Word: betancourts
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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First to Finish? The violence had a single objective: to undermine the government of President Romulo Betancourt, 54, and bring it down. But Betancourt is not an easy man to topple. Since taking office nearly four years ago, he has survived street riots, assassination attempts and barracks coups-the last a bloody marine corps uprising at Puerto Cabello naval base last summer. In the meantime, he has doggedly pursued a policy of reform. Under Betancourt's agrarian program, more than 3,700,000 acres of land (mostly government property) have been divided among nearly 55,000 families...
Those who are out to stop Betancourt are tagged "extremists" by Venezuelans. Most of them are from the extreme left-members of the Communist Party, of the Castro-following Movement of the Revolutionary Left, of a Reddish faction of the left-of-center Republican-Democratic Union. Some are far-right opportunists who hate Betancourt for his insistent social and economic reforms. Their campaign is disjointed: occasional attacks on isolated villages in the hills, the murder of a few Caracas policemen, machine-gun forays on Caracas embassies, a Molotov cocktail thrown at a newspaper printing plant. Up to now, the bulk...
Privilege Abused. Taking his own steps to restore order, Betancourt last week suspended constitutional guarantees of assembly and free speech, imposed radio and press censorship, suspended the right of habeas corpus and privacy of the home. More than 300 known enemies of the regime were rounded up. And Venezuela's embattled President redoubled his efforts to revoke the congressional immunity of extremist Deputies who have abused it by openly preaching insurrection against the government...
...this was strong medicine, but tough-minded Romulo Betancourt knew that he had to prescribe it in order to hold the extremists...
...Betancourt went before a National Peasants' Congress to denounce the uprising as a joint operation of the Venezuelan Communist Party and the Castroite Movement of the Revolutionary Left. Was it tolerable, asked Betancourt, "that these parties, with representation in Congress, become implicated in conspiracies that lead to the shedding of Venezuelan blood?" Reinforcing Betancourt's charge was the capture of two Castro-Communist federal Deputies among the Puerto Cabello rebels...