Progress Toward a Third Term

Bolivia's May 31 election was approaching, and it was time for President Victor Paz Estenssoro, running for a third term, to demonstrate that for all practical purposes he had disarmed his most violent opposition. Climbing into his DC-3, he flew to Oruro (pop. 81,000), market center of the country's tin-mining area and for years a stronghold of rebel Vice President Juan Lechin and his Communist-dominated mining unions. For good measure Paz invited U.S. Ambassador Douglas Henderson to come along as his guest.

Neither had anything to fear. Communist agitators were conspicuous by their absence. A confetti-tossing crowd of 5,000 greeted Paz at the airport and hoisted him to its shoulders. In town, a banner-wielding throng of 7,000 jammed the narrow streets, waving and shouting, "Workers for Victor Paz." "This is an emotional experience for me," Paz told the crowd, and went on with Henderson to snip a ribbon on an Alianza-financed road project, inspect a new water plant and attend a civic banquet. On the flight back to La Paz, the President allowed that "this has been a great day."

Flags v. Fertilizers. Bolivia is still a cruel, almost medieval land locked in Andean poverty. On the 12,000-ft.-high Altiplano, where 75% of its 4,000,000 people live, Indian campesinos still consider white flags draped on their oxen a surer crop guarantee than fertilizer. Some 60% of the people speak only Indian languages, and per capita income is a pitiable $114. But under Paz Estenssoro, 56, Bolivia is gradually improving.

It is hardly a democracy in the U.S. sense. As Bolivia's first President after the 1952 revolution that toppled the country's tin-mining aristocracy, Paz organized a heavyhanded political police and created almost a one-party state. He also gave the country its first taste of competent government. He built new roads, commenced an ambitious project of resettling campesinos from the Altiplano on more fertile farm areas in the eastern lowlands. After his reelection in 1960, Paz expanded his programs until today some 150,000 campesinos have been resettled. New cars clog the streets of the capital, La Paz, and new buildings rise above the old Spanish city.

Paz's biggest job was whipping the nationalized tin-mining industry into shape. Under Union Boss Lechin, mine employment soared from 19,000 to 29,000; by 1960 the mines were losing $10 million a year, and only aid from the U.S. kept the industry going. A year later, Paz signed an agreement with the U.S., the Inter-American Development Bank and West Germany for $38 million to modernize the mines, promising in return to lop 6,000 men from the payrolls. Lechin and his miners threatened civil war. But Paz had enough political strength to ride out the storm. By last week 2,400 miners had been laid off; others will go. Says Guillermo Bedregal, boss of the mining complex: "By the end of this year, the mines will be paying their way."

"There May Be Trouble." The animosity between Paz and Lechin has grown ever more bitter. In December, tensions exploded when the miners kidnaped four Americans as hostages for two far-leftist union leaders arrested as part of the mine cleanup. After ten days, the miners backed down; at the party convention a month later, Lechin was drummed out, and Paz was named for a third term. The raging Lechin called a rump convention and swore to run against Paz.

How much power Lechin retains is questionable. After Paz's triumphant tour of Oruro last week, Lechin decided to withdraw from the election and announced that he would boycott the voting. He then did the only thing he could think of: he challenged Paz to a duel "to prevent the spilling of innocent blood." Paz ignored the challenge, and other threats of street demonstrations, strikes and even assassination. "There may be trouble," he admits. "They may try to kill me. But we have set out the design, and we intend to carry it off."

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