They called him “the whip” because it was his favorite tool when “interrogating” or reprimanding prisoners. Today, at the age of 87, former police officer Eusebio Torres is on trial in Asuncion for torture, a rare window opened by the Paraguayan justice system into the long dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989).
On the screens of the computers installed in the courtroom, Eusebio Torres is an old man with a tired but rather closed face, who is silently attending the hearing, which is taking place virtually, and is presumably sitting in his lounge.
A calmness that contrasts with his demeanor 47 years ago, as witnesses report… “He ordered me to undress and began to beat me with his braided leather whip with violence and fury, as if I had kicked his mother.” … One of the impacts burst into my eye.
Carlos Arestivo, who now wears a glass eye, is one of about twenty witnesses examined last week in Asuncion at the Torres trial on two counts of torture dating back to 1976. What the defendant denies.
Witnesses themselves are old, frail, but for whom this trial is “an event of great importance because very few police officers and hierarchs of the Stroessner dictatorship were convicted,” one of them, Antonio Valenzuela Pecci, explains to AFP. “It is the desire for justice that drives us, not revenge.”
“Stronism” still there
In 35 years, General Stroessner's dictatorship left behind a record of 59 extrajudicial executions, 336 disappearances, almost 20,000 illegal detentions and around 19,000 cases of torture. On Paraguay's scale, that's “one in every 133 people,” the Truth and Justice Commission emphasized in its 2008 report.
However, after the dictatorship, criminal prosecutions were extremely rare; only about ten police officers were involved because of torture. Stroessner, who was convicted in absentia, died in 2006 at the age of 93, untroubled since his golden exile in Brazil.
“This justice is not justice. “Stronism” (von Stroessner) never left this country. “All these people who committed crimes against humanity will continue to be protected,” growls Guillermina Kanonnikoff, 70, convinced that “this guy (Torres) knows exactly what they did to the disappeared in 1976.” A year, which was marked by mass arrests, at the height of “Operation Condor”, a coordination plan between Latin American dictatorships against guerrillas or left-wing movements.
The Colorado Party (conservative), to which the dictator belonged, continues to dominate Paraguay's political life. The current President Santiago Peña comes from there, as does his predecessor Mario Abdo Benitez (2018-2023), son of Stroessner's former influential private secretary.
Torres, who was convicted in 2007 but placed under house arrest because of his age, was even honored in 2014 along with other police officers for a half-century career. Ceremony that caused scandal during the presidency of Horacio Cartes (2013-2018). Who remains chairman of the Colorado Party to this day.
Toilet bowl and electrodes
But for a few days, Torres is there, behind the screen. Torres, or “Tejuruguai” (Whip in Guarani), as the prisoners called him to each other, his name alone evoked terror, regardless of whether he carried out the torture himself or supervised it. As a commissioner, but also as a lawyer, he recorded so-called “statements” from young people who were suspected of subversion.
“He tortured me with whips in the cells of the investigation department while I protected my 8-month-old child with my body,” says Guillermina, who remembers breastfeeding her baby born in detention and two other children of prisoners “. Her husband Mario “went in alive but came out dead,” as the regime called its “investigation.”
Constantino Coronel, 92, spoke about how he was made to drink blood from his own wounds, or what the “swimming pool” torture consisted of – head in a toilet bowl with feces – or the “Picana” sessions. – Generator for torturing electricity. Abuse that occurred over three months during his five years in prison.
On Friday, the trial moved to the dark “investigation cells,” where one of the plaintiffs, Carlos Casco, 69, could not hold back his tears. “Here we activate memory, but also post-traumatic stress. Coming back is a way to victimize yourself again, but you have to go through it.”
The defense unsuccessfully appealed against the statute of limitations and reclassified the matter as assault and battery.
Prosecutors on Friday requested a sentence of 15 years in prison, which Torres should not experience, again because of his age.
The trial is expected to end on Tuesday.