Tag: Paraguay stamp

Sometimes tough times call for a strong leader. In South America that often means a claudillo. What to do though when your military leader is bland and ineffectual. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This is my favorite stamp issue from Paraguay. There was a Presidential summit of the anti communist, military Presidents of Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, and todays stamp Argentina. Decked out formally with serious expressions and being South America, a flag sash. I did the Brazil President issue here, https://the-philatelist.com/2017/10/19/a-friend-and-ally-who-wears-a-sash/, The failed lefties of the time are so much better remembered today, but the chaos that comes with them less so. So a stamp issue showing a coalition of the forgotten is interesting, and very different stylistically.

Todays stamp is issue A250, a 75 Centimo stamp issued by Paraguay on November 18th, 1972. It was a four stamp issue that was also available as a souvenir sheet. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.  Even the souvenir sheet is only worth $2.50. must not be much of a demand for a souviner like this but I love them. A stamp issue will portray them as they saw themselves.

Anti communism was a big agreement of the people at the summit. They were all close to the then in power Nixon administration. In Argentina’s case this unity was short lived. General and de facto President Alejandro Lanusse was scheduling the first election in a long while with the hope of increasing legitimacy. Argentina was on it’s third junta government since 1966. Peron was still in exile but his stand in was running. His stand in represented the left wing side of Peron’s support. As such he was able to retain Peron’s support and also tear away votes from the far left. His inauguration saw Chile’s Allende and Cuba’s Castro there to cheer but the fellows on this stamp issue were nowhere to be seen and glum. They need not have worried Peron would soon be back in power, and prove to be more right than left.

In Argentina there was a fairly strange group of centrist in power after Peron was overthrown. Peronists were banned from participating in elections, so the people elected proved weak and unappealing to both left and right. In 1966, the last elected President was deposed. The military hoped to install a public government similar to Brazil that was stronger but less ideological. However the left is only going to be upset by the uniforms and these type armies had many generals that thought they were the one to make it work, of at least get rich trying. So under the generals, left wing violence increases, and yet there was little progress in stamping it out. Guns and butter centrism also had the old South American problem of runaway inflation.

In the mid 1990s as an old man, President Lanusse released his autobiography where he criticized later General leaders for their excesses during the late 70s dirty war. He also criticized then President Menem a member of the Peronist party. The old fellow who himself lacked achievement thinks everyone else does it wrong. I suppose I should be sympathetic to an old man claiming people should have listened to him. However instead I think President Menem did the right thing by putting the old fool in house arrest. Hopefuly his home poccessed a lot of mirrors. Strong and wrong beats weak and right according to Bill Clinton.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the Paraguay stamp designers of 1972 for offering such a visually striking alternative to the 68er visuals. Come again  for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

Paraguay in the 1860s had fought a war that ended in total defeat and occupation. So for a while, the national lion as seen on todays stamp was badly wounded. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The question might be what does a national coat of arms mean anymore after a war where half the country died. The lion lifts it’s right paw ready to strike for peace and justice. The country is broke and in debt and resorting to selling off large pieces of land in the much shrunken country. Perhaps the coat of arms is supposed to give hope that Paraguay will again rise. This was true in that the people overthrew this government the next year after this stamp.

Todays stamp is issue O51, a 3 Centavo Official stamp issued by the Republic of Paraguay in 1903. There were many variations of this stamp over many years. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents used. In this case the overprint does not add much value to the stamp. The version without the official overprint is worth 30 cents. Official means the stamp was intended for government use.

In 1863. Paraguay President Lopez was nervous that Brazil was intervening in the internal workings of Uruguay. He believed that after Uruguay, Brazil would turn their military attentions to Paraguay. This was not an unreasonable deduction. Lopez than attacked neighboring Brazil crossing successfully the border. When Argentina refused to allow Lopez to attack Brazil  through Argentina, he declared war on Argentina. Paraguay had a fairly large army but now Lopez’s Paraguay with a population of 450,000 faced an allied force of over 11 million. Brazil’s army was small but it’s National Guard was huge. By 1870 Paraguay was conquered and divided up with the small remainder occupied by Brazil. President Lopez fell in the last battle.

Paraguayan politics became a rivalry between left wingers with behind the scenes support of Argentina and right wingers with behind the scenes support  from Brazil. Since Brazil had done most of the fighting they were most dominant in the occupation. It was also their party the Colorado party, that held power. Both sides relied on veterans from the Lopez era.

What the Colorado party did not have the power to do was quickly turn things around. Some land was reclaimed from Bolivia thanks to an international conference chaired by former American President Rutherford Hayes. Still the government had to sell off large blocks of land to keep the revenue coming in. There was really not much choice in the matter but it ending up concentrating land ownership in just a few hands. Some of whom of course were high government officials, which decreased the legitimacy of the government. Liberals in 1904 sailed from Argentina  up river to Paraguay, and Paraguay with no navy and only a tiny army was unable to stop them. The negotiation to end the rule of President Escurra, the last Colorado party President was handled between Brazil and Argentina.

Well my drink is empty and I am left to ponder what should happen when a country is destroyed and is not humanly possible to put thing right except over long periods of time. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Conservatives love to remember the institutions of the past, even if the modern equivalent institution has no love for them today. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The old ruins on the stamp are not very well reproduced. I do like the 1950s period feel of the font used for the stamp. It is perhaps not the choice expected to show off ruins, but It works. It brings the old history up to the current time when the government might want to remind what can happen when stability is allowed to deteriorate.

The stamp today is issue A125, a 5 centimos stamp issued by the Republic of Paraguay on June 19th 1955. It shows the Jesuit ruins at Trinidad Belfry. It is part of a six stamp issue honoring the Jesuit contributions to Paraguay. According to the Scott catalog, it is worth 40 cents in its mint condition.

The Jesuits did much to bring civilization to Paraguay during the early years of the Spanish colonial period. The area was somewhat off the beaten track and mainly populated by Guarani Indians. The Indians were considered a source of slave labor and concubines for the plantations of Brazil. To protect from this, The Jesuits organized townships where the Indians could be protected. These townships converted to Catholicism and became prosperous under the management of the Jesuits. The Jesuits saw this as the beginning of an autonomous native nation in Paraguay.

The prosperity in a troubled region of empire came to be seen as a threat to Spain. They saw it as the creation of an empire within the empire and competition for the Spanish colonial plantations. The Jesuits were eventually ordered out by the King of Spain and the townships fell into mismanagement and plundering. Within a generation, the achievements of the Indian communities was lost.

Paraguay in 1955 was in the early years of the long rule of President Alfredo Stroessner. He did much to develop the economy and achieved a level of leadership stability totally lacking before and since. He did it by a firm hand on the controls of power. Reminding the people of how things can regress like with the Jesuits seems a logical lesson to try to teach.

Ironically, the Catholic church was not on board with such politicizing. The church became a source of opposition power. By the 1970s, political crackdowns by Stroessner would result in excommunication of leaders in the government. A visit by Pope John Paul II in 1988 put the church central to the opposition and there was a coup in 1989 that ended 40 years of Stroessner  rule.

Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open the discussion in the below comment section, After Stroessner left power he spent the next 16 years in exile in Brazil. Sick and in his 90s, he was refused his request to come home to die. The level of tension between left and right still being so high. It might have been nice for the church to appeal the decision as a way for the country to come together. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.