Juan Manuel Frutos Fleitas
Juan Manuel Frutos Fleitas | |
|---|---|
| Rural Welfare Institute | |
| In office 1963–1989 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 10 April 1923 Asunción, Paraguay |
| Died | 24 March 2013 Asunción, Paraguay |
| Political party | National Republican Association – Colorado Party |
| Nickname | Papacito |
Juan Manuel Frutos Fleitas (also known by his alias of Papacito) (April 10, 1923 – March 24, 2013) was a Paraguayan politician and government minister under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. He was the founder and first chairman of the Rural Welfare Institute (Instituto de Bienestar Rural—IBR), and as such, he was one of the key figures of the Stroessner administration's economic policy, spearheading the "March to the East" land reclamation and colonization project of the 1960s-1980s. Frutos, a staunch anti-communist, also served as an ideologue of the Stroessner regime, and was the chairman of the Paraguayan branch of the World League for Freedom and Democracy anti-communist organization.