Word: junta
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Arrests by goon squads, and torture by a vicious junta...
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...
...widespread use of torture in the postcoup crackdown as well as the random arrests by roving civilian goon squads suggest that the 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...
...lost export earnings). Not even all the military approve of the coup: Garcia Meza's reshuffling of troop commanders is seen as a clear sign of suspect allegiance. Archbishop Jorge Manriquez Hurtado of La Paz and Bolivia's Council of Bishops have condemned the junta for creating a "climate of violence." On Aug. 6, Independence Day, the day he probably would have been chosen President, Siles Zuazo announced from his hideaway that he was forming a clandestine "government of the Bolivian people." He called the Garcia Meza regime one of "national destruction," and described it as facing "overwhelming...
Pezzullo also played a hand in another touchy episode. He delicately indicated U.S. support for the Sandinista proposal to replace two moderate junta members, who had resigned, with representatives of similar beliefs. Says one of Pezzullo's superiors in Washington: "Larry had to make it clear as day that we considered private-sector representation on the junta a crucial matter, but he had to do it with such a light touch that the Sandinistas could not protest that we were bullying our way into their internal affairs...