REBELLION IN PARAGUAY

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28794, 15 January 1959, Page 9

REBELLION IN PARAGUAY

Rising Against Dictator Reported

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) BUENOS AIRES, January 14. A military rebellion has broken out against the Paraguay dictator, Alfredo Stroessner, the Buenos Aires newspaper “Nacion” reported today. The “Nation's” correspondent in Resistentia, on the Argentine-Paraguayan border, said sources in Paraguay’s capital, Asuncion, reported the rebellion in north-west Paraguay. Communications with Asuncion could not be made last night. One Argentine military source said there were indications that something nearing a rebellion had occurred in Paraguay.

The small land-locked South American nation has had several outbreaks in recent years against Stroessner’s rule. Stroessner is one of the few reI maining Latin-American dictators, and the fall on January 1 of the dictator Fulgencio Batista in Cuba could have inspired new efforts to overthrow the Paraguayan.

The “Nacion” said several hundred Stroessner opponents had been arrested recently ,as a preventive measure after Batista’s fall.

Paraguayan exiles in Uruguay recently said Stroessner had shuffled some top army and police officials because of a crisis between military chiefs and the civilian heads of Stroessner’s Colorado Party, the dominant political group in the nation since 1947.