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The US has a long history of involvement with Latin America. I am focusing here on the past
50 or so years, revealing a disturbing pattern whereby whenever a Latin American government tries
to alleviate the plight of its poor (the vast majority of Latin American's today still
live in poverty), the US does its best to remove the government
(typically through a military coup). The countries are then invariably ruled by some form of
repressive dictatorship more acceptable to US interests.
The standard excuse for the US's actions in Latin America throughout the 50s - 80s
was Cold War concerns, and some would claim that as this reason/excuse no longer exists today,
this history is not relevant, as the CIA would not do such things today.
However, the recent case of Venezuela gives cause for concern that this doesn't
hold true.
A further concern is that, even if the political climate today is sufficiently improved
such that the US is unable to so blatantly further its business interests at the expense of
the Latin Americans as it has in the past, the fact remains that the US's actions over the past
30 years have left Latin America in a poor state, where many of the countries' peoples work
as effective slaves to us in the West, often forced by the IMF / World Bank to do so in order
to repay ridiculous debts, and not only do we do little to help, but we do our best to ensure
they stay in this state and we make little effort to right the wrongs caused by our past actions
which put these countries in the mess in the first place (the clearest case of this being
Nicaragua, as can be see directly below).
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Ruthless, repressive, pro-US and US-backed dictatorship of Somoza overthrown.
New government 'Sandinistas' formed. The Sandinistas make dramatic improvements
in nutrition, health care (reducing infant mortality to a third of the rate previously)
and literacy (increasing
literacy from 25% to 80%).
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An Oxfam report entitled 'The Threat of a Good Example' (which sums up precisely
the threat posed to the US by Nicaragua) on the Sandinistas concludes '
in Oxfam's experience of working in seventy-six developing countries, Nicaragua was to
prove exceptional in the strength of that government commitment [to meeting the basic
needs of the poor majority]'. This should be contrasted with Nicaragua's neighbours
at the time (Guatemala and El Salvador) who, as this article reports, had
'military dictatorships responsible for the sheer institutionalisation of state terror,
installed and propped up by the US. Tens of thousands of civilians were regularly
slaughtered by government death squads trained and armed by the CIA. The vast majority
of the populations were impoverished'.
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The CIA responds, under Reagan, by creating a paramilitary force to 'stop the flow
of military supplies from Nicaragua to El Salvador' (despite
little evidence of this actually occuring). The force grows to around 50,000
in the late 80s, and throughout the 80s mounts raids on Nicaragua, attacking schools
and medical clinics, raping, kidnapping, torturing, massacres, mining harbours etc etc.
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Reagan publicly claims to stop aid to 'contras', however continues aid despite
a congress ban, leading to Iran-contra scandal.
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Elections are held in Nicaragua and Sandinistas win with 67% of the vote. International
observer teams comment that they are the fairest elections to have been held in Latin
America in many years.
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Associated Press discloses a 90 page CIA-produced training manual called "Psychological
Operations in Guerrilla Warfare" giving advice for the contras on political assassinations,
blackmailing, mob violence, kidnappings and blowing up public buildings, and calling for
'implicit terror'.
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Nicaragua takes the case to the World Court in The Hague, who rule in their favour,
ordering America to put a stop to its crime in Nicaragua and to pay massive reparations.
America ignores the World Court's ruling, not paying a cent and escalating the war.
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ICJ decides on the amount owed by the US to Nicaragua - $17 billion. US continues
to ignore ruling.
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UN General Assembly calls on US to comply with ICJ's judgement. US continues
to ignore ruling. Call repeated
in 1988.
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Reagan announces that he will no longer seek military aid for the Contras.
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Elections are held in Nicaragua, and the Sadistinas lose to the US-backed
Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, after the US spends $9 million on her election campaign
(including bribing the
voters to vote for her).
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Nicaragua is crippled by highest per capita debt in the world. If the US were
simply to honour the World Court ruling, the debt would be paid off three-fold.
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Guatemala suffers under a succession of dictators all effectively belonging to the United
Fruit Company, which is exempt from taxes and controls pretty much everything in the
country.
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The dictator Ubico is overthrown and Guatemala enjoys the 'Ten Years of Spring' with
two popularly elected and reformist Presidents. President Arbenz permits free expression,
legalized unions and diverse political parties, and initiates basic socio-economic reforms.
One key program is a moderate land reform effort aimed at alleviating the suffering of the
rural poor, by which only plantations of very high acreage are affected, and
only in cases where a certain percentage of such acreage is in fact lying unused. In these
extreme cases, the unused portions of the land are not expropriated, but simply purchased
by the Guatemalan government at the same value declared on the owner's tax forms.
The property is then resold at low rates to peasant cooperatives. To set an example,
President Arbenz starts with his own lands.
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The land redistribution collides with the interests of the United Fruit Company, for
whom 85% of the 550,000 acres they own are uncultivated. The US government demands extra
compensation for the United Fruit Company over what was already given.
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Charles R. Burrows of the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs writes 'Guatemala has
become an increasing threat to the stability of Honduras and El Salvador. Its agrarian
reform is a powerful propaganda weapon; its broad social program of aiding the workers
and peasants in a victorious struggle against the upper classes and large foreign
enterprises has a strong appeal to the populations of Central American neighbors where
similar conditions prevail.'
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Note that the CIA director at the time, Allen Dulles, had previously been United Fruit's
president, and the previous CIA director and Under-secretary of State (General Walter
Bedell Smith) was on the company's board of directors and became president following the
overthrow.
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Allen Dulles' brother, John Dulles, who was Secretary of State at the time, also worked as a
lawyer defending the United Fruit Company.
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Following the CIA coup, Guatemala plunges into a civil war and 40 years of
American-trained death squads, torture, disappearances, mass executions, with an
estimated toll of 100,000 victims.
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Concerned about an upcoming election in which former president Juan Jose Arevalo
would be allowed to run and thus possibily elected, Kennedy supports another military
coup. This ends any hopes for a democratic Guatemala.
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Guatemala seeks to reduce infant mortality by regulating the marketing of
infant formula by multinationals, in conformity with WHO guidelines and
according to international codes. Infant mortality rates drop significantly.
However, one company, the Gerber Corp., refuses to comply. Guatemala spends five years
trying to get it to comply, but then the company in 1993 threatens a WTO complaint and
US sanctions.
Guatemala backs down in 1995 and Gerber Corp. is exempted from the regulation.
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A Historical
Clarification Commission report concludes that US-backed security forces committed the
vast majority of human rights abuses during the war, including torture, kidnapping and
the murder of thousands of rural Mayans, contradicting years of official denial.
The commission estimates over 200,000 Guatemalans were killed in the civil war,
the most brutal armed conflict in Latin America history.
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Clinton apologises to Guatemalans for decades of US policy in support of
a murderous military that 'engaged in violent and widespread repression',
costing the lives of some 100,000 civilians. That policy 'was wrong', the
president declares, 'and the United States must not repeat that mistake'.
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El Salvador is ravaged by a bitter civil war leaving around 70,000 dead. The US
provides military funding during this period to the tune of $6 billion.
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UN names the army officers who had committed the worst atrocities of the
civil war. Two-thirds of them had been trained at the 'School of the
Americas' in Georgia, the same school that trained soldiers to commit similar
atrocities in Nicaragua, Peru, Honduras, Chile, Argentina,
Panama, Ecuador and Mexico. The school still operates today under a different name.
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US involvement in El Salvador is being put forward by some in Washington
as a model for a possible solution for Colombia's 30-year civil war.
Look out Columbia!
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CIA spends three million dollars to influence the elections in order to
prevent Allende being elected as president.
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Socialist Allende elected as president, despite extensive CIA efforts (mainly through propaganda)
to prevent him winning. He pursues a leftist program, establishing diplomatic relations with
Cuba and moving Chile closer to communist countries such as China, North Korea and North
Vietnam, and nationalizing various industries, several of which have significant U.S. business
interests. The US responds by continuing support of the opposition and working systematically to
weaken Chile's economy.
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CIA covert policies (at an expense of $8 million from 1970-73) lead to a coup d'etat in which
Allende is killed and Pinochet brought to power.
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Pinochet leads country in brutal dictatorship, during which over 3,000 political
opponents are killed or disappear.
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The US ends its 20 year moratorium on sales of advanced military equipment to Latin America
(despite which it had remained the largest supplier of military equipment to the region) by offering
to sell jet fighters to the Chilean military, the chief of whom is former dictator Pinochet.
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CIA report released
admitting that the CIA knowingly supported the Pinochet regime's brutalities,
and revealing that the head of Pinochet's dreaded secret police (responsible
for the assination of an American in Washington DC) was a paid CIA asset.
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Non-violent demonstration held for the closing of the 'School of the Americas', a
US Army-run school which has trained more than
60,000 Latin American military officers over the past 50 years, and which trained many
of the officers involved in Pinochet's human rights abuses, and which still operates
today under a different name. Most of the protestors
are thrown in jail, including an 88-year old nun.
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Chavez elected president. Promises to try to raise Venezuela's minimum wage, which
stands at $175 a month, despite Venezuela's substantial oil wealth (the largest outside the
middle east, being the US's
second largest supplier of oil).
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Chavez makes major inroads into the resource base of the entrenched oligarchs.
He tries to improve the 60-year old royalty agreement that pays as little as 1% to
Venezuela while creating cash cows for Philips Petroleum and ExxonMobil, confirms the
nationalization of the oil sector, and introduces significant
land reforms which would see a change to the current situation where two percent of
the population controls sixty percent of the land, and
where 80% of the population
live in poverty.
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He also puts in place a free and progressive Constitution.
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And succeeds in lowering infant mortality rates.
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And passes 49 laws which not only bring forward land reform but also improve both the fairness
and efficiency of the tax system, guarantee women's and indigenous people's rights, and
introduce free healthcare and education up to university level.
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San Francisco Examiner publishes an article speculating that the US may be planning a coup
in Venezuela. The article also notes that Chavez has reduced inflation from 40 percent to
12 percent, generated economic growth of 4 percent, and increased primary school enrollment
by 1 million students.
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Chavez overthrown in a military coup reminiscent of previous CIA-coups in
Guatemala, Chile, Brazil etc. US welcomes the coup and congratulates the
military, while denying involvement. The coup collapses after two days however, and Chavez
returns to power. BBC also notes that 'Since his election, President Chavez has been a thorn
in the side of the United States - which gets much of its oil from Venezuela. In particular, US officials were
angered because Mr Chavez was selling cheap oil to Fidel Castro in Cuba. Mr Chavez also
condemned US bombing of civilians in Afghanistan.'
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Otto J. Reich, the US's assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, is in contact
with Mr. Chavez's successor on the very day he takes over. Bush administration claims Reich
was pleading with him not to dissolve the National Assembly.
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As background on Reich, he served in the 1980s as the head of the State Departments
Office of Public Diplomacy, an outfit set up by Lt. Col. Oliver North to further the illegal
US funding and arming of the contra mercenary army in Nicaragua. An investigation
concluded that Reich's office had 'engaged in prohibited, covert propaganda activities', using
CIA and military resources to spread disinformation, vilify the Nicaraguan government and build
support for the contras. The Pentagon also admits that Rogelio Pardo-Maurer, the Defense Department
official responsible for Latin America, discussed the proposed coup in Washington with Gen.
Lucas Romero Rincon, chief of the Venezuelan military command. Maurer spent the 1980s working
in Washington as the chief spokesman for the Nicaraguan contras.
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It is revealed that senior Bush administration aides, including Assistant
Secretary of State Otto Reich and White House advisor Elliott Abrams (both key players in the
Reagan administrations covert network for supporting the contra terrorist war on Nicaragua
in the 1980s), had met repeatedly in Washington with the coup's organizers.
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Washington Post writes 'Members of the country's
diverse opposition had been visiting the U.S. Embassy here in recent weeks, hoping to
enlist U.S. help in toppling Chavez. The visitors included active and retired members
of the military, media leaders and opposition politicians.'. Administration
spokesmen insist however that these officials repeatedly urged the coup plotters not to
take extra-constitutional action.
The article speculates - That a group of military officers (several of them graduates of
the Pentagon's School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia) and wealthy businessmen would
ignore Washingtons 'advice' and go ahead with a coup detat opposed by the US government
defies all logic. Even if taken at face value, this absurd scenario would make the Bush
administration an accomplice in the abortive attempt to overthrow an elected Latin American
government. Though repeatedly notified that a coup was planned, it did nothing, by its own
admission, to warn the Chavez government.
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A Defense Department official claims the administration's message was less categorical.
"We were not discouraging people," the official said. "We were sending informal, subtle
signals that we don't like this guy. We didn't say, 'No, don't you dare,' and we weren't
advocates saying, 'Here's some arms; we'll help you overthrow this guy.' We were not doing
that."
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Chavez alleges a plane with US registration numbers was at an army airstrip on Venezuela's
Orchila Island, one of five places he was held in captivity during his brief removal from
power.
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Bush warns Chavez to learn from the turmoil that erupted in his country following his brief
ousting and commit himself to democracy. So the US, encouraging if not involved in the miltary
coup to replace the elected president with what looked like becoming a typical dictatorship,
and with a record of many such coups to install dictatorships in the past (Guatemala,
Chile, Iran, Brazil etc), is trying to tell Chavez
to commit himself to democracy?
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An official investigation by the Venezuelan government reveals that two high-ranking US
officers joined the Venezuelan military commanders who backed the coup at Fort Tiuna, the
largest military base in Caracas, where President Hugo Chavez was forcibly taken after
being captured by soldiers supporting the overthrow of his government.
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Chavez claims he has proof of US military involvement in the events in April, claiming he
has radar images showing a foreign military vessel, a plane and a helicopter violating the
country's waters and air space during the failed coup.
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Chavez claims to have foiled another plan to remove him from office through a coup.
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Chavez claims to have escaped an assassination attempt against while
returning from a trip to Europe.
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A 'strike' (in reality more like an employers lockout) organised by Venezuelas
employers begins.
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For the two month duration of the strikes, the only commercials on Venezuelan TV were
the opposition's relentless barrage of powerful and often witty anti-Chavez spots.
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The strike ends after 63 days. Although some oil workers continue striking, oil
output slowly returns to what is currently around half of pre-strike levels).
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Washington awards coup plotter Gustavo Cisnero the Inter-American Economic Council's
'Prestigious Excellence in Leadership' award.
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VHeadline.com reports that the Bush administration is planning another coup in Venezuela.
While this information may not prove to be 100% reliable, keep this in mind as events pan
out in Venezuela this year.
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Quadros elected president by a record margin. He mysteriously resigns, reportedly
under military pressure. Goulart (previously vice-president) succeeds Quadros as
president and aims to continue Quadros' independent foreign policy
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Like Quadros, Goulart is no communist - he is a millionaire land-owner and
a Catholic who wears a medal of the Virgin around his neck. He recives a
ticker-tape parade in New York City in April, and toasts the US Ambassador,
"To the Yankee Victory!", after the "Cuban Missile Crisis" in October.
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Elections, Goulart wins despite the CIA spending close to $20 million in
rigging them against him.
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The CIA carries out a consistent propaganda campaign against Goulart which dates from
at least the 1962 election operation and which includes the financing of mass
urban demonstrations.
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Goulart nationalises oil, expropriates unused land, and passes a law limiting
the amount of profits multinationals could transmit out of the country.
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A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the government of Joao Goulart.
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Readers Digest reports on the coup - 'Seldom has a major nation come closer to the
brink of disaster and yet recovered than did Brazil in its recent triumph over Red
subversion. The communist drive for domination-marked by propaganda, infiltration,
terror-was moving in high gear. Total surrender seemed imminent - and then the people said
No!'
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The Washington Post reports a rather different story -
'In 1964, with US Ambassador Lincoln Gordon's promises of immediate recognition
and petroleum support, and with a US Navy task force - an aircraft carrier,
destroyers, guided missiles - in Brazilian coastal waters, US-armed elements in
the military advance upon Rio with troops and tanks. Not wanting to be responsible
for bloodshed among Brazilians, Goulart refuses to call on loyalist forces and
flees to Uruguay.'
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All the features of military dictatorship which Latin America has come to know
are instituted. According to the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, '[General Castelo
Branco] shuts down Congress, virtually extinguishes political opposition, suspends habeas
corpus for "political crimes", forbids by law criticism of the dictator, takes over labor
unions, institutes police and military firing into protesting crowds, burns down peasant
homes, brutalizes priests, ...'.
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Amnesty International reports on the regime in Brazil - 'Tortures range from
simple but brutal blows from a truncheon to electric shocks. Often the torture
is more refined: the end of a reed is placed in the anus of a naked man hanging
suspended downwards on the pau de arara [parrot's perch] and a piece of cotton
soaked in petrol is lit at the other end of the reed. Pregnant women have been
forced to watch their husbands being tortured. Other wives have been hung naked
beside their husbands and given electric shocks on the sexual parts of their body,
while subjected to the worst kind of obscenities. Children have been tortured before their
parents and vice versa. At least one child, the three month old baby of Virgilio Gomes da
Silva was reported to have died under police torture. The length of sessions depends upon the
resistance capacity of the victims and have sometimes continued for days at a time.'
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The official Washington line was ... yes, it's unfortunate that democracy
has been overthrown in Brazil ... but, still, the country has been saved
from communism.
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Bush's brother Jeb recently made a big contribution to the Cancun World Trade talks,
defending the US's tariff on orange juice which protects Florida's citrus industry. Back in
the year 1985, the US imported half a billion gallons of orange juice from Brazil, and 20 million
gallons from the rest of the world. These figures now stand at 150 million gallons and 100 million
gallons respectively as a result of the tariffs.
A further family member, brother Marvin Bush, may be able to explain Jeb's interest in these subsidies
- he holds 30,000 shares in a business which is directly dependent on continued Brazilian tariffs to
keep its business.
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The populist Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR), under the leadership of
Victor Paz Estenssoro, prevails in the general elections but is stymied by a last-minute coup.
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The coup provokes a popular armed revolt which becomes known as the April Revolution of 1952. The
military is subsequently defeated and Paz Estenssoro returned to power.
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The MNR introduces universal adult suffrage, carries out a sweeping land reform, promotes rural
education, and nationalizes the country's largest tin mines.
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Notorious ex-gestapo captain Klaus Barbie, convicted with the death penalty for his war crimes,
escapes to Bolivia with
assistance from the American Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC). Here he
works as a US agent, assisting a succession of military regimes during the 70s and 80s,
teaching soldiers torture techniques and helping protect the flourishing cocaine trade before
finally being deported to France to face his crimes in 1983.
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A military junta headed by General Ren Barrientos overthrows the MNR. Military regimes subsequently
come and go with monotonous regularity until the election of the leftist civilian Movimiento de la
Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) under Dr Hernn Siles Zuazo in 1982.
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Che Guevara, having gone to Bolivia in the hopes of starting a revolution to overthrow the military
government, is captured and executed by Bolivian soldiers trained, equipped and guided by US Green
Beret and CIA operatives.
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Zuazo is defeated in elections by Paz Estenssoro, who immediately seeks to curb the
stratospheric inflation levels (at one point reaching 35,000% annually) and implements austerity
measures under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in exchange for partial relief
of Bolivia's crushing foreign debt.
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California-based conglomerate Bechtel privatizes water in parts of Bolivia (helped by
IMF pressure on the
government to allow the privatization), even going so far as to force the Bolivian government to
forbid Bolivians to draw water from their own local wells. This results in skyrocketing water prices
in a country that is already desperately poor.
The people revolt against Bechtel, and so the Bolivian government shoots hundreds of protesters in
the streets to protect itself and its corporate benefactor. Bechtel eventually withdraws from Bolivia,
but now is suing the nation for $25 million in lost potential profits.
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