Word: bogota
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Tanned from a vacation at his 600-acre ranch near the Caribbean. President Gustavo Rojas Pinilla returned last week to the chilly Colombian capital of Bogota. In sunny spirits, he plunged into his work at the palace. One night, tall in a well-fitting, medal-spangled general's dress uniform, he presided with rare good humor at the annual presidential reception for the diplomatic corps...
General Rojas had a heartfelt reason for such an unaccustomed show of good will. In the past five months he has made a dizzying personal comeback. Last September his military regime was so shaky that Bogota rumors announced his downfall hourly. High armed-forces officers were quietly picking a junta to take over. Instead, Rojas got them to agree to an overhauling of his dictatorship that would restore its authority and acceptability. By last week he had succeeded...
Gradually, the government came to resemble the typical Latin American autocracy. One of South America's greatest newspapers, El Tiempo, was closed in August, 1955, after bloody street-fighting in Bogota. Six months later, many of Rojas' political opponents were killed or maimed by government thugs for having booed his daughters at the bullfights. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights found vast "zones of military operation" where military courts were empowered to try civilians for treason with none of the usual Constitutional safeguards. 50,000 peasants had already been "exiled" from their homes, many of them for having protested...
Preoccupied with efforts to keep his Army happy and stay in power, Rojas paid less and less attention to efficient government. He bolstered his own position by placing inexperienced Army officers in high government posts instead of financial and commercial experts. Scandals were frequent, and Bogota rang with stories of corruption in high places. Nevertheless, coffee prices were at a record high, the country was enjoying an unprecedented buying spree, and prosperous coffee growers and textile merchants agreed that the Rojas government was "better than before...
Last December Department of Agriculture reporters estimated that Colombia's current crop would run to a record 6,500,000 bags for export. Czar Mejia, who keeps his figures secret, remained silent. But in succeeding months word some how drifted from Bogota to Manhattan's coffee-trading Front Street that torrential rains had cut deeply into Colombia's maturing crop. Roasters and brokers, caught with low inventories and suddenly aware that a shortage of mild beans for blending could be crippling, bid up the price from 63? to 80? a Ib. Colombia's mild coffee, which...