Bolivia: View from the Volcano

Bolivia’s President Victor Paz Estenssoro, 57, lives on top of a volcano. In his three terms of office since 1952, he has made so many political enemies that he is a virtual prisoner of his bodyguards. He dares not leave the country for fear of a revolution, and he spends so much time keeping order in his bleak and violent Andean nation that he cannot really concentrate on the basic economic problems that cry for attention.

Last week his volcano blew skyhigh.

Preaching Hatred. The warning rumbles have been growing ever since the May election in which Paz won another four-year term over the bitter opposition of two erstwhile allies: former President Hernán Siles Zuazo, 50, and Juan Lechin, 51, leftist boss of Bolivia’s tin miners. Siles has been packed off to exile in Uruguay. But Lechin is still around, preaching hatred and focusing Paz’s opposition.

Fortnight ago, in Cochabamba, Bolivia’s second biggest city, either police or pro-Paz campesinos fired into a mob of rioting students, killing one of the youths. That was all it took to trigger an open revolt by students, miners and agitators of every stripe. In mining centers, union radios crackled with calls for “popular rebellion” against “the bloody tyrant and assassin Paz Estenssoro.” Lechin’s well-armed miners fought pitched battles with government troops, and the first casualty reports told of some 50 dead.

In towns throughout the country, howling student mobs stormed through the streets, fighting police and—as always—attacking U.S. property. In the capital, La Paz, 600 students holed up in the university, for three hours exchanged rifle and submachine-gun fire with police. That it ended when it did was due to the courage of Monsignor Andrew Kennedy, 50, U.S.-born Vicar-General of La Paz. “Students!” the police shouted. “Stop firing! Listen to Monsignor Kennedy!” With two doctors, the stubby, grey-haired clergyman marched through the firing line and into the university. There he found 16 wounded, one dead. Finally, the students laid down their arms and were prodded off to jail.

Crucial Pivot. President Paz accused Communist Czechoslovakia of playing a major role in the riots, claimed evidence that the tin miners had been “armed with weapons made in Czechoslovakia.” Denouncing “this interference in Bolivia’s internal affairs,” Paz immediately broke all relations and ordered the Czech diplomats home.

For Paz, the crucial pivot that keeps him in or out of power will be the Bolivian army and his own armed followers. So long as they remain loyal, Paz will probably weather the storm. It is in the best interest of the hemisphere that he do so. He is an able economist of considerable vision; he has a deep appreciation of inter-American relations and the U.S. role in Latin American development. And he is probably the only man strong enough to hold together his seething land.