A giant statue ofParaguays dictator, Gen.Alfredo Stroessner, used to dominate the capital city of Asuncion.
Now, all that remains at the site are his steel boots.
The people, celebrating Stroessners downfall, severed the head, torso and the legs of the statue.
‘Under the Flags, the Sun’Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival
Yet, the base remains the foundation.
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During his reign, almost 20,000 perceived political opponents were tortured, and hundreds were disappeared.
Paraguay’s military ruler, Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, circa 1975FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
A regime like that doesnt invite scrutiny, limiting what footage exists.
Cameras didnt document the torture of trade unionists and others in Paraguay.
But, helpfully, the dictatorship did keep written records of its activities which were discovered in 1992.
Those Archives of Terror, as they have become known, became an important source for Pereira.
The Terror Archives is one of the most important archives in Latin America, Pereira said.
Its free to go [and see], and its there in the Ministry of Justice.
In a way, the end of the dictatorship was not a revolutionary moment.
It was a change of command, Pereira observed.
The Colorado Party needed to change its image… Its not the people taking power.
Pereira described himself as a child of democracy.
Im born after the coup detat [of 1989].
I dont know if were living in a democracy in Paraguay, he said.
We dont have opposition in Paraguay.
So is it a democracy?
I dunno, maybe its up to us to understand that.
Its complicated to say that this is democracy.
Maybe we need to find a new way to say what is the world were living in now.
Pereira suggested Stroessner has been scrubbed from Paraguays history.
In school we didnt study this period of the country.
So I finished school at 18 and I didnt even know who was this guy, he said.
And at 20 or 21 I started to search more about this period.
DescribingUnder the Flags, the Sun, Pereira said, The film is opening questions, proposing questions.
This is my main goal.
He added, We know so little about this period.
For me, it is like we only know fragments and the movie is about fragments…
I take all these fragments and I make this sense of memory.
