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Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguayan Ex-Dictator, Dies

Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, the former president of Paraguay whose harsh and capricious 35-year hold on power made him South America’s most enduring dictator during the cold war and gave him the aura of a character out of a Gabriel García Márquez novel, died yesterday. He was 93.

The cause of death was a stroke, The Associated Press said, citing information from a grandson, Alfredo Domínguez Stroessner.

General Stroessner had lived in Brazil since 1989, moving there after his ouster by his second in command, Gen. Andrés Rodríguez, a relative by marriage.

Formally, General Stroessner was a fugitive from justice, wanted by the Paraguayan courts for trial on charges of homicide. Despite an extradition treaty between Brazil and Paraguay, however, there were never any serious moves to bring the general to justice in his home country, where his cabinet members and associates remained the stewards of government long after his fall.

Read entire article at NYT