RIGHTS-PARAGUAY: New ‘Archives of Terror’ Unearthed

[Judi Lynn]

RIGHTS-PARAGUAY: New ‘Archives of Terror’ Unearthed
By Natalia Ruiz Díaz

ASUNCIÓN, Oct 31 (IPS) - The discovery Friday of new archives from the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner is expected to shed new light on the regime that ruled Paraguay from 1954 to 1989.

Identity cards and folders full of photographs and information on former political prisoners were found in the basement of a building in downtown Asunción that belonged to the Interior Ministry.

The discovery was made possible by a tip-off from a former military cadet who served in the Interior Ministry under Stroessner.

Local human rights activist Martín Almada, who uncovered the so-called "Archives of Terror" in 1992, said the man who provided the information used to take meals to political prisoners held in the basement, which was used as a torture chamber by then interior minister Sabino Augusto Montanaro, a key member of Stroessner's inner circle who is now living in Honduras, where he was granted political asylum.

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The Truth and Justice Commission report, presented in August, puts the number of direct and indirect victims of the dictatorship at 128,076, including victims of forced disappearance, extrajudicial execution, detention, torture, rape and political exile.

Of that total, 19,682 were political prisoners, 18,772 were tortured, 59 were the victims of extrajudicial execution, and 337 were "disappeared."

As he left the building, a visibly moved Almada, who is himself a former political prisoner, said "this is a historic moment, which happens to have occurred just ahead of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," which was adopted in December 1948.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44540

Stroessner gave sanctuary to Nazi butcher Josef Mengele after WWII, and others.

It must make the right-wingers of the Americas wild with rage seeing their heros being criticized so sincerely by the entire world, minus a few pockets of a-holes HERE and there.