Word: velascos
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...Ecuador's President Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra is indisputably his country's most successful politician. Without benefit of a party or a program, the old demagogue has been elected President of his poor nation of 6,000,000 no fewer than five times. The trouble is that, by general agreement, Velasco is also the worst administrator that Ecuador has ever had. Three of his four previous presidencies fell into such political and economic chaos that they were abruptly terminated by military coups. Recently, Velasco's fifth try at governing Ecuador seemed to be following true to form...
...Troubles. Last week the sounds of stress seemed all too familiar and ominous to Velasco. In Quito, the capital, seven consecutive days of student violence ended in a three-hour battle involving tanks, tear gas and the chatter of machine guns. As if on cue, Velasco summoned his military chiefs. "I quit," he announced. This time, however, there was a change in the script. At the urging of Defense Minister Jorge Acosta, 49, who is Velasco's nephew, the generals refused to accept the President's resignation. Instead, they urged him to accept the backing of the barracks...
...hard to see why the brass did not want to be stuck with the job. Under Velasco, Ecuador has been saddied with almost overwhelming problems, most of them economic. Faced with an astonishing 50% deficit in his 1970 budget of $250 million, Velasco sought desperately to raise extra funds through a series of decrees designed to step up tax collections. But Ecuador's powerful and long-entrenched oligarchy of agricultural and industrial families, which dominates the country's finance and trade, resisted his efforts...
...disaster brought at least a temporary reconciliation between Washington and Lima. For almost two years, the U.S. and the Peruvian nationalist junta led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado have been feuding over Peru's seizure of U.S. properties. After an unfortunate initial delay, the U.S. won warm thanks from the Peruvian generals for its effective aid. From the U.S.'s Southern Command in Panama came a 40-man rescue team three days after the quake, and giant Chinook helicopters from the carrier Guam lifted supplies into remote Andean villages that otherwise were completely cut off from the outside...
...after the quake, President Velasco sailed into Chimbote aboard the navy cruiser Coronel Bolognesi to survey the destruction. Velasco, an army general who seized power in 1968, and had just begun to check inflation and whittle down the budget deficit when the disaster struck, ordered $16 million set aside for relief and reconstruction. A dozen other countries rushed aid-including the U.S., which sent the helicopter carrier Guam, despite Washington's displeasure with Velasco for his seizure of a U.S.-owned oil company. It will take vast sums to repair the effects of a catastrophe that has left...