War in the Andes

One of the first acts of the democratic government that came to power in Bolivia's "lamppost revolution" of 1946 was to declare an amnesty for members of Razon de Patria, the ultra-nationalist military lodge behind the assassinated Dictator Gualberto Villaroel. Since then, the government has had plenty of reason to regret its generosity. In three years, RADEPA officers and their civilian supporters in the fascist Movement of Nationalist Revolution (M.N.R.) have pulled more than a dozen revolutionary attempts. Last week they tried another.

This time, the plot was fully hatched; except for the sharp-eared intelligence service of Minister of Government and Justice Alfredo Mollinedo, it might have overthrown elegant, bearded Acting President Mamerto Urriolagoitia before he knew what had hit him. Hearing rumblings of the plot, Mollinedo moved fast. In La Paz, he arrested most of M.N.R.'s underground general staff; he also captured rifles, submachine guns, ammunition, grenades and documents listing the rebel "government" that was to be headed by exiled M.N.R. Chieftain Victor Paz Estenssoro.

Bombs on La Paz. Before Mollinedo could strike outside the capital, insurgent army officers and civilians moved on police headquarters and other government buildings in every provincial capital. By the end of the first week's fighting, they had picked up support from the Trotskyite Workers Revolutionary Party (P.O.R.), bombed La Paz three times, taken over the important cities of Sucre, Potosi, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba.

The government quickly drafted all men between 19 and 50, called up four classes of former conscripts. In a radio broadcast Acting President Urriolagoitia thundered: "If necessary, I myself will fight in the streets ..." A force of 2,000 loyalists converged on Cochabamba. Two days later, the city fell at a cost of less than ten casualties, and the government spoke confidently of isolating the rebel stronghold at Santa Cruz.

Victory was not to be that easy, for a new front had opened in the south. Garrisons on the Argentine frontier went over to the insurgents. In place of the mortar shells and grenades they had dropped in their first bombing raids on the capital, the rebels now had genuine aerial bombs to dump through the cargo hatches of their U.S.-made transport planes.

Visits in Buenos Aires. Since the Army's entire stock of such bombs had been locked in a La Paz arsenal, the government sniffed outside interference. Said President Urriolagoitia darkly: "This rebellion has international roots." In Buenos Aires, the Bolivian ambassador called on Juan Peron's new Foreign Minister, young Hipolito Jesus Paz, four times within twelve hours. How was it, he demanded, that the M.N.R.'s Carmelo Cuellar, thought to be safely out of mischief in Argentina, had turned up at the head of a rebel column?

If Peron was still dallying with his old friend Paz Estenssoro, he was carefully concealing it. Having previously packed the M.N.R. leader off to Uruguay, he closed the Bolivian border, ordered his police chief to keep a sharp eye on other Bolivians still in the country, promised to arrest any rebels chased across the border into Argentine territory.

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