Country Reports: Paraguay
EAAF conducted three missions to Paraguay to collaborate with the Commission for Truth and Justice on the search for persons who disappeared during the regime of General Alfredo Stroessner, carrying out forensic investigations and assisting on historical research and database management.
EAAF was part of a delegation to Paraguay sent to collaborate with the governmental Commission for Truth and Justice, offering recommendations on obtaining, organizing, and archiving information on Stroessner-era disappearances.
A mission at the invitation of the Paraguayan Ministry of Justice and Labor to lend support in the investigation surrounding the discovery of several graves containing human remains found on a ranch in Canindegu Department.
Report 1994-1995
In August 1994, the Union of Neuropsychiatric Hospital Workers (SI.TRA.H.N) petitioned the Paraguayan State Prosecutors Office to intervene and investigate serious irregularities at the hospital. On the basis of these allegations, the court began a judicial investigation of the posibility that patients had died at the hospital under suspicious circumstances. At the request of the General State Prosecutor’s Office, an EAAF member traveled to Paraguay in November 1994 to assist the investigation.
Annual Report 1993
EAAF traveled twice to Paraguay during 1993. On the first mission, we provided technical advice on the finding of remains thought to correspond to disappeared people from the General Stroessner regime and on the repression file both found at the Police Central headquarters in Asunción, the capital of the country. Stroessner ruled Paraguay from 1954 until 1989.
The remains were non-human. The files contained information about Argentinean citizens that disappeared in Paraguay and vice versa; as part of the so-called "Operation Condor," a covert operation involving the secret exchange of prisoners among South American countries.
The team worked on the investigation of case of disappeared persons during the regime of Andrés Rodríguez at the invitation of the Committee of Churches (Comité de Iglesias), by conducting interviews with family members, consulting with the Judiciary on exhumations that were taking place. The team also conducted seminars on the investigation of human rights violations for judges and forensic doctors.
On its second mission, EAAF members gave a seminar in forensic and human rights investigations to judges and forensic doctors.
