of Hugo Banzer in the 1970's:
Bolivia
Hugo Banzer was the leader of a repressive regime in Bolivia in the 1970s. The U.S. had been disturbed when a previous leader nationalized the tin mines and distributed land to Indian peasants. Later that action to benefit the poor was reversed.
Banzer, who was trained at the U.S.-operated School of the Americas in Panama and later at Fort Hood, Texas, came back from exile frequently to confer with U.S. Air Force Major Robert Lundin. In 1971 he staged a successful coup with the help of the U.S. Air Force radio system. In the first years of his dictatorship he received twice as military assistance from the U.S. as in the previous dozen years together.
A few years later the Catholic Church denounced an army massacre of striking tin workers in 1975, Banzer, assisted by information provided by the CIA, was able to target and locate leftist priests and nuns. His anti-clergy strategy, known as the Banzer Plan, was adopted by nine other Latin American dictatorships in 1977. (2) He has been accused of being responsible for 400 deaths during his tenure. (1)
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http://www.countercurrents.org/lucas240407.htmThis look indicates there was an effort to bring in white racists during that same time to occupy the land the U.S. supported dictator grabbed after throwing out, and persecuting the indigenous citizens:
COLONEL HUGO BANZER
President of Bolivia
In 1970, in Bolivia, when then-President Juan Jose Torres nationalized Gulf Oil properties and tin mines owned by US interests, and tried to establish friendly relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union, he was playing with fire. The coup to overthrow Torres, led by US-trained officer and Gulf Oil beneficiary Hugo Banzer, had direct support from Washington. When Banzer's forces had a breakdown in radio communications, US Air Force radio was placed at their disposal. Once in power, Banzer began a reign of terror. Schools were shut down as hotbeds of political subversive activity. Within two years, 2,000 people were arrested and tortured without trial. As in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, the native Indians were ordered off their land and deprived of tribal identity. Tens-of-thousands of white South Africans were enticed to immigrate with promises of the land stolen from the Indians, with a goal of creating a white Bolivia. When Catholic clergy tried to aid the Indians, the regime, with CIA help, launched terrorist attacks against them, and this "Banzer Plan" became a model for similar anti-Catholic actions throughout Latin America.
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http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Banzer came from this same area, originally, where the trouble is, currently.
He was re-elected (not by the majority of impoverished poor, of course) in 1997, and ruled over Bolivia until 2001, when he resigned due to cancer, and later died. In his last couple of years he actually attempted to overcome the filthy things he did to Bolivia when the U.S. installed him to wreack havoc upon the poor, and he actually begged the world to forgive him. Asshole!
Little know fact in the U.S.: In Bolivia, indigenous people could not walk on the sidewalk until 1952!
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3136/gone_but_not_forgotten/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~snip~
In many cases, land ownership in Bolivia is unclear. Often, if not in most cases, large landowners simply confiscated land in times past and arbitrarily included it in their latifundios -- large landed estates -- and today consider it their property, whether it is used or not.
The Morales government insists that such land belongs to the state. Under his presidency, for the first time, the state is redistributing land to the peasants.
Along with nationalization of the energy sector and a new constitution, the land question is a priority in Morales’ government program. Redistribution of land is in fact the heart of the government’s policies for social justice. He considers the agrarian reform begun in 1953 that was limited chiefly to Andes western highlands far from sufficient. A former farmers union president points out that in eastern Bolivia big landowners possess five hectares of land “for each cow.” While in the western part of the country a family of five persons must live from half a hectare of land, a little more than an acre.
It is the old story of Latin America. Of the world. Few people possess nearly everything. Yet this is the key question in much of Latin America. I have quoted elsewhere the French sociologist and close observer of Latin America, Alain Touraine, who wrote that “the key to the political life of the continent and its capacity to invent a political-social model capable of working in an exceptionally difficult situation is without doubt in Bolivia.”
Land distribution in Latin America’s poorest country is very unfair. The unfair distribution of land has led time and time again to social tensions. According to estimates of even the Catholic Church, a few families claim more than 90 percent of Bolivia’s farmable land and pastures, while 3 million small Indian farmers have to get by with the rest.
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The elite class of European background -- about 15 percent of a country with a predominantly indigenous population -- and the dominant class via which the USA has historically controlled Latin America, is just as determined as is Morales. This minority class is ready to defend old privileges by any means, as it always has. And it depends on Washington’s economic and moral support. Here then, again, is a classic case of Washington and its local vassals vs. any sign of genuine progress in the Americas.
More:
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2307.shtml~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~snip~
Bolivia’s white and near-white minority have been content to lord it over the Aymara and Quechua majority for nearly five centuries and see no reason to change.
(snip)
If the poor benighted cholos and collas – the Bolivian equivalents to words like 'niggers' and 'coons' - learn to read what will they not demand, say the Cruzeños and their allies?
More:
http://www.newstatesman.com/200712130067
The kind of "President" the U.S. right-wing loves to see in Bolivia, and a photo of his handiwork.