Word: paz
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Bolivia's May 31 election was approaching, and it was time for President Victor Paz Estenssoro, running for a third term, to demonstrate that for all practical purposes he had disarmed his most violent opposition. Climbing into his DC-3, he flew to Oruro (pop. 81,000), market center of the country's tin-mining area and for years a stronghold of rebel Vice President Juan Lechin and his Communist-dominated mining unions. For good measure Paz invited U.S. Ambassador Douglas Henderson to come along as his guest...
Neither had anything to fear. Communist agitators were conspicuous by their absence. A confetti-tossing crowd of 5,000 greeted Paz at the airport and hoisted him to its shoulders. In town, a banner-wielding throng of 7,000 jammed the narrow streets, waving and shouting, "Workers for Victor Paz." "This is an emotional experience for me," Paz told the crowd, and went on with Henderson to snip a ribbon on an Alianza-financed road project, inspect a new water plant and attend a civic banquet. On the flight back to La Paz, the President allowed that "this has been...
...high Altiplano, where 75% of its 4,000,000 people live, Indian campesinos still consider white flags draped on their oxen a surer crop guarantee than fertilizer. Some 60% of the people speak only Indian languages, and per capita income is a pitiable $114. But under Paz Estenssoro, 56, Bolivia is gradually improving...
...hardly a democracy in the U.S. sense. As Bolivia's first President after the 1952 revolution that toppled the country's tin-mining aristocracy, Paz organized a heavyhanded political police and created almost a one-party state. He also gave the country its first taste of competent government. He built new roads, commenced an ambitious project of resettling campesinos from the Altiplano on more fertile farm areas in the eastern lowlands. After his reelection in 1960, Paz expanded his programs until today some 150,000 campesinos have been resettled. New cars clog the streets of the capital...
Castro Reconsidered. Paz and Barrientos together could well reshape Bolivian politics. Over the past two years, while striving to put the near-bankrupt nation on a solid economic footing, Paz has drawn away from his more radical advisers. Barrientos, the only political figure since the revolution who is outspokenly antiCommunist, argues that the government should break off diplomatic relations with Cuba. If he has his way, Bolivia's decision to sever ties with Castro might lead to new consideration of such action by some or all of the other four hemisphere holdouts: Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay...