Alfredo Stroessner

died August 16, 2006.

ALFREDO Stroessner, one of Latin America's most enduring dictators whose regime gave refuge to Nazi war criminals but was credited with building the modern Paraguay, has died in exile. He was 93.

Stroessner contracted pneumonia in Brazil's capital, where he had lived since he was forced from power in 1989. Paraguayans persecuted under Stroessner lamented that he died without facing charges on human rights abuses. "We should be celebrating; unfortunately, he died with impunity, " Hugo Rubin, a journalist jailed by the regime in the 1980s, said. "He killed his opponents, robbed the state, exiled countrymen, and lived in tranquility in his exile."

Stroessner seized power in 1954, becoming a paradigm for right-wing Latin American strongmen. Ousted by his generals, Stroessner remains hated by many in Paraguay, where he was accused of repression, and his associates of corruption, although his stalwarts credit him for modernising the country through public works funded by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Stroessner sheltered fellow right-wing dictators and made Paraguay a refuge for 200,000 Germans after the Second World War, including Nazi war criminals. He twice denied extradition requests for Dr Josef Mengele, the infamous "Angel of Death" at Auschwitz. "Stroessner didn't have any problem giving refuge to people with blood on their hands, " said Aaron Breitbart, of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. "His death is no loss to democratic values."

Following his fall, Stroessner lived as a recluse in Brazil, where his asylum status made extradition impossible.

As Stroessner's health failed, President Nicanor Duarte said there were no plans to honour him. But vice president Luis Castiglioni said that Stroessner's remains "should be allowed to rest in the country like any other Paraguayan's, despite his defects and errors that made the country and thousands of its citizens suffer."

The son of a German immigrant father and a Paraguayan mother, Stroessner fought in the 1930s Chaco War against Bolivia, and became a general at 40. He studied tactics in Panama, Brazil and the US and became army chief of staff in 1951. Rigging his re-election every five years after his seizure of power, he brought Paraguay into the modern age, transforming a politically tumultuous country with open sewers and no running water, even in the capital, into a relatively prosperous and modern nation.

Stroessner put his name on schools, public buildings and the airport. A river port was christened Puerto Stroessner. His portrait decorated offices, shops and living rooms, and a huge neon sign in a the capital blinked the message: "Stroessner: Peace, Work and Well-being."

His public-works projects included the dollars16bn (GBP8.5bn) Itaipu dam. But most of the new wealth did not reach average citizens. The general described virtually all his opponents as Marxist subversives. Paraguay sought for years to question Stroessner about the "disappearances" of his opponents. Human-rights activists say his regime was a key part of Operation Condor, a network of right-wing governments, supported by US intelligence agencies, that repressed leftist dissidents across South America in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Some 1500 victims are being compensated by the Duarte government for injuries suffered under the dictatorship, but his death puts an end to many lawsuits. "I have no feelings of rancour, " said Senator Domingo Laino, a leading opposition figure who was rounded up on scores of occasions under Stroessner's rule. "I only wish that never again appears a government in Paraguay so brutal and so merciless."

As members of the ruling Colorado Party, his main tool of control, began to accuse him of repression and dictatorial tactics, Stroessner tried to stamp out dissent in 1988 by ordering many officers to retire and trying to force retirement on a powerful army commander, General Andres Rodriguez.

Instead, Rodriguez rebelled, sending soldiers and tanks to the presidential guard headquarters, where Stroessner had taken refuge. Stroessner surrendered and went into exile. Rodriguez ruled until the first civilian government was elected in 1993.