Hugo Banzer Suarez

Hugo Banzer Suárez, 1972

Hugo Banzer Suárez (born May 10, 1926 in Concepción , Bolivia , † May 5, 2002 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra , Bolivia) was a Bolivian dictator and later politician ( ADN ). The officer was in power from 1971 to 1978 and was elected president of the country from 1997 to 2001.

Life

Youth and education

Hugo Banzer was born in the small town of Concepción in the Bolivian lowlands ( Santa Cruz Department ). He came from a German family; grandfather Georg Banzer emigrated from Osnabrück to Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia at the end of the 19th century . After school, Hugo Banzer attended the military school in La Paz , the School of the Americas , where he was recognized as one of the best graduates, and another military school in the USA.

Rise to power

From 1964 to 1966 he was Minister of Education in the cabinet of René Barrientos and from 1967 to 1969 military attaché in Washington, DC He successfully rose to the top of the Bolivian military and held various political offices at the same time. In 1970 he participated in an unsuccessful military coup attempt by General Rogelio Miranda. Left and right-wing military units fought each other in several larger cities in Bolivia bloodily, on October 7, 1970, the left-wing military and their allies had prevailed in Bolivia.

Dictator 1971 to 1978

Persecution of political opponents

However, Banzer came to power on August 22, 1971 through a military coup against the left-wing government around Juan José Torres . Banzer had his first cabinet minister, coup supporter and potential competitor, Colonel Andrés Selich , murdered in 1973.

Banzer banned union activities and restricted civil liberties during his presidency. More than a hundred people were " disappeared ". In 1974 there were two unsuccessful coup attempts against him. He had a peasant revolt put down, known as the "Massacre del Valle". When several members of the Catholic Church condemned a massacre of workers in 1975 , his power apparatus began with a division into left and right priests. The former were persecuted by the regime. This practice was adopted by other Latin American dictatorships.

Relationship with Chile

His political line brought him closer to the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet . Relations with Chile soon cooled down again, however, as Banzer tried to negotiate to regain access to the sea for Bolivia that had been lost in the saltpeter war in the 19th century. Pinochet categorically rejected this. The most important cooperation between the two dictatorships was their cooperation within Operation Condor , the worldwide persecution of left political and opposition forces. In 1978 political relations between the two countries were frozen again.

End of the dictatorship

The end of his military dictatorship came with a parliamentary election scheduled by Banzer, in which he himself did not participate as a candidate, but the candidate who was close to him, Juan Pereda Asbún . The election came under pressure from the US government of Jimmy Carter , but was at the same time supported domestically by a hunger strike that the union leader Domitila Barrios de Chúngara had started together with four other women mine workers and in which thousands took part.

Juan Pereda Asbún officially won the elections on July 21, 1978. However, allegations of massive election fraud were raised against the result. Surveys had not foreseen a victory for the Banzer camp, but a clear success of the left-wing alliance UDP (Unidad Democratica y Popular) under Hernán Siles Zuazo . Banzer used the protests as an opportunity to officially distance himself from the election fraud, to declare the elections invalid and to reappoint himself as president. His comrade, the officer Juan Pereda , surprisingly launched a coup against Banzer and disempowered him. Pereda, for his part, had to allow new elections, which he lost, due to popular pressure.

President-elect 1997 to 2001

In the following years, Banzer tried repeatedly to regain power legally with the help of his center-right party ADN ( Acción Democrática Nacionalista ; German  Democratic Nationalist Action ). He only succeeded in doing this again in the presidential election on June 1, 1997 through a coalition, among others. with MNR, MIR and CONDEPA. His election promise was to fight poverty and reform the agricultural sector, which earned him many votes in the poorest country in South America.

Banzer's stated plan was to encourage savings and foreign investment. In the short term, the Banzer government (with support and subsidies from the USA ) was able to show economic success and stabilize the currency. However, his democratic reign was marked by high levels of corruption and numerous strikes with calls for resignation.

In accordance with US foreign policy , Banzer adopted the Plan Dignidad in 1998 , which aimed to completely destroy illegal coca cultivation in Bolivia. This resulted in serious domestic political crises, as many coca farmers were deprived of their livelihoods. Former supporter of the Banzer course, Jeffrey Sachs , accused the government of destroying the livelihoods of around 50,000 coca-growing families without replacing them. The World Bank demanded water privatization as a condition for further loans to Bolivia. The planned water privatization to a Bechtel consortium in Cochabamba , which provided for increased water prices and a ban on the use of rainwater without a license , failed in 2000 due to numerous protests ("water war"). At first, demonstrations, which included fatalities, were suppressed, and a state of emergency was declared by Banzer. However, after the demonstrations did not decrease, the contract was terminated.

In 2001 Hugo Banzer was diagnosed with lung cancer and treated in the USA. The doctors advised him not to return to La Paz (the seat of government in Bolivia) because the city's mean altitude of 3,600 m would worsen his illness. Therefore, he resigned in August 2001. His Vice President Jorge Quiroga Ramírez took over the office until the new elections on June 30, 2002. On May 5, 2002 Hugo Banzer died in Santa Cruz de la Sierra as a result of his illness.

Coming to terms with the dictatorship

In May 2009, the military secret archives of Bolivia were opened and since then a commission has been investigating the fate of the “ disappeared ” during Banzer's reign.

Web links

• Biography on the website of the CIDOB (Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Article in the Encyclopedia Britannica
2. ↑ Dictator in the Andes. Deutschlandfunk, accessed on August 21, 2021 (German). 
3. ↑ Juan José Torres was murdered in exile ( Operation Condor ), but it could not be proven whether this was done on behalf of Banzer.
4. ↑ Amerika21.de: Bolivia is looking for the secret archives , May 31, 2009
5. ↑ Consortium News, Jerry Meldon: Return of Bolivia's Drug-Stained Dictator , 1997
6. ↑ BBC, November 27, 1997
7. ^ Forrest Hylton: Empire and Revolution in Bolivia , December 3, 2003 ( Memento of October 31, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ BBC, July 27, 2001
9. ↑ Amerika21.de: Bolivia is looking for the secret archives , May 31, 2009

predecessor	government office	successor
Juan Torres Gonzáles	President of Bolivia 1971–1978	Juan Pereda Asbun
Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada	President of Bolivia 1997-2001	Jorge Quiroga Ramírez