Country of the World Paraguay

About the country Paraguay, its location, size, population, leaders and rulers.

NATIONS AND THEIR RULERS

PARAGUAY

NITTY-GRITTY

Lay of the Land: A landlocked country of low elevation in central South America. There are rolling plains and dense forests in central Paraguay, while the northwest is a scrubby, barren wilderness known as the Chaco, which Paraguay won from Bolivia in the 1930s.

Size: 157,047 sq. mi. (406,752 sq. km.).

Population: 2.8 million.

Who Rules: Paraguay is supposed to be a republic with a president and legislature elected every five years. However, the current head of state, Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, has been in power nearly a quarter of a century. He had himself elected president in 1954 after a coup, and has been "reelected" every five years since then.

Who REALLY Rules: General Stroessner, the most enduring dictator in South America. Illicit narcotics traffic is the economic breath of life to Paraguay. Stroessner controls it but has cut in every general and admiral, so the armed forces stay loyal to him. Except for the Church, which is speaking out more strongly than before, there is no active opposition to his dictatorship. Unremittingly anti-Communist, Stroessner receives continued support and aid from the U.S. ($160 million since 1954) as well as from major Latin American investors--Argentina and Brazil.

The Ache Indians are the victims of a deliberate government policy of genocide. Half the Ache living in Paraguay in 1968 have since disappeared, been killed or enslaved, because they supposedly stand in the way of progress.

You Are Here: Trivia-Library Home » Countries of the World: Paraguay » Country of the World Paraguay