opportunities
for patronage and graft.

     Paraguay had a strong military tradition, and the nation took great pride
in its performance against Argentina in 1811, in the 1865-70 War of the Triple
Alliance, and in the Chaco War of 1932-35 against Bolivia. The military
tradition remained a valued one, even though the country had faced little if
any external threat since the Chaco War. Instead, the armed forces under
Stroessner were chiefly occupied in preserving internal security and
supporting the regime. The military was also charged with guarding Paraguay's
borders and protecting against insurgency, which had been limited to the
1959-64 period and was largely ineffective. In addition, the armed forces
devoted a large portion of their resources to civic action and rural
development. In keeping with the limited external threat, the military was
equipped mainly to meet public order and internal security assignments.
Reflecting the nation's troubled economy and the absence of significant
threats, defense spending in the 1980s had not kept up with inflation. Most
military equipment had thus grown more and more outdated.

     For administrative purposes, the armed forces fell under the purview of
the Ministry of National Defense. Operational command of the approximately
17,000-member military was held directly by the president and exercised
through the armed forces general staff. The army was the largest and most
influential of the three services. It was equipped mainly as a light infantry
force. Army officers, usually retired from active service, held positions in
other branches of government and as managers of state-run economic, social,
and political organizations. The navy was a riverine force that included a
battalion of marines. The small air force flew mainly transport planes and
helicopters, but also had a small number of counterinsurgency aircraft and a
paratroop battalion.

     The country enjoyed unprecedented internal security under Stroessner, and
conditions of public order could generally be characterized as peaceful. This
level of order came about, however, largely as a result of the government's
willingness to use whatever means it deemed necessary to quell disorder and
suppress dissent. From 1954 until April 1987, the government ruled almost
continually under state-of-siege provisions. These provisions suspended in the
name of security civil rights guaranteed in the Constitution. The government
justified the extraordinary security measures as the price of peace in a
"democracy without communism," even though the nation had not faced a credible
communist threat since at least the mid-1960s.

     The government's harsh internal security measures ensured that opposition
to the regime remained muted throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. A slight
relaxation in the government's response to domestic dissent, combined with the
inspiration of Argentina's return to civilian democratic rule in 1984,
emboldened some members of the opposition in the mid-1980s. Members of the
press, the political opposition, and labor groups, as well as students,
peasants, and representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, began to express
dissatisfaction with Paraguay's political system and the economic hardship
that followed the end of the construction of the Itaipu hydroelectric project
(see Growth and Structure of the Economy, ch. 3). In 1985 and increasingly in
1986, unprecedented demonstrations were mounted in Asuncion and elsewhere.
Most of these were peaceful until they were violently dispersed by police and
other security personnel. The lapse of the state of siege in April 1987 was
followed by a short interval of greater official tolerance toward dissent.
This tolerance ended abruptly in late 1987, however, when a faction of the
Colorado Party describing itself as militant, pro-Stroessner, and combative,
took control of the Colorado Party in late 1987. As of late 1988, the
government's return to harsh repression had not abated.

     Criminal justice was the responsibility of the national government. The
national judiciary, headed by the five-member Supreme Court of Justice,
administered the country's criminal courts. All penal and procedural statutes
were issued by the central government. Paraguay's police force was also a
national force, organized under the Ministry of Interior. Police were divided
into one force that served the capital area and another that served the rest
of the country in divisions assigned to each of the nation's eighteen other
departments. Public confidence in the criminal justice system was undermined
because, although the judiciary was formally a coequal branch of government,
in practice it was clearly subordinate to the executive branch. Moreover, both
the judiciary and the police were widely viewed as susceptible to political
and economic influence.

The History and Development of the Armed Forces

     The nation's military tradition is rooted in the colonial past, when
armed groups in what is now Paraguay fought against royal Spanish armies and
Jesuit-led Indian forces. Elements of these Paraguayan armed groups were
organized into a force of approximately 3,000 members that in 1811 repelled an
invasion by Argentine forces seeking to annex Paraguay. As a result of that
victory, Paraguay declared its independence (see Struggle with the Portenos,
ch. 1).

     The modern army and the navy owe their origins to forces built up under
Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, who ruled as a dictator from 1814 to 1840
(see El Supremo Dictador, ch. 1). After heavily purging existing forces to
ensure their loyalty to him, Francia imposed strict discipline within the
ranks. Under his direction, army and naval strength was increased to deter
Argentina from further attacks on Paraguay and to act as the infrastructure
for his own autocratic rule. Francia instituted a program of conscription to
meet the military's manpower requirements. He also placed landholdings
confiscated from his opponents under the control of the army, which until the
late 1980s partially fed and supported itself by either working the land
directly or leasing it out.

     The army and navy were further improved by President Carlos Antonio
Lopez, who ruled from 1841 to 1862. Like Francia, Lopez us