Word: garcias
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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...
Bolivians by now are fairly accustomed to coups; they have lived through four golpes in the past 26 months, a total of 189 since the country became independent in 1825. Yet the Garcia Meza junta has shown itself to be unusually vicious. After gaining control of most of the country on July 17, it claimed that "electoral fraud" had given a plurality of votes to leftist Candidate Hernan Siles Zuazo in the June presidential elections. Because none of the candidates had won a majority, congress was to have chosen a President in early August. Siles Zuazo was expected...
Since then, there has been some progress toward democratic reform. The current provisional President, General Policarpo Paz Garcia, has agreed to cede power to a civilian government that will be elected next year. Last April's voting for a Constitutional Assembly gave a majority to the old Liberal Party, which was last in office in 1963, and made its leader, Roberto Suazo Córdova, 53, the front runner in next spring's presidential contest. Meanwhile, the Paz Garcia government, relatively moderate for a military regime, has raised minimum wages and begun to redistribute land in an effort...
...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's fourth in the past two years, and the 189th coup in the country's 155 years of independence...
...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...