Word: bolivia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...reign of terror has descended on Bolivia in the four weeks since the military took over in a coup directed by General Luis Garcia Meza. Outwardly the signs of military rule are few. A handful of uniformed police, toting FAL automatic rifles, guard La Paz's El Alto airport. Halftracks bar the entrance to the capital's San Andres University campus, and rangers in dark berets patrol out side Miraflores military garrison, the headquarters of the army general staff. The main sign of activity at Miraflores is an irregular flow of white Toyota behind without license plates used...
...junta has been getting some expert help in repression from the outside. The most likely accomplice is military-ruled Argentina, which was the first nation to recognize the new regime in La Paz. For years Argentina has maintained a mission of slightly more than a dozen intelligence officers in Bolivia, ostensibly to teach at Bolivian military institutions. Their ranks almost doubled before the coup...
...with much sympathy." Videla did admit to sending food and money-to aid the Bolivian people rather than the military, he explained -"because we do not want in South America what Cuba signifies in Central America." The allusion was curious, considering that the Communists have not fared well in Bolivia since the failure of Che Guevara's 1966-67 effort to launch a people's war there...
...latest chapter in Bolivia's sad political history began almost routinely in the northern city of Trinidad. Army troops took over strategic points around the city and issued a proclamation disavowing the authority of interim President Lydia Gueiler. Twelve hours later, 20 armed rebels stormed the Government House in the capital of La Paz and arrested Gueiler, along with her Cabinet. Power was seized by a junta composed of Army General Luis Garcia Meza, Air Force General Waldo Bernal Pereira and Admiral Ramiro Terrazas. At least two people were killed and 120 wounded during the military takeover-Bolivia...
...junta leaders, who later chose Garcia Meza as Bolivia's new President, said they had acted to reverse an "electoral fraud." Specifically, their aim was to block the election of left-leaning presidential Candidate Hernan Siles Zuazo, who had won a plurality of the popular vote last month and appeared assured of victory in a congressional ballot scheduled for early August. The coup apparently sent both Siles Zuazo and runner-up Candidate Victor Paz Estenssoro into hiding. The junta announced that Gueiler had submitted her resignation; at week's end she and her Cabinet ministers were still believed...