BOLIVIA: Busch Putsch

Germán Busch Becerra is a tough young Bolivian war hero with a chestful of medals, a thorough military training and an expression so lugubrious that he looks as if he were about ready to cry. Until last week he was also President of Bolivia. He gained that post in one of the military coups that occur frequently in South American politics: Señor Busch was one of a group of officers who overthrew the Government after the Chaco War against Paraguay. He first supported a semi-Socialist regime, then threw out the semi-Socialists.

Popular hero of an exhausting war, Germán Busch was born in 1904 in the hot, fertile, coffee-growing region of central Bolivia, midway between the edge of the Chaco and the rust-colored, tin-filled mountains around La Paz. His father, after stopping three arrows in an attack by savages, went to Germany, sent Germán and his mother to Trinidad. Germán went to a provincial school, entered military college at 18.

Ruddy-cheeked General Hans Kundt returned to Bolivia from post-War Germany to Prussianize Bolivia’s restless Army, set up a system of espionage. Under him ex-Cadet Busch rose fast, became adjutant to Kundt, then Chief of the General Staff, was aide to Ernst Roehm when that luckless Nazi spent two years in Bolivia after a quarrel with Adolf Hitler. Germán Busch was a second lieutenant of 24 when the Chaco War began, a captain at 28, major at 29, lieut. colonel before the war ended, chief of staff soon afterward. Meanwhile he married, fathered three sons, was cited for his daring raids; his rescue of a division won him Bolivia’s highest military award. He joined all Bolivian military and social clubs, and wrote a book about his explorations.

Mystery Man.

One lesson of the inconclusive Chaco fighting was that, where they met on equally favorable ground, Bolivia’s German-trained divisions were roughly handled by Paraguay’s French-trained Army. Sick of the war, Bolivians were made sicker by bad times. Bolivia holds 15% of the world’s tin supply and output fell from 43,300 tons in 1929 to 25,000 in 1935. Tin makes up 70% of the value of Bolivia’s exports.

Rising fast in these tough times was a tough, nervous, roving-eyed, brown-haired young spy named Dionisio Foianini, son of an Italian father and a Bolivian mother. He grew up in the section where Germán Busch was born, not far from most of Standard Oil’s Bolivian fields. Dionisio Foianini studied pharmacy in Italy, returned to Bolivia before the Chaco War broke out, was put in charge of munitions manufacture. Then he visited Argentina on a secret mission and organized Bolivian espionage behind Paraguayan lines. Dionisio Foianini rushed to the Chaco when the war ended, persuaded Army officers that expropriating $17,000,000 worth of Standard Oil properties would be a popular political move, set up a State Petroleum Board to exploit the appropriated fields.

When Lieut. Colonel Busch grabbed power two years ago, grabby Señor Foianini went along, became last year Minister of Mines and Petroleum in Germán Busch’s Cabinet. First Busch acts were to cancel wartime censorship, announce his intention to hold elections, introduce civilians to his Cabinet. But the next year press censorship was made more rigorous, extremist agitation was outlawed. In November groups of more than three were forbidden to congregate on the streets of La Paz (pop. 142,547). When dormant political parties recently began to stir restlessly, President Busch enlarged the Senate from 16 to 24 members, called elections to be held May 4.

Coup.

Two months ago President Busch flew from Army post to Army post throughout Bolivia. Suspicious opposition parties organized in a united front, demanded that elections be free of Government interference. At 11 p. m. one night, a week before the election, President Busch called a Cabinet meeting in La Paz, announced his dictatorship, refused to accept resignations. At 1 a. m. Cabinet officers went home, leaving the President and Minister Foianini to scribble out a program for the first classically totalitarian State in the Western Hemisphere.* At 6 a. m. they completed a proclamation not only abolishing the Senate, Chamber of Deputies, the Constitution, all courts, all legal codes, but establishing a dictatorship over Bolivian political, financial and social life. They denied, however, any connection with the Rome-Berlin Axis. At 10:30 the proclamation was released. The public was more apathetic than surprised.

Tin.

Main U. S. interest in Bolivia is still tin. The U. S. imports about 45% of the world’s tin, has no mines in her own boundaries, a small one in Alaska. Basic war material, indispensable for the manufacture of bearings, tin travels far to reach its biggest market. There are big smelters in the Malay Peninsula, in The Netherlands and Great Britain, but the small smelters of the U. S. refine only a minute proportion, and Bolivian tin reaches the U. S. after a trip to Britain. Facing a possible war shortage, Bolivian tin has figured largely in recent proposals to barter surplus U. S. commodities for war materials.

Two days after his coup Dictator Germán Busch solemnly denied that his regime was totalitarian. His secretary cabled U. S. mining men that elections would be held soon.

*But less formalized one-man or one-clique rule runs another seven of the 16 South and Central American States.