Word: romero
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...score of foreign businessmen, extorting at least $40 million in ransoms. The kidnapings sparked a flight of foreign capital that further weakened the tottering economy of one of the hemisphere's more densely populated nations (531 people per sq. mi.). Presiding over the chaos was General Carlos Humberto Romero, 57, an inept military despot who was despised even by his reluctant supporters in the armed forces...
...coup d'etat that unseated Romero as President last week was greeted with unabashed enthusiasm in Washington. "It's the best piece of news we've had in this office for a long time," said a State Department official. Well aware that Romero was out of touch with El Salvador's realities, U.S. policymakers have been hoping for some kind of "evolutionary change" that would avoid the horrendous bloodshed of Nicaragua's civil war. Whether El Salvador's new rulers will be able to maintain peace in their factionalized little country, however, is doubtful...
...plot to oust Romero was hatched about six months ago by a cadre of liberal army officers organized as a "council of military youth." They were assisted by reformist academics of the Jesuit-run University of Central America Jose Simeon Canas. Inspired by the success of Nicaragua's revolution, both groups were convinced that the only way to prevent all-out "class warfare" was to end the corrupt military regime and, as an intellectual who helped plan Romero's ouster explained last week, overhaul the country's "antiquated economic, social and political structures...
...weeks ago the conspirators informed the U.S. embassy in San Salvador that they were ready to stage Romero's overthrow. Last Monday their forces moved swiftly through the capital city, carrying out the plotters' plan to "behead the army" by arresting the general staff and putting 85% of the senior officers on the retirement list. Through an American diplomat, they informed Romero that he had until 3 p.m. to get out of the country. With that, the President (whose brother Jose Javier was gunned down by leftists five weeks ago) boarded a plane and fled to Guatemala...
...After Romero's exit, the army named a five-man junta of soldiers and civilians that one liberal academic describes as "100% nationalistic and anti-imperialistic." Its members: Colonel Adolfo Arnoldo Majano, 41, deputy chief of El Salvador's military school; Colonel Jaime Abdul Gutierrez, 43; Roman Mayarga Quiros, 36, an M.I.T.-educated electrical engineer who was formerly rector of the University of Central America; Guillermo Manuel Ungo, 47, a university administrator who ran for Vice President in the 1972 election; and Mario Andino, 43, an electrical engineer known for his progressive political views...