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Speaker 1: What's engaged in a conspiracy against all civilization my Catholic Church.

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Speaker 1: This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast that focuses on

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Speaker 1: the evils of the false Pope in Rome. We are,

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Speaker 1: of course, devotees of the Antipope Novadianum, who carried out

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Speaker 1: a righteous rebellion against the power of Pope Cornelius in

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Speaker 1: the in the mid two hundreds. Um, you know, God

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Speaker 1: rest his soul, James, what's the what's the chief thing

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Speaker 1: you've learned from the Antipope? No, his input on on

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Speaker 1: hair and skincare has been really important to me. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: he had. He had a lot to say about that

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Speaker 1: in the Latin language, which he was the first Roman

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Speaker 1: theologian to use. Um, I'm just learning about him now

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Speaker 1: on Wikipedia. I don't know why I went with this

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Speaker 1: as the introduction for the Abody Knows, Robert, nobody knows,

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Speaker 1: Nobody knows, nobody knows. But you know what this is

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Speaker 1: now a podcast dedicated to the Antipope Novation, who lived

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Speaker 1: from two hundred eighty to two hundred and fifty eight. Wow. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well it's a big change from my last episode, which

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Speaker 1: was of course dedicated to a dead groundhog. So that's right,

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Speaker 1: that's right. They have a lot in common, the Antipope

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Speaker 1: and that ground log hog that built Blasio. Did build

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Speaker 1: a Blasio? Drop the anti incredible you gave us. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna make one more request from the artists to

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Speaker 1: our fans, which is a like a like a romance,

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Speaker 1: a Roman style relief, like the ceiling of the U

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Speaker 1: of the static. That's like, yeah, that's like antipope novation

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Speaker 1: and that fucking groundhog holding hands in the sky. Find

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Speaker 1: a building. It doesn't matter who owns it. Drawn that

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Speaker 1: as Amia, I know we will send you a titia.

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Speaker 1: Let those two kings be the symbol of our next revolution.

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Speaker 1: Hand in pull the Antipope writing into battle on the

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Speaker 1: graund hook. Finally, Deblasio will get his comeuppance. So, speaking

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Speaker 1: of Bill Deblasio, the first official Nazi party outside of Germany,

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Speaker 1: was formed in Paraguay in nineteen twenty seven under a

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Speaker 1: mango tree in the capital. While Forster, that anti Semitic

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Speaker 1: philosopher we talked about last time, had been a miserable

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Speaker 1: failure in his goal of creating an Aryan sanctuary, his

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Speaker 1: published writings traveled across the world and became kind of

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Speaker 1: a leading light for several generations of German anti Semites.

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Speaker 1: One of these anti Semites was a guy you might

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Speaker 1: have heard of named Adolf Hitler. He comes across Forrester's

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Speaker 1: readings as a young man, and he reveres them so

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Speaker 1: much that when he comes to power, he sends a

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Speaker 1: bunch of German soil over to Paraguay so that local

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Speaker 1: Nazis can cover Forster's grave. He also allegedly sends along

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Speaker 1: a tombstone plaque with the words the place where the

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Speaker 1: Father of Nazism lies inscribed upon it. Um. Now there's Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we have any lists in Paraguay. That's a great thing

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Speaker 1: to tag. Yeah that that would be a nice thing

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Speaker 1: to destroy. Yeah, yeah there is, Yeah, groundhog, that fucker

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Speaker 1: do that. Give it the old build a Blasio treatment

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Speaker 1: and drop it. M Now there's There is debate over

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Speaker 1: whether or not Hitler is the person who sent this plaque,

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Speaker 1: but the plaque does exist. British historian Ben McIntyre is

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Speaker 1: one of the people who considers it it likely that

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Speaker 1: Hitler would have said this. Obviously, that doesn't mean that

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Speaker 1: he was like the only ideological father of Nazism Hitler.

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Speaker 1: Hitler could be a flatterer when he wanted to be.

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Speaker 1: But it does there is like it is kind of

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Speaker 1: beyond arguing that Hitler was a fan of this guy

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Speaker 1: and that Forster influenced his attitudes. Um. As a result

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Speaker 1: of all this, it is perhaps not surprising that Nazism

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Speaker 1: held an a lure to some segments of the Paraguayan populace.

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Speaker 1: The nation's first National Police Director named his son Adolpho,

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Speaker 1: and demanded police cadets where swastikas on their uniforms. This

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Speaker 1: is this is a post nineteen five swastica right, No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: these are pre forty five. Okay, still still probably a

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Speaker 1: poor decision. Yeah, Um did he then say it's just

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Speaker 1: a Buddhist symbol, bro or yeah, yeah, it means peace time. Yeah. Now. Paraguay, also,

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Speaker 1: speaking of bad decisions, sided with the Nazis in World

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Speaker 1: War Two initially, Um, so they kind of switched their

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Speaker 1: allegiances midway through the war when it's like, you know what, look,

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Speaker 1: Paraguay's got a history of being on the wrong side

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Speaker 1: of wars. We don't want to risked at this time.

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Speaker 1: And obviously also like it doesn't really matter what side

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Speaker 1: of World War two Paraguay was on. They are a

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Speaker 1: landlocked country in South America. They're not going to play

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Speaker 1: a role in the fighting the government. Though the Paraguayan

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Speaker 1: government does switch their allegiances right before the end. It

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Speaker 1: is worth noting that the Paraguayan Nazi Party refuses to

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Speaker 1: give up the ghost until nineteen forty six, So Paraguay's

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Speaker 1: Nazi Party lasts longer than the original one. That's a

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Speaker 1: great at least later. Yeah, well well done. Then after

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Speaker 1: the war, this tiny landlocked nation seemed like an enticing

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Speaker 1: new home to dozens of former ssmen and other fascist

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Speaker 1: war criminals. Paraguay already had a modest German speaking population

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Speaker 1: based around Mennonite colonists, but it was also full of

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Speaker 1: and this kind of made it less desirable. It was

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Speaker 1: also a place where a lot of white Russian officers

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Speaker 1: had fled, some of whom had helped out in the

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Speaker 1: Chaco War. These guys, some of them didn't like the

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Speaker 1: ass some of them were always were also very sympathetic

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Speaker 1: to the Nazis because, like you know, Stalin and the

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Speaker 1: white Russians not a not a not a great mix um.

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Speaker 1: So on the whole this huh fucking white Russians end

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Speaker 1: up everywhere. I've recently been on a kick about reading

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Speaker 1: about white Russians in the Spanish Civil War who end

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Speaker 1: up yeah, all over the international brigades. Yeah, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of these guys are Czarists. A lot of these

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Speaker 1: guys are fascists. A lot of these guys are the

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Speaker 1: kinds of Czarists that are basically fascists. In any case,

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Speaker 1: it's a nice place to be a Nazi. After World

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Speaker 1: War Two, Paraguay, so Nazis start filtering in there. A

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Speaker 1: lot of them settle with Mennonites. At least one Mennonite

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Speaker 1: community adopts a pro Nazi school curricula for its children

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Speaker 1: as a result of this. God, yeah, don't speak that

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Speaker 1: shit into reality because understantists will be all over it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: fucking Mennonazis, Jesus, others simply took Nazis. Be fair if

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Speaker 1: they if they'd all been Mennonites, and we probably would

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Speaker 1: have had quite so many issues with them. No, No,

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Speaker 1: although speaking yeah, they they I mean they already mostly

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Speaker 1: did shit on horseback anyway. As as illustrated and probably

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Speaker 1: the best scene of a Band of Brothers, God, that

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Speaker 1: show did a lot, right, there's this great scene where

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Speaker 1: like a bunch of American soldiers are like riding in

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Speaker 1: after kind of the Nazi regime collapses, and they see

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Speaker 1: all these like German po doubles hauling shit on horses

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Speaker 1: while they're on the back of a jeep, and they're

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Speaker 1: like fucking horses. Like, you thought you could win this

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Speaker 1: war and you've got fucking horses. What's wrong with you people?

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Speaker 1: It's very funny. So yeah, these Nazis start winding up

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Speaker 1: all over the fucking place, and they decide, like, you

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Speaker 1: know what Paraguay would be great for is a smuggling

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Speaker 1: base for Odessa, the organization of former ss men who

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Speaker 1: helped each other smuggle themselves into other countries in order

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Speaker 1: to avoid prosecution for doing a holocaust. Now, some of

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Speaker 1: my sources will argue that like Stressner, the kind of

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Speaker 1: guy who wasn't really logically committed to much of anything

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Speaker 1: other than being in power. But that's also essentially the

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Speaker 1: ideology of a lot of surviving Nazi officials. So Stressner

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Speaker 1: and the Nazis got along pretty well. And there are

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Speaker 1: some allegations, most notably from Alex Schumtov, that Stressner was

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Speaker 1: at least Nazi curious Schumatov basically claims that in his

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Speaker 1: early life Stressner had little contact with Germans in Paraguay,

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Speaker 1: but that this changed in his thirties and he kind

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Speaker 1: of became a Germanophile, you know, getting in touch with

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Speaker 1: his dad's people. I'm gonna quote from Vanity Fair again here.

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Speaker 1: One of Stressner's German buddies was Hans Rudel, a flying

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Speaker 1: ace in the Luftwava who flew more missions than anyone,

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Speaker 1: destroyed a cruiser, a battleship five hundred nineteen Russian tanks,

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Speaker 1: was shot down twice, lost his right leg below the calf,

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Speaker 1: but continued to excel at tennis and water skiing. Was

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Speaker 1: the idol of the post war German right, the embodiment

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Speaker 1: of Aryan perfection. Hitler created a special metal with him,

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Speaker 1: the Knight's crossed with golden oak leaves. After the war,

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Speaker 1: he tried out planes for the Argentinian government, and when

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Speaker 1: Perone fell in nineteen fifty five, was given asylum by

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Speaker 1: his friend Stressner. When Argentina was no longer safe for

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Speaker 1: x Nazis, Rudel went to Paraguay as well and worked

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Speaker 1: in the Ferretta Paraguaya and on Suncon selling BMW's telephone,

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Speaker 1: cement and iron. He also worked for Odessa, So he's like,

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Speaker 1: he's like a BMWU dealer who's smuggling lavafa SS out

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Speaker 1: of Europe and into Argentina. It's like the forest gump

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Speaker 1: of Nazis here here, all the high points fucking Argentina. Mm. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's all over the fucking place. In addition to selling

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Speaker 1: used cars. Yeah, so I gotta have a side hustle.

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Speaker 1: Stressner and Rudel become fast friends and working with Rudel,

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Speaker 1: Stressner sets up a system whereby new passports and visas

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Speaker 1: can be sold for an exorbitant price, of which he

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Speaker 1: got to cut two old Nazis. And one of the

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Speaker 1: Nazis who takes advantage of this very forgiving Paraguayan government

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Speaker 1: policy is another fella you might have heard of, doctor

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Speaker 1: Joseph Angola. So, oh good, it's good. That's yeah, so

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Speaker 1: I was looking forward to that. It's Friday afternoon. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so if you if you're not up on your Mangola.

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Speaker 1: The kind of cliffs notes of this guy is that

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Speaker 1: he's a doctor at Auschwitz superform's fatal experiments on fifteen

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Speaker 1: hundred sets of twin children. Um, he did shit like

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Speaker 1: inject colored eye into like the eyes of toddler's color

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Speaker 1: die into the eyes of toddlers who were twins, to

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Speaker 1: like see if it affected the other twin. It was

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Speaker 1: like nonsense, it was, it was crazy nonsense. That's doctor

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Speaker 1: Joseph Mangola. He's a terrible person. We will cover him

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Speaker 1: at some point. He's one of those guys like Durrel Wanger,

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Speaker 1: who he's not like. Mangola himself is not the most

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Speaker 1: fascinating individual. So a lot of it's just kind of

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Speaker 1: a list of horrible war crimes. Um, but we'll get

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Speaker 1: him one of these days. I know, I know the

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Speaker 1: subreddits crying out from Mangola, and eventually I Am going

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Speaker 1: to show them why they don't want what they think

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Speaker 1: they want. No one's going to have a good time

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Speaker 1: with this episod so um it is. It is weird.

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Speaker 1: The people are demanding Mangola. Got a lot of Mangola

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Speaker 1: stands in the audience who can't wait to get their

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Speaker 1: mangelicque out. Um got a Mangola pill. Nope, nope, no,

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Speaker 1: that was not a mistake. No, that was a mistake. Ah,

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Speaker 1: let's move it on, Let's move it on so Mangola.

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Speaker 1: One report from a German Paraguay and who was in

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Speaker 1: country at the time says that Mangola in nineteen fifty

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Speaker 1: nine made us say a living in Paraguay as a

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Speaker 1: salesman for a manure spreading business. Post war Nazi careers

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Speaker 1: are always like what weird? Why did they make them

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Speaker 1: do shit? Like if you're just fucking like put them

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Speaker 1: in a hotel or something like these comedy fucking jobs. Yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: they're making money. The guy who claimed this told Alex Schumatov,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know he was a doctor, and we talked

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Speaker 1: about business and never the war. I figured he didn't

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Speaker 1: want to talk about it. Probably probably did, I see

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Speaker 1: from Probably didn't want to talk about the war. Yeah. Whatever.

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Speaker 1: So some reports do allege that Stressner and Mangola were

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Speaker 1: close friends also and knew each other well. I have

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Speaker 1: not come across any convincing evidence of this, but he's

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Speaker 1: certainly it's almost certain that Mangola traveled through and spent

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Speaker 1: time in Paraguay. He gets citizenship at one point in time. Um,

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Speaker 1: so it's certainly possible that he and Stressner had a

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Speaker 1: degree of social interactions together. Now, that's all pretty bad, James.

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Speaker 1: When you are smuggling, doctor Joseph Mengel at a safety,

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Speaker 1: that's a bad thing to do. That's that's high up

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Speaker 1: on the list of least forgivable things. And I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: very pro smuggling, but not if you're smuggling Nazis. You know,

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Speaker 1: Finnyl totally fine, old electronics that you stole from people's cars,

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Speaker 1: great catalytic converters, excellent. Yeah, some chop today. I was

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Speaker 1: really proud of him. M Exactly. We need, we need,

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Speaker 1: we need the smuggling community to come together against smuggling,

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Speaker 1: Joseph Mangela. Places. Look, not even once, folks, not even once. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the government's tolerance of Nazis led the fairly small Paraguay

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Speaker 1: and Jewish population to have some awkward experiences after World

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Speaker 1: War Two. And this is where things get very weird. James.

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Speaker 1: This is a really odd little story I've got for you.

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Speaker 1: I found a peculiar but unique account of life in

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Speaker 1: Stressner's Paraguay written by a person who at the time

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Speaker 1: was a young boy named Michael Caine. Now, not that

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Speaker 1: Michael Kine o. This Michael kine is basically a fascist. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and he grew up in This is so weird. The

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Speaker 1: guy I found this in like this guy's blog. He's

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Speaker 1: just like writing about his time as a little boy

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Speaker 1: in Stressner's Paraguay. He grew up in the UK in

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Speaker 1: a peace church called the bruder Hof, which was part

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Speaker 1: of a network of Pacifist Anabaptist religious communities that had

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Speaker 1: started spreading out from Germany in nineteen twenty. Now Michael's

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Speaker 1: like three, I think in nineteen forty one when his

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Speaker 1: family has to flee the UK when the war breaks out.

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Speaker 1: The UK puts Germans in concentration camps, now nicer ones

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Speaker 1: than the German concentration camps, it must be said, But

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Speaker 1: that's why his family leaves. They're like, this is not

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Speaker 1: It seems like maybe being German in the UK in

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty one is an ideal we might want to bounce. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so well, unless you're unless you're the monarch of cause,

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Speaker 1: in which grace, unless you yeah, unless you are the monarch.

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Speaker 1: So his family flees the UK for the only country

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Speaker 1: that will accept their peace church during the war years,

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Speaker 1: which is Paraguay. Michael's recollections are on his website, and

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Speaker 1: I have not looked into the Bruderhof a lot. It

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Speaker 1: is again, it's like a Pacifist Anabaptist network of religious communities.

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Speaker 1: Michael claims that he suffered terrible sexual abuse and paints

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Speaker 1: a picture of the Bruderhof in Paraguay as a cult

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Speaker 1: entirely possible. This is true, It would not be out

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Speaker 1: of line with a lot of similar movements. I have

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Speaker 1: no particular reason to doubt him on this. We will

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Speaker 1: be using Michael's count today because it provides some contexts

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Speaker 1: on how German Jewish and the German Nazi diaspora communicated.

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Speaker 1: Which is an interesting thing, right that you have these

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Speaker 1: Jewish people who have fled to Paraguay and these Nazis

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Speaker 1: who have fled to Paraguay, and because they're all German,

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Speaker 1: they wind up like involved with each other sometimes and

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Speaker 1: word that would be and again Michael, he is writing

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Speaker 1: as an adult about his experience as a child in

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Speaker 1: this like expat community. This same bar he's talking about

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Speaker 1: like a bar that he was brought to as a

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Speaker 1: kid for like a business deal. The same bar used

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Speaker 1: to be owned by Schortzel. His real name was a

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Speaker 1: meal Wolf, a German jew and his place was used

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Speaker 1: for years by Nazis and Jews, who were all involved

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Speaker 1: in business and all of them good friends. As a

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Speaker 1: fourteen year old, the Bruderhoff put me to work in Asuncion,

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Speaker 1: where they bought a new house in Vulgiicio Marino. They

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Speaker 1: rented a large house in Indepensia Naciona, two doors down

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Speaker 1: from Wolf. I went to Shorze Bar with Alfred, a

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Speaker 1: brother from the Bruderhoff, who wanted to drink of beer

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Speaker 1: but had no money, but I did so we went together.

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Speaker 1: Soon Schortzel approached me for some business in wood turn

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Speaker 1: to products that the Bruderhoff was selling. That's how he

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Speaker 1: became a good friend of Schortzel with Jews. The key

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Speaker 1: to a good friendship is money. When I came roun

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Speaker 1: oh boy, oh no? Do we want to keep reading room? It? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: one last sentence. When I came round to Shortzel's with

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Speaker 1: wooden articles, he called me Nachmann and I called him saujud.

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Speaker 1: Now I looked these nicknames up because I was like,

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Speaker 1: what kind of nicknames do basically and a Jewish boy

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Speaker 1: come up with for each other. Vainachman basically means Santa Claus. Uh,

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Speaker 1: So that's the Jewish guy is calling him Santa Clause

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Speaker 1: right because he's buy I think, because he's buying him

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Speaker 1: a beer. And Saud that nickname which is this kid's

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Speaker 1: nickname for his this his Jewish friend, comes from the

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Speaker 1: term judensau, which is a medieval racial caricature sure that

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Speaker 1: depicts Jewish children suckling at the teats of the pig.

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Speaker 1: It is a racial slur. Um. So like his friend

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Speaker 1: is like, hey, Santa Claus, and he's like, hey slur,

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Speaker 1: Like hey racial slur buddy, um awkward look. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: would love to find I haven't found really any other

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Speaker 1: accounts of like the complicated interactions of the Jewish striass

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Speaker 1: for a German community in Paraguay and the Nazi. I

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Speaker 1: assume this happened in places like Argentina too. Um. It's

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Speaker 1: a fascinating topic. I would love to read more on

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Speaker 1: the matter. Hopefully I'll find something else at some point.

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Speaker 1: I just kind of a stumbled into this. The ship

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Speaker 1: that people will put on the Internet without being forced to, Like,

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Speaker 1: you cannot send me to Guantanamo Bay if I had,

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Speaker 1: if I had been giving my friends slur nicknames and

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Speaker 1: get it out with me. But this guy's used apparently

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Speaker 1: popped it out on the Internet for the world to see.

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Speaker 1: I mean this, I don't entirely know what's happening with

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Speaker 1: the fascist Michael Caine, but he's it's it's His blog

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Speaker 1: is a real one. Yeah, yeah, there was a time

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Speaker 1: when yeah, humans were blogging and yeah, a powerful insight

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Speaker 1: into the brain. Speaking of fascist Michael Caine, do you

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Speaker 1: know what the non fascist Michael Caine loves blowing the

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Speaker 1: doors off things? Is? That? Is that a thing that

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Speaker 1: Michael Caine did? A lot of the Michael Caine, isn't

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Speaker 1: it in h what's it called? He's in a lot

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Speaker 1: of stuff. He's Michael Caine. Uh yeah, I mean he

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Speaker 1: was in the Batman movies. He's Alfred. So does he

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Speaker 1: blow the doors off of something in the in the

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Speaker 1: Italian job? Oh? Oh oh yeah, I think that is

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Speaker 1: my That is Michael Caine Italian j I had a

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Speaker 1: moment there, always worried. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, this is

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Speaker 1: this is good Michael Caine content. This is an episode

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Speaker 1: rich with Michael's cane. So um, anyway, that was a

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Speaker 1: bit of a digression, but I just found it too

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Speaker 1: interesting to not include. Fascinating this must have happened in

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Speaker 1: a lot of other countries too. This like the German

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Speaker 1: Jewish dias for a and the German Nazi dias for

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Speaker 1: a having some forms of interaction with each other. I

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Speaker 1: would love to read more about that. I just don't know.

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Speaker 1: I haven't I haven't run into much else. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a whole whole thing, and it gives you an

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Speaker 1: idea of the kind of peculiar bedfellows that exist under

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Speaker 1: Stressner's regime. The main reason that I found Michael's story, though,

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Speaker 1: is that it provides a rare, direct personal account of

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Speaker 1: the man that Alfredo Stressner trusted to maintain his secret

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Speaker 1: torture police, who were his primary instrument of maintaining power.

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Speaker 1: And this man was named Pastor Militiadez Coronelle born in

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Speaker 1: August of nineteen nineteen. Coronelle worked for the Education and

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Speaker 1: Culture Ministry when Stressner came to power. He was like

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Speaker 1: part of the Department of Education, and then Stressner's liken, no,

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Speaker 1: you see my I'm more of a torture guy. To me,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna put you in charge of my torture department.

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Speaker 1: Coronelle was noted to be an obsessive bureaucrat. He loves paperwork.

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Speaker 1: Part of all we know so much about this guy

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Speaker 1: is every arrest and every torture that they do is documented.

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Speaker 1: Every surveiled dissident is recorded and filed away. But he's

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Speaker 1: not just a paperwork guy. He likes to get down

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Speaker 1: there and get his hands dirty. In nineteen seventy five,

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Speaker 1: when his forces arrested the secretary of the Paraguayan Communist Party,

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Speaker 1: Pastor Coronell had him dismembered by chainsaw while he watched.

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Speaker 1: That is, yeah, we don't come into enough chainsaw killings

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Speaker 1: in this show, but there we go. That's it's always

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Speaker 1: good to break new ground when yeah he's an e

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Speaker 1: state minns. Yeah, no, it's nice. He's like a Robert

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Speaker 1: Rodriguez ville in this guy. So Coronell is a dedicated

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Speaker 1: student of torture. He practiced it himself, but he was

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Speaker 1: also a keen amer of the world's greatest torture experts

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Speaker 1: at the time, which was the US Police. Now we

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Speaker 1: know that the FBI sent him friendly letters as well

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Speaker 1: as books on law enforcement. Like the director of the

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Speaker 1: FBI is like sending this guy like textbooks to be

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Speaker 1: like here you go, this will help you make your

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Speaker 1: torture police. Don't worry, we know all about it. We

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Speaker 1: also know that, through Operation Condor, the FBI kept abreast

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Speaker 1: of whenever Paraguay and dissidents would pop up in surrounding

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Speaker 1: countries that had right wing dictatorships allied with the US,

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Speaker 1: which at this point was all of Paraguay's neighbors. This

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Speaker 1: brings me to the nineteen fifty eighth story of Gladys

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Speaker 1: Sanomon and Augustine Guibero. They were physicians in the capital

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Speaker 1: who refused to falsify an autopsy report to claim a

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Speaker 1: victim of Coronel's police had died of natural causes. Instead,

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Speaker 1: doctor Santomon took the corpse to a class in her

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Speaker 1: medical school and performed the autopsy in front of her students,

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Speaker 1: so that there would be people who knew what had

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Speaker 1: happened to this man. It was just the only thing

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Speaker 1: she could think of to do to make sure that

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Speaker 1: the truth got out. Like if I write anything about this,

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Speaker 1: they will purge it. So I am going to autopsy

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Speaker 1: this murder victim in front of my students so they

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Speaker 1: see what our government's doing. Very sensibly, she and her

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Speaker 1: husband fled the country for Brazil. Now they're in Brazil

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Speaker 1: for a little while before the Brazilian military caesar's power,

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Speaker 1: and so then they have to flee Brazil, and the

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Speaker 1: next place they move, Argentina, falls to a US backed

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Speaker 1: military dictatorship in nineteen seventy six. This gives you an

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Speaker 1: idea of like how tough it is to be any

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Speaker 1: kind of dissident in South America at this time. Right,

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Speaker 1: they are like running as fast as they can, always

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Speaker 1: just ahead of the next US backed military coup. And

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Speaker 1: I'm going to quote from the New York Times here.

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Speaker 1: Hours after the coup, the Argentine police abducted doctor Sanomon

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Speaker 1: and tortured her at the Esquela Mechanisa in Buenos Aires.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Sandomon said she was bound and plunged into a

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Speaker 1: bathtub of vomit and excrement. They accused me of killing

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Speaker 1: a patient in my office, doctor Sanomon said, calling the

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Speaker 1: charge a total lie. Then the police falsely accused her

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Speaker 1: of selling drugs, she said. A week later, doctor Sanomon's

393
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Speaker 1: husband was abducted and tortured as well. Doctor Sanomon landed

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Speaker 1: at the Imboscata camp for political prisoners in Paraguay, where

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Speaker 1: she treated more than four hundred fellow prisoners from several

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Speaker 1: South American countries, including women whose husbands had been executed

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Speaker 1: and their children. The women she said had been in

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Speaker 1: prison to silence them. Doctor Sanoman and her husband were

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Speaker 1: eventually given asylum in Germany in nineteen ninety seven after

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Speaker 1: the German government pressed Argentina to bring about their release.

401
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Speaker 1: The fate of doctor Gooibrew, who also refused to white

402
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:14,000
Speaker 1: watch torture, remained a mystery until the archives were opened

403
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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy seven. He was kidnapped from a street

404
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Speaker 1: in Missions, an Argentine town where he had gone to

405
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Speaker 1: escape the stress in a regime, and um, you know

406
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Speaker 1: he's executed by the regime. He's killed once he gets back.

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Speaker 1: We have some personal accounts of Pastor Coronel's torture tactics

408
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Speaker 1: as well. Senator Carlos Levy Ruffinelli was the leader of

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Speaker 1: the Liberal Party, a controlled opposition party stressner allowed to

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Speaker 1: exist to provide the illusion of democracy. And even though

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Speaker 1: this was he you know, he's letting this guy basically

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Speaker 1: live to be controlled or to be opposition. He still

413
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Speaker 1: arrests him nineteen times and has him tortured six times.

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Speaker 1: That guy's what that is a bold dude to just

415
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Speaker 1: keeps coming back for more. He is a brave man,

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Speaker 1: and I'm going to quote from him now talking about

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Speaker 1: his experiences under Core and El's torturers. Most of the

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Speaker 1: time I did not know what they wanted. They did

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Speaker 1: not even know what they wanted. But when they put

420
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:08,040
Speaker 1: the needles under your fingernails, you tell them anything. You'd

421
00:24:08,040 --> 00:24:10,840
Speaker 1: denounce everybody, and then they say, see, you were lying

422
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:14,360
Speaker 1: to us all the time. Now I found an even

423
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:17,440
Speaker 1: more detailed, in horrific account of Pastor Coronel's jails in

424
00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: a BBC article by Simon Watts. Almada came to the

425
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:24,200
Speaker 1: attention of the Secret Police in the early nineteen seventies

426
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: when he and his wife Celestina were working as teachers

427
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:28,040
Speaker 1: in a school where they had set up on the

428
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:31,199
Speaker 1: outskirts of Unsuncion. Their politics were left wing, and they

429
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:34,119
Speaker 1: campaigned for better salaries and working conditions for teachers and

430
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:37,399
Speaker 1: for changes to the curriculum. One evening, the Secret Police

431
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 1: came for him. After thirty days of interrogation, Almada was

432
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 1: officially classified as an intellectual terrorist and an ignoramus. He

433
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:46,920
Speaker 1: was sent to the infamous in Buscata open air prison,

434
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 1: where he was held for three years. Celestina died shortly

435
00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:52,879
Speaker 1: after Almada's arrest and what the police said was a suicide.

436
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:55,959
Speaker 1: Almada has always believed she died because police played her

437
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:59,199
Speaker 1: recordings of him being tortured. The telephone was used as

438
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 1: an instrument of ecological torture, he says. For eight days,

439
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:05,119
Speaker 1: they made her listen systematically to everything that happened to me.

440
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:08,040
Speaker 1: Then they sent her my bloodied clothing. Finally, they called

441
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:10,360
Speaker 1: her one night and said the subversive teacher is dead,

442
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:12,919
Speaker 1: come and get his body. She died of a heart attack,

443
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 1: he says. She died of grief. And again, all of

444
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 1: this is based on teachings that the FBI handed down

445
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:25,680
Speaker 1: to Coronel and his police. They sent trainers, the CIA

446
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:30,399
Speaker 1: sent trainers like US cops, taught Coronel's cops how to

447
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 1: do all this. None of this was, you know, separate

448
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:39,360
Speaker 1: from American politics in Latin America at the time. Yeah,

449
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 1: there are people alive today whose tax who's helped to

450
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 1: pay for that. Anyway, to the FBI agents listening, I

451
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:49,240
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this proud recitation of your history. Here.

452
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:59,480
Speaker 1: What a cost institution. So thanks to those now open archives,

453
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 1: we also know that Stressner after he took power, a

454
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:07,720
Speaker 1: US military colonel named Robert Terry T. E I R R. Y.

455
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 1: He lived in Texas, actually came to Paraguay to put

456
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:13,960
Speaker 1: together a lot of the basic structure of Stressner's police

457
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:16,440
Speaker 1: state as part of a broader US plan to crackdown

458
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: on left wing organizing in the entire region. The FBI

459
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:22,360
Speaker 1: handled a lot of the grunt work. On one occasion,

460
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 1: a dissident from Pinochet's regime in Chile fled to Paraguay.

461
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 1: He was arrested and interrogated by Coronell's men. They then

462
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:33,119
Speaker 1: called up the FBI, who interrogated Chilean relatives of the

463
00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 1: dissident who were living in the United States, and in

464
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:39,160
Speaker 1: handed that information to Pinochet, who disappeared the dissident once

465
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:42,480
Speaker 1: he'd been handed over. This is the way things worked

466
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,920
Speaker 1: in Latin America, much of it. Clarence Kelly, who was

467
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: head of the FBI at the time, sent Coronell a

468
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 1: Christmas letter wishing him, quote, a truly joyous Christmas and

469
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 1: a new year filled with all the good things you

470
00:26:54,359 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 1: so richly deserved. Good guys, christ Good guys. Now earlier

471
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 1: I read you a quote from that weird Michael Caine

472
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 1: Guy's blog. I decided to highlight some of this kind

473
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 1: of a Nazis recollections because as a child he lived

474
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 1: near Pastor Coronell and he spent time with the man,

475
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:16,200
Speaker 1: and there's not a lot of context on this guy.

476
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 1: So he's some of like the only evidence I've found

477
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 1: about what Stressner's chief torture was like as a person,

478
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 1: and this is kind of interesting. On this day I

479
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 1: first met Pastor Coronell. He was about five years older

480
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: than me. His uncle Dawn and rather or rather Mayor

481
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: Coronell owned a neighboring estancia ranch to the Bruderhoff. His

482
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:38,440
Speaker 1: estancia was called San Martin, and Paraguay landowners like to

483
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:42,159
Speaker 1: give themselves military titles for importance, hence the mayor title.

484
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: Mayor Coronell habitually carried a gun. He must have read

485
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: the Little Read Book by Chairman Mao, whereon it says

486
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 1: page forty eight, the power of the people comes out

487
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 1: of the barrel of a gun. For this reason, he

488
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: was highly respected or feared, pending on your language. It

489
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 1: was him who let me shoot his cult forty five

490
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: revolver for the first time in my life. The recoil

491
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:03,239
Speaker 1: hurt my thumb. This made all the Paraguayan onlookers laugh

492
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 1: really loud. But this kind of pros it's really a

493
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: gift to the Internet. It's amazing. It's amazing. You legitimately

494
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 1: never know what this fuck is gonna come up with next.

495
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 1: I know it's it's this man is fascinating. Yeah, yeah,

496
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: just a stream of consciousness. Yeah, it's unedited. It's one

497
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:26,720
Speaker 1: of those little gifts that you, um, you come across

498
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: when you're doing a deep enough dive. That's just like

499
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:32,919
Speaker 1: no one, no one would put this in a scholarly

500
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:35,920
Speaker 1: because like, I can't verify any of this, but I'm

501
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: not not gonna put it in a podcast. It's just

502
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 1: too it's just too incredible. It's hate and jam of

503
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: the this guy. I was commenting on Facebook shit about

504
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 1: how he I didn't powerfully divorced vine. Yeah, I'm not

505
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 1: surprised that Michael Caine grew up to be the most

506
00:28:54,800 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 1: divorced man on the internet. Hates his children. Perfect. Yes,

507
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 1: now I'm giving it all to me, James's that's what

508
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: I love the Internet for. Yeah, this is a true goal.

509
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: So back to Paraguay. It has always been pretty deeply

510
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: fucked from an economic justice point of view. Today it

511
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: actually has fun fact, James, the most unequal land distribution

512
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 1: of any nation on Earth. Ninety percent of its land

513
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 1: is owned by twelve thousand people. Now, Jesus Christ, but

514
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: that's not great. This state of affairs actually started because

515
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 1: of the War of the Triple Alliance, which left most

516
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: Paraguayans dead and their land up for grabs. Right, there's

517
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 1: a lot of land that there's no one alive left

518
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:40,280
Speaker 1: to Yeah, And in the wake of that calamity, the

519
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: next dictators basically sold everything that wasn't nailed down, all

520
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: these dead people's land, to fund rebuilding and to fund themselves.

521
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 1: And during this period, thirty two firms purchased almost half

522
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 1: of the country. One Spanish businessman purchased seven million hectares,

523
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: which is more than a full ireland of private property. Um, yeah,

524
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: that's that's too much land for a person now, yeah, yeah, yeah,

525
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 1: you know one needs so much. What was he doing.

526
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 1: There's a brisk debate to be had about the extent

527
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: to private property. No one should be able to own

528
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 1: an ireland. Yeah no, that's that's too much. The consequences

529
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: of this led directly to a situation where all wealth

530
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:27,400
Speaker 1: in Paraguay was determined by landownership, because land gave one

531
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 1: the ability to exploit minerals or other natural resources, or

532
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 1: at least charge rent. When Stressner came to power, the

533
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 1: first person he killed was a government official tasked with

534
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 1: carrying out a land reform policy to remedy this inequality.

535
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 1: That is the first guy he has murdered. Is this

536
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: guy doing the land reform? And yeah, I'm going to

537
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 1: quote next from an article in Earth Sight. As part

538
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 1: of these clientelist networks, Stressner divided what remained of public

539
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 1: land among his allies. Eight million hectares were given away

540
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:58,560
Speaker 1: or sold at negligible prices to army generals and Colorado grandees.

541
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 1: This land was a stint be destined for small scale

542
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: farmers as part of a program of agrarian reform, and

543
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: so has come to be known as Las tierras malhabidas

544
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 1: the ill Gotten Lands. Yeah yeah, it's cool, good story, great, Yeah, yeah,

545
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:19,280
Speaker 1: no problem. He started off on a great note, didn't he. Yeah. Yeah.

546
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 1: So this leads to a pretty long running series of

547
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 1: massacres of what are called composinos, who are tenant farmers

548
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 1: attempting to protest for land reform for Stressner. This also

549
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 1: forms a crucial part of the network of bribery and

550
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 1: other way looking that powers his dictatorship to get military

551
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: officers on his side. He hands out high level positions

552
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:41,120
Speaker 1: and state monopolies or land, and then he also has

553
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 1: Pastor Corradel's secret police stand aside and ignore the illegal

554
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: trade and contrabands that they can make a shitload of

555
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 1: money smuggling stuff into the country. Peter Lambert writes of

556
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 1: this contraband often quoted as the price of peace and

557
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 1: involving the vast majority of officials through their control of

558
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 1: the frontier zones guaranteed them city of the military establishment

559
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 1: and the maintenance of a lucrative status quo and the

560
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 1: words of Eduardo Galiano, the generals fill their pockets and

561
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:10,600
Speaker 1: hatch no plots. So basically he takes he kills the

562
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 1: guy who is responsible for redistributing land of the peasants.

563
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: He takes all this land, he gives it to his generals,

564
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: particularly land on the borders, which they then use in

565
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 1: order to carry out like basically create smuggling networks. Right

566
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 1: to bring products and that are not taxed, and this

567
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 1: is fucked up. It's a mixed bag for much of

568
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: the population. Because one thing this does is that you

569
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 1: can actually get a lot of shit cheaper in Paraguay

570
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 1: than you can in like the US where it's being made,

571
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 1: Like TVs are cheaper there and ship for a while

572
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 1: because it's like no taxes, and everyone in the government understands.

573
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:46,800
Speaker 1: Part of why we don't we're not dealing with any

574
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 1: uprisings right now is that, like people get cheap TVs,

575
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:53,000
Speaker 1: and the money from those cheap TVs bribes the generals

576
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 1: not to upset the apple cart. You know, it's a

577
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: pretty intelligent system. It's evil, but it's smart, right right,

578
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 1: funding your your state though, if people aren't paying taxes,

579
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: and well a lot of people aren't paying taxes, you

580
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 1: do have like a ship I mean part I. Honestly,

581
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: James is the CIA right, Like he's getting officially tens

582
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars from the United States Eutropean socialism.

583
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 1: But it's a perfect system. What if the CIA could

584
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 1: fund civic programs here to rebuild roads and bridges. You

585
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: don't even think about it. Nope, dropping in CIA agents

586
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:35,959
Speaker 1: to like clean up that part in town in Ohio

587
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 1: that the train just knives torturing dude who runs Norfolk seven. Yeah,

588
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:45,239
Speaker 1: backing a dictator in Ohio, but then also cleaning up

589
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 1: the land. It's a mixed bag in Ohio. Yeah, you have.

590
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 1: The population's been tortured to death, but the sea's cleaner. Now, um,

591
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: the sea it's Ohio a yeah, yeah, the Ohio ocean. Yeah,

592
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 1: the Ohio Ocean we call it's where the land sharks

593
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:02,400
Speaker 1: come from. We've talked a good amount about the torture

594
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,720
Speaker 1: and murder. Stressner's chief attack dog pastor, And by pastor's

595
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: not like a religious term. It's like, I think, sorry,

596
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 1: pastor is what I should be saying, But you know

597
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:14,720
Speaker 1: me in pronunciations, it's his first name as pastor, Pastor

598
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:17,400
Speaker 1: coronel carried out. But what's perhaps more interesting is how

599
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 1: relatively rarely he needed to do this. The early years

600
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:23,640
Speaker 1: of the Stressner regime established such a baseline of terror

601
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 1: that Paraguay and civil society was comprehensibly beaten down, and

602
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:32,239
Speaker 1: it had been pretty beaten down earlier. Right, So kind

603
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:35,359
Speaker 1: of what happens after he takes powers. Most people are like, yah, man,

604
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 1: he sucks, but we're not dealing with the civil war

605
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:41,439
Speaker 1: every year, and like, you know, the corruption at least

606
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: means cheap TVs. So why don't we just give up

607
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:47,200
Speaker 1: on politics? Right? Like that's kind of that's how Lambert Lambert.

608
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 1: That's how Lambert kind of describes what happens to the people.

609
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 1: And he calls this the institutionalization of repression and defines

610
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 1: that as a demobilization of civil society due to a

611
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: perception that politics is only the domain of soldiers and

612
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 1: the leaders who control them. Yeah, you don't have like

613
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 1: if civil society is like nonstate actors who make demands

614
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 1: of the state, Like, what the fuck is the point

615
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 1: in making demands of the state when yeah, either it

616
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 1: changed every five minutes, so it kills you exactly. And

617
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:16,840
Speaker 1: I'm going to read another quote from Lambert here that

618
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 1: makes this point. To a large extent, the regime succeeded

619
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:24,760
Speaker 1: in not only demobilizing the but depoliticizing civil society, destroying

620
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 1: not only the organizational ability of the opposition, but more importantly,

621
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 1: the capacity to question, to analyze, and to criticize. The

622
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 1: repression and co option of nascent opposition led to an

623
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 1: apparent acceptance of the status quo, a cynicism toward politics,

624
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 1: a disinterest in what was seen as an area reserved

625
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:44,719
Speaker 1: for elites and prohibited to the masses. And to be fair,

626
00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 1: the stability that Stressner brings with him makes it easy

627
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:50,480
Speaker 1: for the people who aren't being targeted by the government

628
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: to feel this way. Regular people are benefiting from this

629
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 1: situation in a lot of ways, and the nineteen seventies

630
00:35:56,800 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 1: see an economic explosion as Paraguay finally covers from both

631
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:04,240
Speaker 1: the Chaco War and it's decades of instability. For a while,

632
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 1: it has the highest growth rate of any South American country,

633
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 1: and a lot of this is due to the fact

634
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 1: that there's a joint Brazilian Paraguayan project to create a

635
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: massive hydroelectric dam in a Typoo. Today, I believe the

636
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:17,760
Speaker 1: a Typoo Dam is still the most productive hydro electric

637
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:21,120
Speaker 1: power project on the planet. Like, it's a pretty good

638
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:24,320
Speaker 1: idea to have this dam there, you know, not that

639
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 1: that's up to stress everybody green lights it, and massive

640
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 1: corruption ensures that Paraguayan industry Like this is part of

641
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 1: the problem is that like this is a great thing

642
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:33,799
Speaker 1: to have in your country, like this incredibly productive power dam.

643
00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: They have a contract basically with Brazil, where they split

644
00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 1: the power fifty fifty and brazil Like funds the construction.

645
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:43,360
Speaker 1: But because of massive corruption, none of the fifty percent

646
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 1: of a typoo's power that's supposed to go to Paraguay

647
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 1: actually goes towards, you know, building an industrial base or

648
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 1: doing anything to improve the economy. So the project temporarily

649
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:58,839
Speaker 1: brings an economic boom because so many Paraguayans are working

650
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: on it, but they're not going to actually use the

651
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:05,560
Speaker 1: resources that it generates to improves the economy in any

652
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 1: meaningful way, which is going to be a problem for

653
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:11,319
Speaker 1: everybody in a little bit here. Paraguay's boom years are

654
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:13,880
Speaker 1: also helped by regular infusions of cash from the United

655
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:16,400
Speaker 1: States and the IMF, to the eventual tune of hundreds

656
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars in exchange. Stressner keeped Paraguay as

657
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: a compliant and stress free part of Operation Condor. The

658
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,160
Speaker 1: CIA never needs to send in black ops teams to

659
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 1: the country or fund paramilitary death squads. There's no grinding

660
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 1: left wing insurgency that threatens the stability of the government.

661
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 1: The fact that Stressner was generally good for US policy aims,

662
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:38,360
Speaker 1: and the undeniable fact that life under his rule was

663
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 1: at least more stable than life under previous dictators, led

664
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: some in the international community to call him a good dictator.

665
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 1: George Landau, a US ambassador to the country, called Alfredo

666
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: but nine as dictatorships go, oh god, there it is. Yeah,

667
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm suring the teachers being soaked in shit

668
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:01,840
Speaker 1: and then murdered are Yeah, this is nine. Basically, yes,

669
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 1: dictatorships go yeah, television's cheap. What are you gonna do?

670
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 1: It's nice. What of the things fucking George Landau says,

671
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:13,840
Speaker 1: is that, well, you know, political prisoners and in Paraguay

672
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:15,840
Speaker 1: generally get out of prison alive as long as they

673
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 1: have powerful friends. No, yeah, great, that's good. We're good. Yeah, no, yeah,

674
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:24,520
Speaker 1: thank you. I was. I was worried we were complicit

675
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:27,799
Speaker 1: and nightmarish evil again. But you know what, it's good.

676
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:32,400
Speaker 1: We're fine. Shining city on a hillship as always the

677
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: United States. I am at the ghost of George Washington

678
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: speaking on a mountain above DC. Yeah, we will build

679
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:43,720
Speaker 1: a nation where political prisoners sometimes get out of prison

680
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:47,799
Speaker 1: if their friends are powerful. That's one of the things

681
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:51,520
Speaker 1: they didn't put on my becoming an American test Now

682
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:53,320
Speaker 1: that's one of those like little quotes they write in

683
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: your passport book. I'm sure. Uh you know what else

684
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 1: winds up written in your passport book? Is it corporations? Yeah?

685
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 1: I mean kind of. If you have enough gold, you

686
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: don't even need a passport. Sophie, you know what innovative?

687
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 1: I like it. Thank you. Ah, we're back. We're all

688
00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 1: having a good time. Everybody's happy. The story is happy. Um. Yeah.

689
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 1: So George Landau, our our good friend, the US ambassador

690
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:40,400
Speaker 1: to Paraguay for a while, claims that Stressner repeatedly complained

691
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:42,600
Speaker 1: in the late seventies that he was tired of ruling

692
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:44,360
Speaker 1: and that he wanted to retire to a life of

693
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:48,320
Speaker 1: fishing and hunting, but that Paraguay needed him. Landau claimed

694
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 1: he believed this most dictators do, that he was absolutely irreplaceable.

695
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:58,240
Speaker 1: He talked himself into a sense of duty. Now that's horseshit. Sorry,

696
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 1: why's he writing this? Like is he just like doing

697
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 1: all bay like uscon Yeah, he's like he's like I

698
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 1: think this is like yeah, while he's he's probably yeah,

699
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:15,920
Speaker 1: I think he leaves. Yeah, So, um, I believe that,

700
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 1: and other sources I found will argue that Stressner basically

701
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:21,200
Speaker 1: gets addicted to total power. Yeah, and it kind of

702
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 1: loses the ability to conceive of anyone else making decisions

703
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 1: about his country. Um. It is interesting to read accounts

704
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:30,360
Speaker 1: like Landau's by Americans who talk to Stressner during this

705
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: period because like everyone in Paraguay, like all of the

706
00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:35,959
Speaker 1: people in his cabinet, every other leader has to treat

707
00:40:36,080 --> 00:40:37,960
Speaker 1: him as kind of a cross between like God and

708
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:40,480
Speaker 1: the devil, because his whim can destroy their lives. Right,

709
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:43,240
Speaker 1: so no one can talk to him, honestly. But American

710
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 1: soldiers and diplomats like are safe, right, like you, you

711
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: can actually have a conversation with Stressner because like he's

712
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 1: not he's not going to fuck up the money, right,

713
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:54,799
Speaker 1: He's not an idiot. Um, so take this in taking

714
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:56,879
Speaker 1: this into account, I found a letter to the editor

715
00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 1: of National Review by a former US soldier who traveled

716
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: to Paraguay for work during Stressner's time in office that

717
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: I found really interesting. In very good English, he said,

718
00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 1: I am President Alfredo Stressner, and I would like to

719
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:11,319
Speaker 1: thank you for showing us your aircraft. Since I am

720
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 1: in my country, custom requires that I continue this conversation

721
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:17,320
Speaker 1: in Spanish with my interpreter, which he did. His interpreter

722
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: was far less fluent in English than the leader. We

723
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 1: gave him a tour of the airplane and answered all

724
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: his questions about it. Then he philosophized for a few minutes.

725
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 1: We never understood why. The remark that has struck with

726
00:41:27,160 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 1: me to this day was I am sure you have

727
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 1: heard that I am a dictator. That is true, but

728
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 1: I am a benevolent dictator, which my country needs. We

729
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:35,959
Speaker 1: are a backward country and my people are not ready

730
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:39,320
Speaker 1: for democracy. We wisely made no comment on the remark,

731
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 1: and shortly after we launched for our return flight to

732
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:46,359
Speaker 1: the canal zone. Yeah. And it's interesting because this guy

733
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: is he's literally writing the editor of National Review. I'm

734
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 1: going to assume this serviceman is pretty conservative. But he

735
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 1: ends this letter by noting we knew very well even

736
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:57,400
Speaker 1: then there was nothing benevolent about Stressner's dictatorship, which is honestly,

737
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:00,440
Speaker 1: which is more honest than George Landau was willing to. Yeah,

738
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:05,800
Speaker 1: this guy's cut out for career and foreigner. No, no novatudio.

739
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:08,319
Speaker 1: Thanks showing him your aeroplane, just being like, oh, I'm

740
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:10,879
Speaker 1: glad that was sharing on military asset. Yeah, a piece

741
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:16,399
Speaker 1: of shit, Booma. I feel good about my service today. Yeah,

742
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 1: I signed up to defend this country, God willing. As

743
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties dawned, Alfredo's power was at its apparent height.

744
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:27,759
Speaker 1: From the New York Times, President Stressner was never won

745
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:31,000
Speaker 1: for understatement. His name, written in neon, flashed nightly over

746
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 1: the Asuncion cityscape during his reign, and at the times

747
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:40,680
Speaker 1: he's adopted. Yeah, he's ready. For the Reagan years, his

748
00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 1: face was plastered daily in the newspapers and on television.

749
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:45,479
Speaker 1: He was known for turning up in his powder blue

750
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 1: military uniform every Thursday at the General Staff Headquarters of

751
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:51,759
Speaker 1: the Armed Forces. John Finacure, writing in the New York

752
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,960
Speaker 1: Times magazine in nineteen eighty four, offered this snapshot of

753
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 1: Paraguay as its army goose stepped down the boulevards to

754
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:02,239
Speaker 1: celebrate General Stressner's thirty years in power. A continual state

755
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:04,800
Speaker 1: of siege over the entire period that literally places the

756
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 1: president above the law. People with occasionally uncontrollable urges to

757
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:10,799
Speaker 1: fall into rivers or jump from planes with their arms

758
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 1: and legs bound serenades in front of the presidential Palace

759
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 1: featuring the ever popular forward my General and congratulations my

760
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 1: great friend. Foreign thieves, brutes and madmen hidden at a price.

761
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:25,239
Speaker 1: An economy administered so corruptly it is officially explained away

762
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 1: as the cost of peace. A United Nations voting record

763
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:30,720
Speaker 1: on so called key issues more favorable to the United

764
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:33,920
Speaker 1: States than any other. Ally, a party newspaper that prints

765
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:37,080
Speaker 1: six four page color pictures of the General every day.

766
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, what a great country thinks are going well?

767
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:46,600
Speaker 1: A powerful image anytime you've got goose stepping military and

768
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 1: anyone in power for thirty years, as you'd set up

769
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:53,359
Speaker 1: some alarmbos. Yeah, Now, appearances can be deceiving, James, because

770
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:56,320
Speaker 1: when the construction of the type dam stopped in nineteen

771
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 1: eighty one, that just so happened to occur at the

772
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 1: same time as a global collapse in the value of

773
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 1: cotton and soyabean, which were Paraguay's two biggest crops. So because,

774
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:09,239
Speaker 1: due to rampant corruption, none of this power generated by

775
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:11,160
Speaker 1: a type who is being used to help them create

776
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 1: a better industrial base, Paraguay's economy takes a long walk

777
00:44:14,680 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 1: off a short pier. At this point in time, the

778
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:19,759
Speaker 1: balance of payments and deficit for Paraguay gets so bad

779
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:22,600
Speaker 1: that Stressner is finally forced to abandon his fixed rate

780
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:27,839
Speaker 1: for the currency. Inflation rises sharply, and with it comes

781
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:31,239
Speaker 1: the first stirrings of resistance to his regime. Now, in

782
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 1: addition to the fact that the economy has taken a shit,

783
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:36,799
Speaker 1: Stressner's an old man at this point. His health troubles him,

784
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:38,880
Speaker 1: and he's forced to hand over more and more control

785
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 1: to his underlinks, like Pastor Coronelle, who begins actively scheming

786
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,719
Speaker 1: to replace him. To cope with the stress, Alfredo increasingly

787
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:48,720
Speaker 1: gravitates to the only hobby that makes it all better. James,

788
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:51,360
Speaker 1: what do you do when you're stressed out? How do

789
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:56,520
Speaker 1: you chill up? I go for bike ride, interesting camp.

790
00:44:57,680 --> 00:45:00,400
Speaker 1: Those his favorite activities too. I know, spoon you know

791
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 1: that's interesting. Those are all great hobbies. James. Alfredo takes

792
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:07,000
Speaker 1: a slightly different route. He gets really involved in child

793
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:14,360
Speaker 1: sex trafficking. M Oh okay, yeah, quote different kind of

794
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:20,200
Speaker 1: spooning I enjoy. Oh boy, I'm gonna quote from Alex

795
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 1: Schumatov from Vanity Fair. Stressner was no doubt aware of

796
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:27,560
Speaker 1: the inevitable waning of his powers, and his solution to

797
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:31,480
Speaker 1: the problem seems to have been schoolgirls much. They were

798
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:35,279
Speaker 1: his elixir. Maybe he thought that the intercombiod hormonis would

799
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 1: keep him young. He wasn't alone in his predilection for

800
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 1: this therapy. His friend Perrone, who liked boys as well,

801
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:43,839
Speaker 1: consoled himself with a fourteen year old after the death

802
00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:47,400
Speaker 1: of Avida. In the opinion of Stressner's family surgeon Manuel Riveros,

803
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 1: there was nothing abnormal about an old man having a

804
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: soft spot for nymphets. This is an article from the

805
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 1: eighties and vanity fair. So the writer's a bastard too. Look,

806
00:45:56,760 --> 00:46:00,279
Speaker 1: let's not be wrong here. Youth is contagious, he told

807
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:03,960
Speaker 1: me Truehilo crossed the streets of Santo Domingo looking for girls.

808
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 1: Bocasa cruised the streets of Bangui. Stressner cruised the streets

809
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,640
Speaker 1: of Asuncion. It went with the turf. The girls were

810
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:19,239
Speaker 1: don Alfredo's draw to signor Oh dear, oh dear. Yeah, no,

811
00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:24,160
Speaker 1: it's not very good. Alex Schumtov is a prestige magazine

812
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:27,200
Speaker 1: journalist writing in the nineteen eighties. So he's a kind

813
00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 1: of gross guy in some way. Yes, he's an extreme

814
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:35,880
Speaker 1: fucking creep. Oh I had even started James. Oh God,

815
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:39,360
Speaker 1: here's Alex sigid give me more of his pay. On

816
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:43,400
Speaker 1: to Peterophelia. It is hard not to notice the school girls,

817
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:47,359
Speaker 1: slender tan Mestiza beauties butting in their white uniforms, who

818
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:50,480
Speaker 1: pour into the streets of Asuncion at noon after a

819
00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:53,040
Speaker 1: long morning Stressner would park near one of the schools

820
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 1: and watch them come out. When he had made his pick,

821
00:46:55,680 --> 00:46:58,040
Speaker 1: his age would find out who the girl was and

822
00:46:58,120 --> 00:47:00,759
Speaker 1: approached the parents with an offer of cash or real estate.

823
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:03,000
Speaker 1: If all else failed, the girl was kidnapped and given

824
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:06,040
Speaker 1: an injection that made her more cooperative. If she got pregnant,

825
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:07,960
Speaker 1: she was sent to the best possible and treated by

826
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:11,720
Speaker 1: the best doctors. How many children the tyrannosaur produced is unknown,

827
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 1: but there are a thought to be many. I am

828
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 1: feeling physically unwell, so that's fucked up. This is obviously

829
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:21,840
Speaker 1: if you are this guy reporting for a huge magazine

830
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:24,719
Speaker 1: on this, this is critical stuff to report on. You

831
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:29,640
Speaker 1: don't need to describe how attractive the schoolgirls are. Alex,

832
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:39,400
Speaker 1: that's bad. That makes too, that story wildly inappropriate. Terrible. Wow,

833
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 1: So yeah, Jesus Christ, good stuff. One of the people

834
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 1: procuring children for the dictator was Colonel Leopoldo Perier, who

835
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 1: scoured the countryside for eight to twelve year old peasant

836
00:47:52,239 --> 00:47:57,320
Speaker 1: girls and brought Yeah, yep, he me very young. And

837
00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 1: he would bring them to safe houses and suburban like

838
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 1: neighborhoods that had playgrounds so that they would be amused

839
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 1: while they waited for the general. Um, that's like the

840
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:11,080
Speaker 1: worst to take. Yeah, fucking hellum if you've got a

841
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:15,399
Speaker 1: slide for your girlfriends, Like, yeah, you're doing it wrong.

842
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:19,000
Speaker 1: I'm going to read another very rough two sentences from

843
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:22,880
Speaker 1: that Vanity Fair article. One of the Stressner's conquests was

844
00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 1: the fifteen year old daughter of the head of the

845
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:27,719
Speaker 1: National Cement industry. As part of the seductions, she and

846
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 1: her brother got a trip to Disney World. Ah man, good,

847
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:37,919
Speaker 1: hell now that is that is dark. That is rough.

848
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:41,279
Speaker 1: This story was first broken by Jack Anderson in The

849
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:45,040
Speaker 1: Washington Post in nineteen seventy seven. Who I'm fair from

850
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 1: what I recall of his article does not write anything

851
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:53,920
Speaker 1: creepy about these children. Um yeah, he like bases his

852
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 1: article off of an interview he conducts with a woman

853
00:48:55,760 --> 00:48:58,279
Speaker 1: named Melina Ashwell, and Molina is the daughter of a

854
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:02,040
Speaker 1: Paraguayan official stationed in Washington, DC, who tells him that

855
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:05,000
Speaker 1: two years earlier and seventy five back in the Capitol,

856
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:07,719
Speaker 1: they'd been having lunch with a colleague when they were

857
00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:10,359
Speaker 1: called over to the mansion next door, where they saw

858
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:12,920
Speaker 1: the unconscious bodies of two eight year old girls and

859
00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:15,320
Speaker 1: one nine year old girl, who were both bleeding between

860
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:18,880
Speaker 1: their legs. Ashwell called the police, but they had like.

861
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:21,800
Speaker 1: The police show up, but they leave immediately because somebody

862
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:24,400
Speaker 1: points out that the house is owned by Colonel Perrya.

863
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:28,320
Speaker 1: The house is apparently a brothel frequented by the dictator himself,

864
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 1: and she calls like, you know. Once the police leave,

865
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:35,120
Speaker 1: she calls a local journalist and tries to give him

866
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:37,360
Speaker 1: the story before she goes to the post, but the

867
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:40,399
Speaker 1: journalist she tells this all to the Paraguayan journalist gets

868
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 1: arrested for communism, and a raid of his house turns

869
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:45,720
Speaker 1: up the text of her interview, so she gets tortured

870
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:48,920
Speaker 1: for three days. She's only saved because her dad is influential.

871
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:53,080
Speaker 1: When Anderson publishes this story, whe'll start turning in the

872
00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: Carter White House, and thankfully Carter is not unwilling to

873
00:49:57,080 --> 00:49:59,440
Speaker 1: back dictators as he does in El Salvador during this

874
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:02,759
Speaker 1: period of time. But this is far too much for

875
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:08,640
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter, and the United States cuts aid to Stressner's dictatorship.

876
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 1: Now Reagan winds up in the office very shortly thereafter,

877
00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:16,800
Speaker 1: and Reagan's like, oh, we have no problem supporting a

878
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:21,360
Speaker 1: pedophile is totally fine. Yeah, Reagan switches up on a

879
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:24,080
Speaker 1: sea right back. They do lose out on money during

880
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:26,200
Speaker 1: this period where the economy is also in the shitter,

881
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:29,480
Speaker 1: and that creates problems that weakens Stressner's regime. Right It's

882
00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:31,880
Speaker 1: one of the things that contributes to the weakening of

883
00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 1: his regime. By nineteen eighty two, campesinos who lost their job,

884
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:38,680
Speaker 1: or in nineteen eighty two, campesinos who lost their jobs

885
00:50:38,719 --> 00:50:41,120
Speaker 1: when the dam was finished, started to protest again for

886
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 1: land reform. This got in the way of the dreams

887
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:47,760
Speaker 1: of Stressner's cabinet members and military officers. Villages were declared

888
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:52,800
Speaker 1: centers of delinquency of subversion and forcibly evacuated. The peasantry

889
00:50:52,840 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 1: began to desert Stressner as a result. By the late

890
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:57,960
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, the general was sick enough that he could

891
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 1: no longer fully control his regime. He hoped one of

892
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:02,719
Speaker 1: his sons would take over for him, but one of

893
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:05,120
Speaker 1: them was an alcoholic and the other was gay, and

894
00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:08,000
Speaker 1: neither of them had the wherewithal to politic their way

895
00:51:08,040 --> 00:51:12,880
Speaker 1: through Stressner's cabinet. On February third, General Andres Rodriguez, a

896
00:51:12,960 --> 00:51:16,720
Speaker 1: close relative of the dictator by marriage, executed a violent

897
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:20,640
Speaker 1: coup against Stressner. There's an eight hour gunfight. Stressner barely

898
00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:22,880
Speaker 1: gets away in like a limousine from the gunfight, but

899
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:27,520
Speaker 1: like there's enough resistance that like he is able to

900
00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:30,799
Speaker 1: escape and keep his own life. But his troops are

901
00:51:30,840 --> 00:51:33,200
Speaker 1: not able to stop the soldiers loyal to Rodriguez from

902
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:36,440
Speaker 1: taking the capital. By the way, Rodriguez is married to

903
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:39,960
Speaker 1: his daughter. It's like his son in law too, right,

904
00:51:40,120 --> 00:51:44,760
Speaker 1: So cool Stressner is able to negotiate the safe surrender

905
00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 1: of power, and he and his household are granted, you know,

906
00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:51,520
Speaker 1: the ability to leave the country. So he survives losing

907
00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:55,279
Speaker 1: power which is again rules for thirty five years, gets

908
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:58,920
Speaker 1: out alive. Very rare story in the annals of dictatorships.

909
00:51:59,600 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 1: He had an initially hoped to land in Florida because

910
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:06,560
Speaker 1: he owned several houses in Florida. The traditional resting place

911
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:10,759
Speaker 1: of He feared though being tried for his crimes, and

912
00:52:10,880 --> 00:52:13,560
Speaker 1: so when the right wing military government of Brazil offered

913
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 1: him sanctuary, he took it. He spent the last seventeen

914
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:19,759
Speaker 1: years of his life there, living in comfort, until the

915
00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:26,439
Speaker 1: age of ninety three. Jesus, Yeah, wow, a terrible Yeah,

916
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:30,279
Speaker 1: he'd never based for his scribes. Yeah, I was really

917
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 1: rooting for Rodriguez Stato. Yeah. Yeah. It would have been

918
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:37,399
Speaker 1: good if he'd gotten the old Mussolini. Yeah, that would Yeah,

919
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:39,719
Speaker 1: we'd have loved to see that. Yeah, or if they

920
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:42,600
Speaker 1: did him like Kadafi. But yeah, I know, put him

921
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:45,880
Speaker 1: up as a fucking pinata for eight year old girls too, alas,

922
00:52:46,239 --> 00:52:50,719
Speaker 1: because he lives out his life on the beaches of Brazil. Yeah,

923
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 1: so you know that's a good story. Yeah, that in

924
00:52:57,320 --> 00:53:03,000
Speaker 1: many ways not but it's it is a story that's undeniable.

925
00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 1: You know what else is undeniable, James, how brutal. The

926
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:11,320
Speaker 1: ending of this fucking podcast was, Yeah, that was properly.

927
00:53:13,719 --> 00:53:18,480
Speaker 1: I really did backload the Yeah, yeah, that did that

928
00:53:18,719 --> 00:53:23,200
Speaker 1: fucking disneyl and shit is Oh my god, it's pretty rough.

929
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:29,800
Speaker 1: You said some really horrible things on my podcast. Wow. Yeah,

930
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:35,520
Speaker 1: that I'm I'm glad you gave like a slight warning

931
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:39,280
Speaker 1: to people, because that's just yeah, that was some particularly

932
00:53:39,400 --> 00:53:45,360
Speaker 1: dark shit. That is some particularly dark shit. James, James,

933
00:53:46,640 --> 00:53:49,840
Speaker 1: do you have anything to plut Yah. Yeah, Now that

934
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:54,759
Speaker 1: we've talked about child sexual abuse, that's uh. You know,

935
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:59,240
Speaker 1: we've got another podcast in which we much more rarely

936
00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:02,440
Speaker 1: talk about child sex abuse, which is you know, so

937
00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:03,880
Speaker 1: if that's something you don't want to hear about, you

938
00:54:03,960 --> 00:54:08,920
Speaker 1: can listen to It could happen here sometimes with me

939
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:12,960
Speaker 1: sometimes good Robert Sophie. We're gonna put that in our

940
00:54:13,080 --> 00:54:19,319
Speaker 1: Vulture right up, we'll go soaring up the rankings. Yes,

941
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: really discusses child sex abuse. Yeah, so yeah, it's the

942
00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 1: thing we won't talk about. I would like to plug

943
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:30,960
Speaker 1: the concept of hugging a nice friendly animal like a

944
00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:39,520
Speaker 1: dog or a cat. Yeah, and definitely definitely not Phil. Yeah. Yeah,

945
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:42,600
Speaker 1: well he's probably acade at this point. He's been dropped

946
00:54:43,080 --> 00:54:48,800
Speaker 1: thanks to Yeah. Yeah, if you're gonna hug an animal, like,

947
00:54:49,000 --> 00:54:51,320
Speaker 1: you know, really make sure you're in a stable stance,

948
00:54:51,520 --> 00:54:55,120
Speaker 1: make sure the animal wants to hug you back. Yeah. Yeah,

949
00:54:55,239 --> 00:55:01,120
Speaker 1: don't kidnap animal, Don't let your animal anywhere near filter. Yeah,

950
00:55:02,640 --> 00:55:08,080
Speaker 1: built Plasia adopted it posthumously and it's now phil to Plasia. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

951
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:11,239
Speaker 1: I mean he simply had to at that point, but yeah,

952
00:55:12,440 --> 00:55:14,759
Speaker 1: for its funeral. You have a book that people can

953
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:18,400
Speaker 1: buy I do. It's called After the Revolution. You can

954
00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:21,960
Speaker 1: find it at a K Press's website or like Amazon

955
00:55:22,280 --> 00:55:24,320
Speaker 1: or like bookstores. You'd go to a bookstore and you

956
00:55:24,360 --> 00:55:26,200
Speaker 1: could be like I would like After the Revolution by

957
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:30,280
Speaker 1: Robert Evans. And if they say no, whatever weapon you're carrying,

958
00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:32,360
Speaker 1: you know, you can just whip that out and and

959
00:55:32,960 --> 00:55:35,759
Speaker 1: you know, create a hostage situation until you get a

960
00:55:35,800 --> 00:55:37,799
Speaker 1: copy of my book. Or you could request it at

961
00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:42,800
Speaker 1: your local library. Yeah, all of these are equally valid options.

962
00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:48,960
Speaker 1: I like, my brain is on that photo of Phillio

963
00:55:49,120 --> 00:55:56,440
Speaker 1: dropping fill the ground. It's very funny, very funny. Oh man,

964
00:55:57,000 --> 00:56:02,040
Speaker 1: all right, this is over. I've afforded. Goodbye. We're gonna

965
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:06,040
Speaker 1: go pull one out fulfilled, poor out fulfill byebye. Kaye.

966
00:56:07,680 --> 00:56:10,400
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

967
00:56:10,760 --> 00:56:13,359
Speaker 1: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

968
00:56:13,440 --> 00:56:17,399
Speaker 1: Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

969
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:19,840
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts