Misplaced Pages

#521478

23-473: The Socialist Party-One took part in the 1978, 1979, and 1980 general elections, running Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz and polled 00.43, 04.82 and 08.71 per cent of the vote, respectively. The party won five seats in National Congress in 1979 and eleven in 1980. Some elements in the conservative military feared Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz 's potential following as an opposition leader and he was killed during

46-607: A congressman of the Falange Socialista Boliviana , he was jailed by the regime of General René Barrientos (1964–69) for his loud denunciation of the San Juan Massacre , in which dozens of dissenting miners were murdered by the military of Bolivia in the Siglo XX mines on Saint John's Eve 1967. In 1969, he was appointed Minister of Mining and Energy by de facto President Alfredo Ovando Candía , who purported to be

69-519: A less tainted but equally repressive general, Celso Torrelio . The Bolivian military would sustain itself in power only for another year, and would then retreat to its barracks, embarrassed and tarnished by the excesses of the 1980–82 dictatorships (it has never returned to the Palacio Quemado ). García Meza left the country but was tried and convicted in absentia for the serious human rights violations committed by his regime. on march 14, 1995, he

92-669: A populist dedicated to bringing major structural reforms. Quiroga recommended, and then carried out, the controversial nationalization of the Bolivian concerns of the US-based Gulf Oil Company . This turned him into a national celebrity of sorts. Forced out of the Ovando government by conservative military officers who considered him an enemy of the military, Quiroga went on to form the Partido Socialista in 1971. His portion of

115-489: A posthumous letter, he denied responsibility for Quiroga's death, and blamed many of his regime's crimes on Arce Gómez. Quiroga's remains were never recovered. In 2010, Quiroga's wife María Cristina Trigo filed a lawsuit before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) against the Bolivian government due to its lack of willingness to locate them. A gifted orator and uncompromising idealist, Quiroga

138-417: A violent coup. A native of La Paz , he was a career military officer who rose to the rank of general during the dictatorship of Hugo Banzer (1971–78). García Meza graduated from the military academy in 1952, and served as its commander from 1963 to 1964. He then rose to division commander in the late 1970s. He became the leader of the right-wing faction of the military of Bolivia most disenchanted with

161-560: Is also a dissident Socialist Party-One-Marcelo Quiroga , led by José María Palacios . At the legislative elections in 2002, the party won 0.7% of the popular vote and one out of 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and no seats in the Senate . This article about a Bolivian political party is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz (13 March 1931 – 17 July 1980)

184-483: Is revered in Bolivia as one of the martyrs of the anti-authoritarian and pro-democratic struggles of the 1970s. El Saqueo de Bolivia (1979) Los Deshabitados (1964) Luis Garcia Meza Luis García Meza Tejada (8 August 1929 – 29 April 2018) was a Bolivian general who served as the de facto 57th president of Bolivia from 1980 to 1981. He was a dictator convicted of human rights violations and leader of

207-546: The Argentine Army unit Batallón de Inteligencia 601 participated in the coup. Of rightwing ultra-conservative anti-communist persuasion, García Meza endeavored to bring a Pinochet -style dictatorship that was intended to last 20 years. He immediately outlawed all political parties, exiled opposition leaders, repressed trade unions and muzzled the press. He was backed by the Argentinian Military Junta and

230-542: The Luis García Meza Tejada coup of 17 July 1980. His death left his Socialist Party-One – and Bolivian left-wing politics generally – in a greatly weakened condition. In 1984 the Socialist Party-One absorbed the small ultra-left “Spartacus Revolutionary Movement” (Movimiento Revolucionario Espartaco, MRE), led by Dulfredo Rua . The Socialist Party-One presented Ramiro Velasco Romero as its candidate in

253-508: The 1985 elections, but he won only 02.58 per cent of the vote, coming sixth. The party won five seats in National Congress. In the 1989 elections the Party presented Roger Cortez Hurtado and he won 2.8 per cent of the vote. In 1993 the Socialist Party-One took part in an electoral coalition United Left backing Ramiro Velasco Romero , a leader of the PS-1. He won only 0.9 per cent of the vote. There

SECTION 10

#1733085365522

276-564: The Army. Within months, the Junta of Commanders headed by García Meza forced a violent coup d'état , sometimes referred to as the Cocaine Coup , of 17 July 1980, when several Bolivian intellectuals such as Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz were killed. When portions of the citizenry resisted, as they had done in the failed putsch of November 1979, it resulted in dozens of deaths. Many were tortured. Allegedly,

299-568: The Italian neofascist Stefano Delle Chiaie . Further collaboration came from other European neofascists , most notoriously Spanish Ernesto Milá Rodríguez (accused of the 1980 Paris synagogue bombing ). Among other foreign collaborators were professional torturers allegedly imported from the notoriously repressive Argentine dictatorship of General Jorge Videla . The García Meza regime, while brief (its original form ended in 1981), became internationally known for its extreme brutality. The population

322-458: The complete isolation of the regime. In contrast to his position regarding the other military dictatorships in Latin America, the new conservative U.S. President Ronald Reagan kept his distance, as the regime's unsavory links to criminal circles became more public. Eventually, the international outcry was sufficiently strong to force García Meza's resignation on 3 August 1981. He was succeeded by

345-564: The headquarters of the Central Obrera Boliviana , his wounding and abduction by security forces. He had been participating in a high-level meeting to discuss ways to resist the coup. In 1986, Garcia Meza, interior minister Luis Arce Gómez , and their collaborators were found guilty in trials of responsibility for the deaths of Quiroga and others. Garcia Meza was extradited from Brazil in 1995 and imprisoned until his death in April 2018. In

368-620: The kind of pro-US, more hardline anti-communist dictatorship they wanted to reinstall in Bolivia. Many allegedly had ties to cocaine traffickers and made sure portions of the military acted as their enforcers/protectors in exchange for extensive bribes, which in turn were used to fund the upcoming coup. In this manner, the narcotraffickers were in essence purchasing for themselves the upcoming Bolivian government. [REDACTED] Bolivian government [REDACTED] Bolivian Armed Forces This group pressured President Lidia Gueiler (his cousin) to install General García Meza as Commander of

391-517: The new order should "walk around with their written will under their arms." The most prominent victim of the dictatorship was the congressman, presidential candidate, and gifted orator Marcelo Quiroga , murdered and "disappeared" soon after the coup. Quiroga had been the chief advocate of bringing to trial the former dictator, General Hugo Banzer (who was in power from 1971 until 1978), for human right violations and economic mismanagement. The García Meza government's drug trafficking activities led to

414-538: The party then came to be known as the Partido Socialista-1 following a split while in exile during the long years of the Hugo Banzer dictatorship (1971–78). Upon returning to Bolivia in 1977, Quiroga participated in the presidential elections of 1978, 1979 (inconclusively) and in 1980. He did particularly well in the 1980 contest, when he finished fourth with double the number of votes he had received in 1979. He

437-512: The return to civilian rule. Many of the officers involved had been part of the Hugo Banzer dictatorship and disliked the investigation of economic and human rights abuses by the new Bolivian congress. Moreover, they tended to regard the decline in popularity of the Carter administration in the United States as an indicator that soon a Republican administration would replace it—one more amenable to

460-578: Was a noted writer, dramatist, journalist, social commentator, university professor, and socialist political leader from Bolivia . In 1964 Marcelo won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his novel Los Deshabitados . Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz married María Cristina Trigo in 1954. She gave birth to their daughter María Soledad in Santiago in 1957, and to their son Pablo Rodrigo in Salta in 1959. As

483-509: Was clearly on the rise, and, in fact, had become the most visible and popular spokesman for the Socialist left. From his congressional seat, he led the effort to bring to trial the former dictator Hugo Banzer, on charges of massive human rights violations and economic mismanagement. During the early hours of 17 July 1980, during the coup led by General Luis Garcia Meza , Quiroga was brutally abducted and subsequently assassinated. Many witnessed, at

SECTION 20

#1733085365522

506-557: Was extradited to Bolivia from Brazil and was given a 30-year prison sentence, at the San Pedro's penitentiary in La Paz, the very same penitentiary where he once kept his enemies. His main collaborator, Colonel Arce, was extradited to the United States, where he served a prison sentence for drug trafficking. García Meza had reportedly been living in considerable comfort whilst in prison, with

529-793: Was repressed in the same ways as under the Banzer dictatorship. In January 1981, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs named the García Meza regime, "Latin America's most errant violator of human rights after Guatemala and El Salvador." Some 1,000 people are estimated to have been killed by the Bolivian Army and security forces in only 13 months. The administration's chief repressor was the Minister of Interior, Colonel Luis Arce , who cautioned that all Bolivians who opposed

#521478