Former Bolivian leader Banzer dies

Posted 8:51AM on Sunday 5th May 2002 ( 23 years ago )

LA PAZ, BOLIVIA - Former President Hugo Banzer, a dictator turned democratically elected leader, died of a heart attack Sunday after a long battle with cancer, television station PAT reported. He was 75. The two-time president will be remembered for eradicating coca, the plant used to make cocaine, in this poor Andean nation. He died surrounded by his family in Santa Cruz, a tropical city in eastern Bolivia where he had been living since his doctor announced in late February that his lung cancer had spread to his brain and throughout his body. Banzer's cancer had forced him to resign the presidency on Aug. 6, 2001, a year before his term was due to end. In an emotional ceremony in Sucre, Bolivia's judicial capital, Banzer handed over the presidential medallion and sash to then-Vice President Jorge Quiroga. Banzer, a cigarette smoker, was diagnosed in July by doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington with lung cancer that had spread to his liver. He had left Bolivia on July 1 to travel to the United States for spine treatment, a trip that was supposed to last 12 days. But Banzer didn't return to Bolivia until early August - and then only to step down as president on the nation's Independence Day. He went back to Washington after a few days to resume chemotherapy treatments, then returned to his home in Santa Cruz in early December. A dictator in 1971-78, Banzer re-entered politics after Latin American dictatorships declined - this time, as a democrat. After running in every democratic election in the 1980s and 1990s, Banzer finally won the presidency in 1997. Always a controversial figure, Banzer is likely to be remembered in both glowing and glowering terms. Supporters say he did more to strengthen Bolivian democracy than any of his political predecessors, pointing particularly to his success in eradicating coca, a traditional leaf in Andean society. Critics, however, contended that Banzer never lost his autocratic streak, saying that even as a democratically elected leader he abused human rights, succumbed to corruption and failed to represent his poor, indigenous constituents. Banzer was born May 10, 1926, in Concepcion, a sleepy ranching town in Santa Cruz province. Bound for a career in the military, he went to the Bolivian Army Military High School in La Paz, graduating as a cavalry lieutenant. In 1964, Banzer was appointed minister of education and in 1969, he became director of the military academy, a prestigious post he held until dismissed in January 1971 by Bolivia's president, Gen. Juan Jose Torres, a leftist. The conservative Banzer began to rally other officers against Torres, seizing the La Paz military headquarters in a failed coup that got him exiled to Argentina. In August 1971, Banzer sneaked back into Bolivia to lead a coup that ousted Torres, naming himself president. Banzer's military rule ushered in violent repression of opponents. Censors clamped down on the media, and in 1974 Banzer prohibited all political activity. Those who rebelled became targets for ``disappearances'' blamed on state security agents. Widely accepted figures say that during Banzer's 1971-78 tenure, 19,000 people were forced to seek asylum in foreign countries, 15,000 were arrested and at least 200 were killed for political reasons. In 1973-76, Banzer enjoyed a major economic boom as the country began exporting natural gas and agricultural products and benefitting from rising tin and oil prices. The boom helped Banzer solidify his political base of Bolivia's middle and upper classes. After surviving 13 coup attempts, Banzer was overthrown in 1978. Bolivia stumbled into turmoil that saw presidents come and go, one of them the infamous dictator Luis Garcia Meza, now imprisoned for atrocities during his 1980-81 rule. Democracy regained its foothold in 1982, and with it came a new Banzer. In the 1985 presidential election, he came in first, but with less than 50 percent of the vote - the constitutional requirement for the presidency. Rather than seize office, Banzer stepped back and allowed Congress to elect Victor Paz Estenssoro as president. In 1997, Banzer came in first again, with about 20 percent of the vote, and this time was democratically voted into the presidency by Congress. Though many praised Banzer for embracing democracy in his second term as president, his past still haunted him. Evidence presented in 1999 linked his previous regime to the notorious Plan Condor, which allegedly involved joint operations and exchange of information among South American military dictatorships in the 1970s aimed at kidnapping, arresting, torturing and assassinating leftists and dissidents in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/5/202296