Word: juntas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Thus far no leftist strongman has emerged. The country is governed by a nine-member Sandinista directorate, which wields effective power, and a five-member junta, which acts as an administrative board. The junta includes leftists, moderates and representatives of the private sector. The government upholds political pluralism, as well as freedom of speech and the press. Its apparent economic ideal is a combination of socialism and free enterprise. The Sandinistas have nationalized banks, insurance companies and the fishing industry, and taken over some 2.5 million acres of the country's arable farm land from Somoza and his cronies...
...ultimate survival of the Sandinista regime depends on its ability to avoid a political rift between the leftists and the private sector. One potential crisis flared up last April following the abrupt resignations of two moderate junta members. Their departure was widely seen as a sign of an imminent leftward shift in the national leadership. But the government restored confidence by appointing two moderate replacements...
...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's fourth in the past two years, and the 189th coup in the country's 155 years...
...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...
...junta immediately disbanded Congress, imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew and moved rapidly to crush resistance by students and workers, who called for a general strike in protest against the "fascist coup-makers." Tanks and troops also moved into southern towns where some 5,000 armed tin miners were blocking the roads and vowing to fight the coup "until the ultimate consequences." There were ominous signs that the junta had adopted the chilling anti-terrorist tactics pioneered by Argentina's military bosses. As in Argentina, a number of activists simply disappeared after being kidnaped by plain-clothes thugs...