An Argentine Connection?

Arrests by goon squads, and torture by a vicious junta

A reign of terror has descended on Bolivia in the four weeks since the military took over in a coup directed by General Luis Garcia Meza. Outwardly the signs of military rule are few. A handful of uniformed police, toting FAL automatic rifles, guard La Paz's El Alto airport. Halftracks bar the entrance to the capital's San Andres University campus, and rangers in dark berets patrol out side Miraflores military garrison, the headquarters of the army general staff. The main sign of activity at Miraflores is an irregular flow of white Toyota behind without license plates used to transport prisoners rounded up for questioning by armed civilians working for the regime. To Bolivians inquiring worriedly about friends or relatives who have disappeared behind Miraflores' yellow plastered walls, the usual answer is, "We have no prisoners." Foreign observers estimate, however, that at least 2,000 people have been arrested since the takeover; hundreds are said to have been killed.*

Bolivians by now are fairly accustomed to coups; they have lived through four golpes in the past 26 months, a total of 189 since the country became independent in 1825. Yet the Garcia Meza junta has shown itself to be unusually vicious. After gaining control of most of the country on July 17, it claimed that "electoral fraud" had given a plurality of votes to leftist Candidate Hernan Siles Zuazo in the June presidential elections. Because none of the candidates had won a majority, congress was to have chosen a President in early August. Siles Zuazo was expected to win easily, and would undoubtedly have picked new military chiefs. When the military stepped in, Siles Zuazo went into hiding.

The widespread use of torture in the postcoup crackdown as well as the random arrests by roving civilian goon squads suggest that the junta has been getting some expert help in repression from the outside. The most likely accomplice is military-ruled Argentina, which was the first nation to recognize the new regime in La Paz. For years Argentina has maintained a mission of slightly more than a dozen intelligence officers in Bolivia, ostensibly to teach at Bolivian military institutions. Their ranks almost doubled before the coup.

Other circumstantial evidence of Argentine involvement includes ammunition and ration boxes marked MADE IN ARGENTINA that have been found in La Paz. A Bolivian official who was detained at Miraflores reported that one of his interrogator-torturers referred to him as che, a common term of familiarity in Argentina. U.S. analysts believe that Garcia Meza would not have acted had it not been for assurances of Argentine financial support following the takeover. Said a senior U.S. State Department official: "Argentine fingerprints are all over this thing."

Argentine President Jorge Rafael Videla has emphatically denied any such involvement, though he said that he viewed the Bolivian military "with much sympathy." Videla did admit to sending food and money--to aid the Bolivian people rather than the military, he explained --"because we do not want in South America what Cuba signifies in Central America." The allusion was curious, considering that the Communists have not fared well in Bolivia since the failure of Che Guevara's 1966-67 effort to launch a people's war there.

With or without Argentine backing, the Garcia Meza regime is on weak ground. Only eight countries, among them Israel, South Africa and Paraguay, recognize it. Tin miners continue a costly strike ($1.5 million a day in lost export earnings). Not even all the military approve of the coup: Garcia Meza's reshuffling of troop commanders is seen as a clear sign of suspect allegiance. Archbishop Jorge Manriquez Hurtado of La Paz and Bolivia's Council of Bishops have condemned the junta for creating a "climate of violence." On Aug. 6, Independence Day, the day he probably would have been chosen President, Siles Zuazo announced from his hideaway that he was forming a clandestine "government of the Bolivian people." He called the Garcia Meza regime one of "national destruction," and described it as facing "overwhelming" resistance.

The most decisive blows against the junta will probably come from the outside in the form of economic sanctions --painful for a country that has no foreign exchange reserves and is dependent on aid. Venezuela has frozen $285 million in credit. About $123 million, mostly in development aid, has been lost with the suspension of U.S. disbursements. Bolivia's balance of payments deficit for 1980 is now forecast to be $500 million; with tin exports interrupted, the junta may in effect go bankrupt before it has a chance to do more damage. In addition to eliminating all military assistance and sharply cutting back on economic aid, the U.S. last week announced that it was ending a joint program of narcotics control with the Bolivians. Reason: strong evidence that some leading members of the junta were trafficking in cocaine.

*One prisoner released from detention last week was U.S. Journalist Mary Helen Spooner, who spent six days in jail after being charged with defaming the new regime. She was freed and expelled to Peru, after the intervention of two British publications for which she writes.

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