ABSTRACT
In the early hours of 20 December 1943, officers of a clandestine military society captured President Penaranda and his senior officers. The rebels, who identified themselves as members of “Cause of the Fatherland”, then occupied the Palacio Quemado. The inception of the RADEPA Revolution can be traced to a prisoner of war camp in Asuncion, Paraguay, where a clique led by Second Lieutenant Elías Belmonte Pabon enlisted select junior officers in the secretive lodge. Membership was later extended to other officers who met the qualifications of “known patriotic morality, were under age forty-five and who belonged to no other lodge, masonic or international, willing to completely renounce the military hierarchy.” Diplomatic recognition by the United States was a prerequisite to the sale of tin; hence, the first order of business for the Junta was to assure the continued supply of tin and other raw materials vital to the Anglo-American cause in World War II.
