Word: lechin
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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That other horse was Juan Lechin, 52, Paz's onetime Vice President and a longtime leftist union leader. In a surprise raid, Barrientos' police had picked him up in his home and packed him off to exile in Paraguay aboard an air force C-47. Lechin's crime, according to Barrientos, was masterminding a "Communist conspiracy" to overthrow the Bolivian government. "Bolivia was at the crossroads," cried Barrientos in a radio speech. "The choice was Communism or democracy...
Plots & Feathers. Barrientos offered little evidence of an impending revolt. But he had plenty of other reasons to get rid of Lechin. As boss of the country's 26,000 tin miners, the former Vice President had been doing his best to complete the destruction of Bolivia's economy by refusing to cooperate in a program to reform the country's nearly bankrupt Comibol tin-mining enterprise...
...sooner was Lechin out of the way last week than Barrientos announced a sweeping program to put Comibol on its feet. As a starter, the bullet-hard air force general tossed all top union leaders out of office, called for new union elections within 40 days, and before the week was out, exiled 36 more Communist and leftist union bosses to Paraguay. To make sure the orders would be enforced, he put the country under a state of siege and ordered a military draft of all Bolivians between the ages...
...commander in chief of the armed forces, to pick up the pieces. For 24 hours anti-government rioters surged through La Paz, looting, burning and sniping at army troops sent to keep order. Before it was over, 45 were killed, 160 wounded. Out of hiding came Leftist Juan Lechin, 51, Paz's archrival and boss of most of the country's 35,000 tin miners. Adding to the chaos, his miners demanded the re-establishment of union control of the mines...
...fired into a mob of rioting students, killing one of the youths. That was all it took to trigger an open revolt by students, miners and agitators of every stripe. In mining centers, union radios crackled with calls for "popular rebellion" against "the bloody tyrant and assassin Paz Estenssoro." Lechin's well-armed miners fought pitched battles with government troops, and the first casualty reports told of some 50 dead...