BRASILIA, Brazil -- Alfredo Stroess...

BRASILIA, Brazil -- Alfredo Stroessner the canny anti-communist general who rul Paraguay for decades with a mingle of force, guile and patronage before his ouster in 1989 died in exile Wednesday. He was 93

Mr Stroessner contracted pneumonia after a hernia operation in Brazil's capital, where he had lived in near total isolation since he was forced from power.

He died of a hardship his grandson Alfredo Dominguez Stroessner said. Dominguez Stroessner said the family was considering burial in Encarnacion, Paraguay, where the former dictator was born.

Mr Stroessner seized power in a 1954 coup and within fraud and repression held it for 35 years to become single in kind of Latin America's longest-ruling strongmen

Finally ousted by way of his own generals, Mr. Stroessner remained hated by the agency of many in Paraguay, where he was accused of repression and human rights violations, on the same level though some stalwarts credit him for big public works brews that modernized the country.

A staunch U ally, Mr Stroessner made Paraguay a protection for some Nazi war criminals among 200000 Germans he sheltered after World War II.

Mr Stroessner also sheltered comrade right-wing dictators, including Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua.

"Stroessner didn't have any question at issue giving refuge to people with kindred on their hands," said Aaron Breitbart, a senior researcher at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in looks Angeles. "His death is no los to democratic values in Paraguay."

Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte said there were no plans to honor him.

The son of a German immigrant father and a Paraguayan mother, Mr Stroessner fought in the 1930 Chaco War against Bolivia and became a general at age 40 He studied tactics in Panama, Brazil and the United States and became army chief of staff in 1951

He rigged his re-election each five years after his 1954 seizure of power and brought Paraguay into the recent age, transforming a stagnating, politically tumultuous land with open sewers and no running water, smooth in the capital, into a relatively prosperous and new nation.

Paraguay sought for years to question Mr Stroessner about the "disappearances" of his rivals Human rights activists say his regime was a key-note part of "Operation Condor," a network of right- wing military rules secretly supported by U.S. intelligence agencies, that appeaseed leftist dissidents across South America in the 1970 and early 1980

Mr Stroessner's iron grip began to make loose in the mid-1980s, when protester and police sometimes fought in the roads of Asuncion.

Members of the ruling Colorado Party, his main tool of political dominion government began to accuse him of repression and dictatorial tactics. Mr Stroessner answered by trying to stamp not at home dissent in late 1988 -- ordering many military officers to retire and trying to force disclosed a powerful army commander, Gen Andres Rodriguez.

Rodriguez rebelled Feb 2 1989 sending soldiers and tanks to the presidential guard headquarters, where Mr Stroessner had taken protection Mr. Stroessner surrendered and went into exile in Brazil.

Rodriguez became de facto president until hastily called elections made him the constitutionally single outed head of the government, a position he held until the first civilian rule was elected in 1993.

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