DISCOVERS "COMMUNIST" PLOT
With "Communist" plots being hatched all over the world, it would be strange if a dictator like General Alfredo Stroessner were to go too long without discovering one. How could the Paraguayan government keep up its good relations with the White House, the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency without demonstrating at least occasionally that it is the target of sinister subversive efforts?
On July 6 Stroessner's minister of the interior, Edgar Insfran, announced that -a vast "Communist plot" had been uncovered, Arrests were made throughout the country in the following days.
The key figure in the conspiracy, according to Stroessner's
man, was a Chilean named Francisco José Prado Leon who had been sent to Paraguay by a "Communist" organization with headquarters in Santiago, Chile. A training camp for guerrillas had been set up at Pasobril, Argentina, and the plot was to be sprung next December 8 during religious ceremonies in a town fifty kilometers from Asuncién which Stroessner planned to attend,
As further evidence of the plot, Insfran announced July 8 that the body of Santiago Cronel Acevedo, "who had been trained in Cuba and who was known under the name of Patricio Duarte" had been "found in the forest of Santa. Elena, northwest of. Asuncién,"
According to Insfran, four groups of guerrilla fighters ' "were going to go into operation in accordance with the Communist plot, the discovery of which was announced Tuesday."
Unrest has been persistent in Paraguay for many years under Stroessner's foul dictatorship. It has led to sporadic outbursts which the fascist-minded ruler has put down with the most ruthless © terror, It is possible that he detected signs of new unrest among the Paraguayan people and decided to take preventive measures as he has in the past. The standard procedure in beginning such an operation is to discover a "Communist plot." This is then used as justification for a nationwide witch-hunt in which the bodies of "subversives" are often "discovered" by the police.