Word: estenssoro
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...companies and placed their mines under a new, government-run Bolivian Mining Corp. It was the most important act of nationalization in Latin America since Mexico seized the foreign oil companies in 1938. For better or for worse, it made the nationalist government of President Victor Paz Estenssoro the most important since SimÓn Bolivar founded the republic...
...windswept field near Bolivia's big Catavi tin mine, President Victor Paz Estenssoro stepped to a rude table one day last week and with a golden pen signed the decree nationalizing the country's three big tin companies. Twenty thousand black-shawled women and tin-helmeted men yelled vivas. A leather-jacketed Indian stepped to the President's side and sounded the ancient Inca battle call on a curved bull horn. That night bonfires burned all over the Bolivian Andes, and the cobbled streets of La Paz echoed with the din of jubilant partisans firing...
Nevertheless, President Paz Estenssoro hopes to make a peaceful settlement with the big three. He has insisted that "lawful compensation must be paid." On the eve of nationalization, the companies received what appeared to be a demand for $505 .million in unreported foreign exchange and $15 million in allegedly evaded income taxes (TIME, Nov. 3). Last week the President's experts explained that this was not a final reckoning. The implication was that the tin companies, if they agree to dicker instead of fighting the regime by litigation and fomenting embargoes abroad, might still wind up with some cash...
Time to Restrain. In the hope of striking such a bargain, President Paz Estenssoro has offered engineers and other foreign employees of the three companies security of tenure, salary and other contract benefits if they will keep on working for the government's newly constituted Bolivian Mining Corp. But coming to terms with the tin barons and their experts may not be the President's toughest problem. Speaking to the miners at Catavi last week, Labor Boss Juan Lechin, Bolivia's left-wing Minister of Mines, said: "Nationalization must be carried out without payment to the thieving...
...showdown cabinet meeting last week, Lechin backed down. Afterwards, addressing 15,000 partisans with Paz Estenssoro, he made a mild speech terming nationalization "an act of national defense." Later he added: "We shall nationalize, but we shall have to study the matter. Surely no one thought I was serious when I mentioned 30 days...